Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Freddy Krueger returns once again to haunt both the dreams of his daughter and Springwood's last surviving teenager.

Director:

Rachel Talalay

Writers:

Wes Craven (characters), Rachel Talalay (story),

Stars:

Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert Englund	...	Freddy Krueger
Lisa Zane	...	Maggie Burroughs
Shon Greenblatt	...	John Doe
Lezlie Deane	...	Tracy
Ricky Dean Logan	...	Carlos
Breckin Meyer	...	Spencer
Yaphet Kotto	...	Doc
Tom Arnold	...	Childless Man (as Mr. Tom Arnold)
Roseanne Barr	...	Childless Woman (as Mrs. Tom Arnold)
Elinor Donahue	...	Orphanage Woman
Johnny Depp	...	Guy on TV (as Oprah Noodlemantra)
Cassandra Rachel Friel	...	Little Maggie / Katherine Krueger
David Dunard	...	Kelly
Marilyn Rockafellow	...	Mrs. Burroughs
Virginia Peters	...	Woman in Plane

Storyline

In part six of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, dream monster Freddy Krueger has finally killed all the children of his hometown, and seeks to escape its confines to hunt fresh prey. To this end, he recruits the aid of his (previously unmentioned) daughter. However, she discovers the demonic origin of her father's powers and meets Dad head-on in a final showdown (originally presented in 3-D).

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Plot Keywords:

freddy krueger | dream | nightmare | teenager | elm street | 

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Taglines:

They saved the best for last.

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Genres:

Horror | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for horror violence, and for language and drug content

Details

Official Sites:

Nightmare On Elm Street

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

13 September 1991 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: The Dream Lover

Filming Locations:

Bailey Canyon Wilderness Park, Sierra Madre, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$8,500,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$34,872,293 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Line Cinema, Nicolas Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min 105 min (original release) 93 min (TV)

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Robert Shaye:  selling bus tickets in a booth.

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Goofs

The harness that picks Spencer up is visible on his chest in the close-up of him bouncing across the living room.

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Quotes

Maggie Burroughs: [looks at a poster] This is new.
Doc: You like it? These are ancient dream demons. Supposedly they roam the dreams of the living till they find the most evil, twisted human imaginable. Then they give him the power to cross the line and turn our nightmares into reality.

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Crazy Credits

A text that appears before the opening credits reads: "Do you know the terror of he who falls asleep? To the toes he is very terrified, because the ground gives the way under him, and the dream begins..." -Friedrich Nietzsche- Then the text changes to: "Welcome to prime time, bitch" -Freddy Krueger-

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Connections

Featured in Fear Himself: The Life and Crimes of Freddy Krueger (2012)

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Soundtracks

"I'm Awake Now"
Written and Performed by The Goo Goo Dolls

User Reviews

Words fail me...

Actually, they don't, but they certainly did when trying to think of a singular line that adequately summarises how terrible this entry in the series really is. There were some moments that could have been good, but they are mostly outweighed by their own conversion into missed opportunities, and don't get me started on the bad.

The wasted opportunities are pretty obvious, but I will recap them here in case anyone cares. Anyone who hasn't seen the film and genuinely gives a toss would be advised to stop reading at this point. The first, and potentially the biggest, wasted opportunity, was the plot with Freddy's long-lost child. Now, the extreme mental illness that Freddy appears to suffer (and I might hasten to add that less than one percent of mental patients are a threat to other people, leave alone to this extent) is HEREDITARY, so why not a mystery-type slasher in which Lisa Zane's character dreams of Freddy murdering the teens, only we later discover it's actually her doing all the killing? Sound like a good plot idea to you? Obviously it was above the heads of Talalay and De Luca.

Then there's the trip to Springfield, where the entire adolescent population has been wiped out, and the remaining adults are experiencing a kind of mass psychosis. Funnily enough, said mass psychosis was actually depicted in a realistic and convincing manner, although this has a fair amount to do with the fact that we are never shown too much. We are just given quick visual hints of the massive loss of connection with reality that would stem from the grief of every youngster in town dying for reasons beyond one's comprehension and control. The essential problem with this plot element, however, is that the town is abandoned too quickly, and with no real answers. This collection of scenes would have been far creepier with ten minutes of say... one sane citizen explaining to these visitors why the Springfield fair looks like a horror show.

Of course, horror films are never noted for their character development, unless they're the kind of horror films John Carpenter used to direct, but how are we supposed to really care when characters we know next to nothing about die? At least Wes Craven took the time to set up his characters in the original, and used a few cheap tricks to draw the audience in. That, in a nutshell, is probably the biggest problem with Freddy's Dead: it just doesn't try at all, leave alone hard enough.

On a related note, I feel kind of sorry for Robert Englund, now that he is more or less inextricably linked with the Freddy character. He has played far better characters in far better productions (the science-fiction miniseries "V", for example), and to be forever remembered as "the man who played Freddy" is selling him rather short. It seems he will never break the mold of horror films now. As for the rest of the cast, well, I think their performances here speak for themselves. They deserved to be permanently typecast as little more than B-grade horror props. Even Yaphet Kotto doesn't escape this one unscathed, as his character is one of the most childishly written in the history of B-films.

All in all, Freddy's Dead gets a 1 out of me. I'd vote lower, but the IMDb doesn't allow for that. FD is really a testament to how a writer's inability to exploit a concept to the fullest extent can ruin not only a film, but an entire franchise.