Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) by James M — 22 Apr 2016

Terrible movie. Let's count the ways it went wrong.

Firstly, it is completely without plot. It is a series of weak, clichéd scare devices with some pointless scenes strung in between. It's like the creative team decided to try every silly scare special effect that they could think of. Whilst the scare effects worked well in Nightmare 3, which did have a decent plot, in this film they are not used to advance a story, just to provide scare thrills.

The use of two of the actors from the previous film star the start of god movie are equally pointless. It was a weak attempt to tie this movie into the previous film, but with no story line behind it, it just seems pointless. The lighting and cinematography gives this film a very artificial quality. Where is the originality? It is the same old stuff - girl and friends live in fear of Freddy, blame parents for their predicament, parents either don't believe children or get drunk because they can't cope. Sound familiar? Too familiar.