gwnightscream This 1991 horror sequel stars Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt, Yaphet Kotto, Lezlie Deane, Breckin Meyer and Ricky Dean Logan. In this entry, Freddy Krueger (Englund) has wiped out the all the children in Springwood, Ohio and hunts the last remaining teen, John (Greenblatt). Freddy uses him to find his offspring and tries to spread global nightmares. Zane plays Maggie, a child-psychologist who turns out to be Freddy's daughter, Kathryn, Kotto (Live and Let Die) plays Doc, her colleague, Deane plays tough girl, Tracy, Meyer (Rat Race) plays video-game fanatic, Spencer and Logan (Back to the Future III) plays hearing-impaired teen, Carlos. Like "Freddy's Revenge," This film gets a bad rap and is underrated. Freddy is intentionally, cartoonish in it, but I've always liked it and Englund is great as usual. Give this one a chance guys.

MaximumMadness Released in 1991, "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" was one of the last big franchise slasher-flicks to be released in the first half of the 90's, and it definitely was a sign of things to come for the following years- being one of those movies that signaled the downfall of the once prosperous sub-genre of horror. Despite slasher films gaining an immense and thriving popularity throughout the 1980's, by the time the decade ended box office numbers had started to drop drastically, and movie-goers became increasingly apathetic towards seeing teens and 20-somethings being butchered on screen. And despite the "Nightmare on Elm Street" saga beginning with a trio of genuinely well-made films that had a lot of imagination and style, the series was quickly losing steam. By the time part five was released in 1989, it was becoming clear the franchise didn't have much time left, and it was decided that the the sixth film was going to be the "final chapter"...Directed by franchise co-producer Rachel Talalay, "Freddy's Dead" is an odd and occasionally intriguing bit of madness that tries its hardest to tie the entire series together and wrap it up with a nice, clean bow... but it's so tonally confused and so immensely bizarre in its execution that comes across more as a messy bit of self-parody than the climax of a long-running franchise. It's a film of trendy gimmicks and in-your-face visuals geared at the "Mtv generation", and feels at odds against the rest of the series. More focused on misplaced gags, bizarrely kinetic camera-work and a messy 3D climax than delivering a satisfying conclusion to the story of Freddy Krueger, "Freddy's Dead" is a contrived cartoon of a climax that fails to satisfying.In the far-off "future" of 1999, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) has succeeded in killing almost every single child in the town Springwood, Ohio- save for his final victim, a young man who manages to escape his grasp but suffers a head injury and the accustomed accompanying amnesia films like this like to throw in. Whisked away to a clinic for troubled and abandoned teens, "John Doe" (Shon Greenblatt) joins a ragtag group of troublemakers under the care of Dr. Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane), whom decides to help him cure his amnesia by bringing him home... Upon arrival, all begin to be plagued by twisted nightmares of the burnt madman, and it becomes clear he has an endgame in play... and that "John Doe" might not have been his actual target after all...Director Talalay and writer Michael DeLuca relish in piling on the strange and the weird in "Freddy's Dead", and indeed it does have the occasional flash of brilliance thanks to series-star Robert Englund's fearless portrayal of Freddy Krueger. But it goes too far too often to leave the audience with any feeling outside of complete apathy. This is a movie with a key sequence that is built entirely around a protracted and woefully unfunny cameo by Roseanna Barr and Tom Arnold, and a major set-piece with a head-scratching and incredibly dated "Super Mario Brothers" parody... let that sink in. Gone are the subtle nuances and disturbing visuals of previous installments, here replaced with broad gags and convoluted pop- culture references. The film does try at times to inject some new ideas into the mythology of Krueger and his curse upon Springwood in its rare serious moment, but much like the rest of the film, it feels misguided and messily inserted, giving the viewer a sense of storyline-whiplash. Though I will not spoil it, the film promised an "explanation" for Krueger and his powers... and it's just pathetically delivered.Though perhaps the most perturbing and tragic thing about this film is that this wasn't merely another "Nightmare on Elm Street" film that turned out poorly... this is indeed to date the last canonical entry in the entire original saga if one does not include the crossover spin- off "Freddy vs Jason." This was for a long time the final impression that fans were left with for that story- the final chapter. And that makes it all the more a letdown. The Freddy timeline doesn't go out with a bang, but with the most dreadful of whimpers. A mish-mash mess of screwball comedy, messy references and only the faintest hints of horror or terror.To give the film some minor credit, there are a few good aspects peppered in. Englund knocks it out of the park as always and does seem to be having a good time with the role. Co-star Lisa Zane is appropriately sexy and does what she can with her wonky dialog and characterization. And the movie does manage to muster up on singular dream sequence that felt like classic "Nightmare on Elm Street" magic... this time delving into the head of a man whose hearing aid is amped up to eleven by Freddy. But these are just moments... just small pieces of a puzzle that never quite comes together and ultimately leaves you feeling unsatisfied. "Freddy's Dead" barely musters by with a very poor 3 out of 10.

ThiefOfStars I put off writing this review for a long time as it is arguably the worst entry into the series (except for maybe Freddy vs. Jason and the atrocious remake - but more on that later) and by far my least favourite, as everybody's favourite dream killer hacks his way through yet another batch of sleep deprived teenagers to get to his daughter, a social worker for said teenagers, in order to make his way out of Springwood (whose population of children he has successfully slaughtered) and into the consciousness of a new town to terrorise.Yes, they waited until the 'final' instalment of the franchise to reveal that before (or whilst) he became a serial child killer, Freddy was a family man with a wife and child; a set-up which simply falls flat, firstly because it was always heavily implied that Freddy had been forced to lurk in boiler rooms due to his social outcast role in the community - so this revelation just comes out of nowhere - and secondly, because although I feel the series had already become somewhat lacklustre before this movie, the characters in Freddy's Dead are so unbelievably dull, which equates to a very anti-climactic 'send-off' for this horror icon.I can't help but feel that the movie would've packed more of a punch if they'd found a way to bring back characters from previous movies in the series to defeat Freddy for a 'final' time.I've always been fairly generous when judging the Elm Street series as even after the movies themselves stopped being 'scary' I've always given props to the creativity of the visuals and ideas (i.e. the idea of the teenagers having dream powers and abilities suited to their personalities), but all of that is just gone in this movie; none of the characters have any interesting traits, powers or abilities and after having watched Freddy's Dead again recently, for the purpose of writing this review, I did enjoy the sequences where the John Doe character keeps finding himself in situations where he is falling through the sky but this is completely overridden by the cringe worthy video game/power glove sequence.Oh, and the movie attempts to explain the origins of Freddy's powers which is not only incredibly lame but unnecessary.(You've probably noticed that I've written the word 'final' in quotation marks; that's because I like to think Freddy's REAL send-off came out just three short years after this movie's release...)

Jayme Schmitt Freddy's Dead the Final Nightmare had so much potential for being the supposedly last Freddy film of all time. The cast and crew even went as far as to fake a funeral for the burnt boogeyman. But with such a low budget and a stake placed so high on the ghoul's legacy, it was hard to live up to the expectation. Even with the addition of 3D, it falls flat on it's face by the end of the film, which is ironic because of how amazing it's set up at the beginning is, which saves it from being awful. Still, I'm still interested in imagining how Peter Jackson's original concept would have struck a nerve at New Line's box office. For those that don't know, Peter Jackson was hired to pen a script in which he wrote a screenplay where Freddy was weak and deprecated in the dream world and the kids would take sleeping pills to purposely fall asleep and beat him up. Still, Rachel Talalay worked hard to get to that position and did fantastic for what it is. Even if it does seemly painfully dated.