Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Directed by Rachel Talalay [Other horror films: Ghost in the Machine (1993), The Dorm (2014)]

After the drab, disappointing fifth movie, Freddy’s Dead is honestly a breath of fresh air. It’s never been a movie I loved, but I was always entertained by it. Seeing it again, I have to confess, though, that perhaps I’m closer to loving it than I previously thought.

Here’s a warning, first off – there’s a lot I want to talk about, and I don’t have much of a cohesive plan in which to tackle the various different points I want to bring up and expound on, so if at any time I seem to be rambling, I’ll say this in advance: sorry, brahs.

I critiqued the hell out of The Dream Child for being confusing, and since I don’t want to be labeled a hypocrite, I’ll concur with anyone who says this one is confusing too. However, in this case, it didn’t bother me at all.

Well, I shouldn’t say at all – one of the characters, John (Shon Greenblatt), is apparently the last kid who lives in Springwood. Apparently Freddy killed the rest of the kids, causing a deep economic depression and mass psychosis of those who still live there. I fail to see how a kid could have gone unnoticed, though – where did he live? Did he have parents? It just seems odd that a kid could live in Springwood and somehow not attract the attention of the crazy townspeople.

Related, we can see that Springwood isn’t that far from the unnamed city John winds up. Much like Children of the Corn, I cannot believe that a town could survive in the state they’re in and not make national news, nor be smothered by social service workers. It makes more sense in Children of the Corn, actually, because it was a small town in the middle of nowhere, but we can clearly see that Springwood is pretty close to what seemed to be at least a moderately-sized city.

So yes, some of the logic bothers me. The first one, I can’t find a way around, but for the second point – well, technically, this film takes place in an alternate future (the opening says ‘10 years from now,’ which, to me, means 2001), and it’s possible that they was some type of collapse of a national government. Certainly the scenes in the city make it seem seedy, and the shelter for troubled youth seemed painfully underfunded. I guess my point is that, in times of economic despair, it’s not out of the question that the suffering of a small town might go largely unnoticed to a population living close by.

In a way, though, this makes the movie more fun. The fact it takes place in 2001 doesn’t really matter aside from explaining how there are zero children or teens left in Springwood, but it does make the story more interesting, in my view.

Look at Springwood, for instance – I absolutely loved the little we saw of the town. Adults holding a fair with no potential of joy, a teacher (Matthew Faison) reciting senseless lectures about Freddy to an invisible class, a woman at an orphanage who is so out of it, she thinks she sees children playing and having fun. The execution isn’t perfect – I don’t know why Roseanne Barr had to make an appearance – but the concept is pretty cool, and that chalk drawing of Freddy is the icing on the cake.

I also think the cast here is pretty strong. Lisa Zane (The Nurse, Toughguy, Natural Selection) was pretty solid in her role. I can’t exactly describe why, but I found her a lot of fun. Naturally, Yaphet Kotto (Alien, Warning Sign) is fun to see, and his character is solid. I’ve always been a fan of Breckin Meyer (from comedies such as Rat Race and Blue State to horror films such as Stag Night), so seeing him here young was fun.

Lezlie Deane’s (976-EVIL, Girlfriend from Hell) character was pretty good too, and perhaps the most traumatic of the characters here. She’d be top-tier if it weren’t for Zane and Kotto, actually. Ricky Dean Logan and Shon Greenblatt were the weakest here, but still fun at times. Lastly, though he’s as corny as expected, Robert Englund appears to be having fun here.

Speaking of fun, I think one of the reasons this movie sort of works is the fact it is actually entertaining. It doesn’t always hit – the video game/power glove sequence was pretty damn painful, and that Wizard of Oz reference hurt me in ways a man’s not meant to be hurt – but generally speaking, there’s some good times here. In fact, a couple of quotes come to mind: ‘The map says we’re fucked!’ (which is a line I use in my daily life – well, whenever I see a map, anyway) and ‘Damn it! I hate this house’ (a simple quote, sure, but hilarious in context).

Actually, there’s another quote, this one said by Freddy, and one I’ve loved since I was a kid, being ‘Every town has an Elm Street.’ Sure, much of this movie is goofy, but I’d put that line up against ‘You are all my children now,’ as one of Freddy’s best quotes.

And it’s on that note that I need to discuss something I probably should have discussed before. I’ve seen Freddy’s Dead probably twice before, but I never saw it as a kid. I did, however, once have my mom rent out Critters 3 on VHS – I don’t know why, as up to that point, I’d never seen the two previous Critters.

The point is, while we rented it, I watched the movie perhaps three times (and to this day, I have a very soft spot for Critters 3). The movie came out 1991, same year as this one, and before the film started, the VHS tape had a trailer for this movie – a trailer that I watched quite a lot – and it became ingrained in memory. My main point being, while I never saw this movie when I was young, I did see bits and pieces from the trailer, so I do feel a bit of nostalgia when watching this.

Another thing that I absolutely adore about this movie happens toward the finale – Lisa Zane’s character finds out something disturbing about her childhood, and goes to confront her mother, by banging on her door and shouting ‘MOTHER!’. I have to imagine that was intentional, as it’s exactly like how Nancy shouted for her mother in the first movie after seeing the bars on her windows.

But that’s not all – it’s around this same time that we hear the original theme music, as Lezlie Deane falls asleep. And to add to the nostalgic feel of the 1984 classic, while Freddy’s speaking with Yaphet Kotto’s character, he’s casually cutting off his fingers, just as he did in the first movie. It’s like these three things were thrown in as a way to celebrate the (supposed) end of the franchise, and I loved it.

Speaking of a celebration of the franchise, I loved how the film ended with a montage of clips from all six movies – some of the best, creepiest scenes are shown, and it’s a nice look back on the series that so many enjoyed, even during it’s worst moments. And ending with a ‘Freddy RIP’ was fun also.

Oh, another thing I rather liked was how they delved into Freddy’s past, showing his messed up childhood and abuse at the hands of his father. Anyone growing up in an environment like that would find it hard to become a functioning adult, so it’s hard to entirely blame Freddy for where his life took him. Admittedly, the Dream Demons looked rather shitty, but that’s 90’s 3D action for you.

Speaking of the abuse that Freddy faced, by the way, this was a pretty dark movie in terms of characters. As it dealt with troubled youth, you had a kid who has hearing issues due to an abusive mother, you have a teen girl who was sexually abused by her father, and you have a stoner who can’t live up to his father’s image of him. Combine that with the childhood trauma of Lisa Zane’s, and, despite this film being goofy at times, it can get pretty dark.

I don’t doubt that, in many ways, Freddy’s Dead is a mess. I find it thoroughly enjoyable, though, in ways that The Dream Child, and in fact, The Dream Master, couldn’t match. It worked for me, and that’s all that matters.

7.5/10