Final Elm Street sequel? Not by a long shot

FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE (1991)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" is a guilty pleasure for me considering how many people hate it. It's silly, stupid and more self-parodic than it should have been, but it has a looseness and a fast pace that distinguishes it from most horror fare.

This time, pizza-faced, maniacal Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is back in Springwood, Ohio, looking for some fresh blood after killing off all the Elm Street kids and being sent back to his mother's womb by the formidable Alice in "Elm Street 5." The main plot is about a kid suffering from amnesia (Shon Greenblatt) who comes to believe that Freddy is his father. How he came to that realization, I am not sure! Enter a teen psychiatrist/counselor (the sullen Lisa Zane), who is the only one that listens to this seemingly creepy kid. She follows him to Springwood to find that the town has turned into a loony bin where parents are all left without any children or teenagers to care for (Freddy wiped them all out). Eventually, this psychiatrist discovers that she is Freddy's daughter, and he uses her to get to the kids at a youth shelter. Only a fellow psychiatrist and dream expert (Yaphet Kotto, who should have dominated the film beyond giving a few baseball bat hits to Freddy's body) can help her with her traumatic emotions.

"Freddy's Dead" is more funny than scary and there are too many half-hearted attempts at humor (watch for the cumbersome cameos by Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr), and there are mostly bloodless performances by a largely emaciated cast. However, despite its rushed, washed-out look and lack of real production values, it is always watchable. There are also subtle themes of incest, child abuse, neglect, and adoption which is intriguing, to say the least, for a film of this type. A few nightmare sequences truly deliver the chills, such as a hearing aid on one teen or the marijuana haze that leads to a video game beat down! The 3-D finale is well-done, as we are taken on a thrilling trip through Freddy's twisted brain but the extra dimension is a bit unnecessary.

As for surprise cameos, be sure to look out for a drooling Alice Cooper as Freddy's father, and Johnny Depp in a hilarious drug commercial! Worthwhile time-filler overall (Freddy is reduced to a weather-beaten comedian and the film does have the stamp of one too may trips down the same well) and never less than fun. Still, beware Freddy fans, hardly scary!