A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
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| A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master | |
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| Directed by | Renny Harlin |
| Produced by | Robert Shaye |
| Written by | Wes Craven William Kotzwinkle Brian Helgeland |
| Starring | Tuesday Knight Ken Sagoes Lisa Wilcox Robert Englund |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | August 19, 1988 |
| Running time | 99 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors |
| Followed by | A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child |
| IMDb profile | |
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is the fourth film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. It was released in 1988. The film was directed by Renny Harlin.
[edit] Plot summary
The events of The Dream Master take place soon after those of Dream Warriors. Kristen (Tuesday Knight, who replaced Patricia Arquette), Joey (Rodney Eastman), and Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), have been released from the hospital and are now living normal lives and attending high school. Kristen has also befriended Alice (Lisa Wilcox), a young, bright girl who is a frequent daydreamer. Kristen's other friends include her boyfriend Rick (Andras Jones), who happens to be Alice's brother, Sheila, a brainy, quiet girl with asthma (Toy Newkirk), and Debbie (Brooke Theiss), a tough girl, but is afraid of bugs.
Kristen begins to have bad dreams and feels as though Freddy has once again come back from the dead. During one of her nightmares, she pulls Kincaid and Joey into her dream. This does not meet with their approval, as they want to put the entire Freddy Krueger incident behind them. In school the next day, Kincaid and Joey confront Kristen about pulling them into the dream. They tell her, "If you keep going back in there, thinking about him, you might just stir him up again."
As it turns out, Freddy is indeed back. Kincaid wakes up one night, only to find himself locked in the trunk of an old junked car. When he opens the hood, he realizes that he is in a salvage yard - the same one that Freddy's body was buried in. Kincaid spies his dog, Jason, digging in the ground nearby. When he goes to investigate, the dog growls and snaps at his hand. Then, Jason begins to urinate fire on the plot where Freddy is buried. The ground begins to shake and the plot where Freddy lies begins to sink deeper into the ground and open up. Down in the grave, we see flesh beginning to ooze its way back onto bones. A gloved hand reattaches itself to the stump of an arm. Then, a dark, burned hand reaches for a fedora in the dirt and dusts it off. Having pulled himself together, Freddy rises again in front of the stunned dog.
Just as Krueger is savoring his resurrection in the dream world, a pile of cars comes crashing down on him. Kincaid has pushed over a wall of junked cars. He celebrates, but not for long. The remaining cars begin to come alive. Kincaid tries to run from them, but finds that all exits are blocked. Terrified, Kincaid screams, "Freddy's back! Freddy's back! Freddy's back!" At this point, Freddy catches up with him, and Kincaid is killed.
In the next scene, we see Joey in his room, watching MTV and listening to music. Joey continually glances from his television to the swimsuit model in a poster above it. Suddenly, when he looks at the poster, the girl is gone. Something begins to move beneath him in his waterbed. When he removes the sheets, he discovers it's the swimsuit model, her naked body pressed against the soft plastic of the bed. She motions that she is going down, and then swims out of sight. Joey begs her to come back. Instead, the bed bursts open and Freddy jumps out, saying, "How's this for a wet dream, Joey?" He pulls Joey below and the water churns red with blood. This scene is very similar to Glen's death in the original movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street.
The following day at school, Kristen is concerned when her friends fail to show up for class. In a fit of hysteria, she bumps her head and falls unconscious. When she comes to, she is in the nurse's office with someone who appears to be the school nurse. Naturally, it turns out to be Freddy. She wakes up, realizing she was dreaming, and this time finds herself with the real school nurse. At home that night, her mother gives her a sedative to help her sleep. When Kristen falls asleep this time, on Alice's advice, she tries to convert nightmares into pleasant dreams, to no avail. Even in her good dreams, Freddy appears and ruins everything. Kristen eventually finds herself in Freddy's boiler room where, somewhere, Freddy himself awaits. It is explained that Kristen is the last child from Elm Street, and that Freddy needs her help to get more children. He needs the power she has displayed to pull people into dreams so that he can go after all the children of Springwood. Afraid to let this happen, she tries not to think of anyone. However, when Freddy is about to kill her, she screams for Alice.
Alice appears suddenly in the boiler room just as Krueger is about to kill Kristen. Freddy tosses Kristen into the flaming boiler and eyes his new visitor. Before Kristen dies, she sends her power, the power to pull people into her dreams, to Alice. Before the power can reach her, it passes through Freddy first, taking a part of him with it. Alice wakes up and she and Rick head to Kristen's house, only to find that she has burned to death in her own room.
Alice tries to understand what has happened, and who exactly Freddy is. This is very traumatic for her especially because, unlike Kristen, who could draw people into her dreams, Alice has always been able to control her nightmares with a counterspell: The dream master. But her ability to control her dreams does not seem to work when Alice dreams of Freddy. While she is in class taking a test, she falls asleep. Unfortunately for Sheila, Alice pulls her into the dream world as well. Sheila struggles through her test. When she is finished, she looks up and sees Freddy peeling an apple. As Krueger makes his way to Sheila, Alice tries desperately to wake her up. It's no use: Freddy sucks the life from Sheila's body. In the real world, it appears to those around Sheila that she is having a fatal asthma attack. After Sheila's lifeless body is carted out of the school, Debbie tearfully says that Sheila's dream was to be a doctor. Alice tries to make everyone believe that it was Freddy that killed Sheila, but they all think Alice is losing her mind.
The next person to meet up with Freddy is Rick. Rick falls asleep in a toilet stall, and at first is smothered by cheerleaders with Alice in the background. The stall turns into an elevator speeding downwards. When it stops, he enters a Japanese setting wearing a Gi. Freddy is invisible, and starts to beat on Rick. Rick then gets his bearings and manages to kick Freddy's glove off his hand. Feeling victorious, Rick then asks him how will Freddy fight him with out his weapon. Freddy manages to get his glove while Rick is boasting, and rams it into his stomach.
After his death, Alice teams up with Dan Jordan (Danny Hassel), "one major league hunk" who Alice has a crush on, and who was one of Rick's closest friends. Alice manages to control her dreams one time, in which she dreams of Rick to say her farewells. We know she's controlling the dream because Freddy is not present. Together with Dan, Alice tries and get to Debbie, their last surviving friend, before Freddy finds her. Unbeknownst to the two teens, Freddy is able to control their movements. He forces them not only to travel in circles, but also to repeat the same events over and over again. This enables him to reach Debbie (who is performing bench presses). In her dreams he snaps her arms in two then slowly turns her into a cockroach after shrinking her down to size and flattening her inside a roach motel.
When Alice sees Freddy in the middle of the road, she tries to run him down. She is only met with the injury of Dan, as the truck wraps around Krueger like it would a telephone pole. In the waking world, Alice has actually crashed into a tree at roadside. As Dan is rushed to the hospital, she reminds him not to let them put him to sleep. Alice leaves Dan to prepare herself for one final battle. Alice ventures into the dream world to save Dan from Freddy, who has visited him in the operating room. Freddy flees as soon as Alice gets there and she and Dan leave the room, only to find that they have walked into another one of Freddy's "fun" rooms. As Freddy begins to spin the room around, Alice and Dan lose their footing and fall through a stained glass window, which leads to a church. They both fall on the church altar. However, as Dan begins to hemorrhage in the waking world, the doctors must wake him, which releases Dan from the nightmare.
Alice must now face Freddy alone. She attempts to use all of the powers acquired from her friends as a result of their deaths. Nothing will stop Freddy. It isn't until she is reminded of the final verse of a children's rhyme about the Dream Master that she is finally able to defeat Freddy, by making him see the evil that is inside. She approaches him, speaking the counterspell: "Now I lay me down to sleep, the master of dreams, my soul to keep, in the reflection of my mind's eye...evil will see itself...and it will DIE!"
Holding up a piece of broken glass that shows his image, Kruger suddenly begins to lose his power. As he does, the souls of his victims cry out and attempt to break free of his bond. They rip Krueger limb from limb, leaving only a pile of old clothes. Their tortured souls are released. It is finally over.
After an brief but undefined period of time, Alice and Dan are standing in front of a fountain, relishing their victory over Freddy. Dan tells her to make a wish, and flips a coin into the fountain. In the ripple of the water, Alice sees a glimmer of Krueger.
[edit] Trivia
In addition to the gravestones seen for characters Kristen Parker and Roland Kincaid, markers can be seen in the background for Donald Thompson and Nancy Thompson, John Saxon and Heather Langenkamp's characters, respectively, who were killed in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.
| The Nightmare on Elm Street Series |
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| Films: A Nightmare on Elm Street • A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge • A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors • A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master • A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child • Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare • Wes Craven's New Nightmare • Freddy vs. Jason Major characters: Freddy Krueger • Amanda Krueger • Nancy Thompson • Kristen Parker • Alice Johnson Other topics: Comics • Freddy's Nightmares (TV series) • Hypnocil • Springwood, Ohio • Timeline • Video Games |
