A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

“You shouldn't have buried me. I'm not dead!"

After the huge disappointment of the second film it's pleasant to find that I've rather enjoyed both subsequent sequels. This fourth film is, if anything, a more straightforward use of the basic premise than the third and is, as a result, probably the best instalment since the first. The franchise seems to be in rude health at this point.

Partly this is down to the solid central premise, but also the excellent script and superb use of the camera, as well as the first class pre-CGI effects; the early resurrection of Freddy's body looks so much more convincing than the parallel scene in the previous year's Hellraiser, and all those big effects shots mean so much more when you know it's not CGI.

But essentially it's all about Freddy's truly scary presence, the solid plot based simply around Freddy killing various kids one by one in entertaining ways, and the fact that all the prospective victims are likeable in their own way. We actually care about what happens to the characters and thus are invested in being scared, something many horror films forget.

But ultimately it's about the set pieces- death by waterbed, Debbie being turned into a cockroach in a way which is proper Cronenberg, a set piece for every character. And through it all the clothes, hair, cars and music are all gloriously '80s, as is Alice's montage at the end, where she Super-Skrulls all of her dead mates' attributes. We even get a character, Rick, whose main trait beyond "loving boyfriend" seems to be that he's seen The Karate Kid.

We get scares, we get likeable and nuanced characters, we get a genuinely good film and we even get nostalgia. What's not to like?