A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

“Nine, ten, he’s back again...”

This is the fifth film in the series and, you know, it’s not at all bad. Oh, there are diminishing returns and there’s an awful lot more time spent on drama than on big set pieces, but the film is pretty good and even, in terms of the direction, design and effects, the best so far. Well, if you ignore one very obvious and very prominent matte painting.

This is the third consecutive film with continuing elements, with Alice as the hero, this time pregnant with a baby whose dreams allow Freddy to return- a nice thematic link to Freddy’s own birth and his mother Amanda. To an extent it’s a similar format to the previous film, with various teenagers (including boyfriend Dan) being girlie killed one by one, except this isn’t quite as dramatic as previous films with the focus on the pregnancy and Yvonne’s scepticism, and the set pieces not being quite as good. Still, I enjoyed Mark’s comic book death, and not only because I recognised a couple of those 1989 vintage Marvel comics littering his floor. The death may be lacking in blood but is gloriously creative and well done, even if I do suspect the influence of the video to A-Ha’s “Tale on Me”. On the other hand, the foetus scene may be an influence on the video to Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”...

Mrs Llamastrangler loves this and I found it visually brilliant- the M.C. Escher stuff at the climax was superb- but perhaps the script was a little more pedestrian than the realisation. Still, the franchise is still looking pretty healthy as the decade ends.