A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

Dir. Stephen Hopkins 89 Minutes

USA

1989

Starring: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Kelly Jo Minter, Erika Anderson, Whit Hertford

***/***** After circling the drain in the shift between Dream Warriors and The Dream Master, the Elm Street  series has a surprising boost in its fifth installment. Picking up where the last film left off, Alice (Lisa Wilcox) becomes pregnant and discovers that Freddy is attempting to use her unborn child's nearly constant dream state to use it as a confederate (with appearances by none other than Whit Hertford as the "older" version of the baby Jacob). The success of the film comes from its return to a more simple narrative, all rooted in this pretty intriguing development of Freddy wanting to, somewhat, come out of the womb into the real world. The expository aspects are confined to the actions of this particular film rather than expanding the mythology as in the Dream Warriors plot lines, and as a result the picture has a self-contained tendency that allows it to work on its own terms rather than on the terms of its predecessors. The set pieces return to a more visually inventive realm, and some individual effect are terrifically done (a climactic moment where Freddy comes out of Alice is particularly memorable). On the whole, the film is a nice jump for the quality of the Kruger flicks, and the best entry since Freddy's Revenge. October 18th, 2019