A long way from a dream

The original 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' is still to me one of the scariest and best horror films there is, as well as a truly great film in its own right and introduced us to one of the genre's most iconic villains in Freddy Krueger. It is always difficult to do a sequel that lives up to a film as good as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' let alone one to be on the same level.

'A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child' is one just of the weakest sequels in the 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' film series, and one of the weakest films overall. It is such a big disappointment after being so impressed by the surprisingly good previous two sequels (was also underwhelmed by the second film, which to me is actually marginally better than this one). The third film in particular being the best sequel by far if not quite on the same level as the original, a very difficult feat.

'The Dream Child' is not unwatchable by all means. The music score is still hauntingly ominous, the scariest that the film gets is by listening to the music and it is sad that most of the rest of the film doesn't match it in effectiveness. Robert Englund's material is beneath him, but that doesn't stop him from giving it his all and giving a freaky performance.

Production design is the most dream-like the film ever gets and has moments of being nightmarish, just wish that one can appreciate it more because the way it's photographed and edited doesn't do it justice. A couple of the deaths are cool, though there is nothing inspired or creepy here.

However, 'The Dream Child' is an example of style over substance and sadly the style is not done very well...at all in one of the worst looking and most self-indulgent-looking films in the series. The production design is undone by an over-reliance on sudden, amateurish and often misplaced shock cuts and incredibly crude imagery that belongs more in a rock video-like cartoon. This feels like an attempt to compensate for an erratically paced (both rushed and tedious), ridiculous and non-atmospheric story with scares that are unimaginatively derivative, too far and between and vapidly tame on the whole.

Apart from Englund, the acting is very poor (even Lisa Wilcox isn't anywhere near as winning as in the previous film), with the actors having to work with an awkwardly clunky script and irritating characters that constantly make silly and illogical decisions. Even the humour doesn't work, Freddy's one-liners are more stale and toe-curlingly groan-worthy than twisted or witty and what was darkly comic before is replaced by an overload of cheese. The direction is largely unimaginative, and only a couple of the deaths are cool, the others are forgettable at best.

In conclusion, lacklustre and a long way from a dream. 4/10 Bethany Cox

4/10