Nightmare Retrospective: The Dream Child

Nightmare Retrospective | #5 | The Dream Child

It was inevitable, really, that the Nightmare franchise would descend into such mediocrity as it did with The Dream Master. Dream Warriors hammered the nail on Freddy's coffin in a way that felt final, even with the teaser at the end opening the way for more sequels. Any further films tied directly to this line of canon would feel redundant at best, and plastic and corporate at worst. From the moment The Dream Master went into production, it was doomed to take away the finality of Freddy's demise, making all conclusions here on out meaningless and dragging the franchise into the depths of the weirder elements of Dream Warriors' lore.

It's not The Dream Child's fault that things ended up this way; it definitely shouldn't exist, but ultimately the fault lies somewhat on Dream Warriors but mostly on The Dream Master. The Dream Master kept the franchise going without any sort of reboot or reimagining when that was really the only way to keep it going in a meaningful way. As a result, The Dream Master was a meaningless exercise in corporate franchise making from the start, and it knew it. Instead of even attempting to make it worth anyone's while, it took audience recognition of the brand for granted and used all of this as an excuse to not even attempt to entertain, instead being a boring, embarassing effort that serves as one of the franchise's lowest points.

The Dream Child, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of The Dream Master in that regard. Rather than allowing the film to wallow in its own shallowness, director Stephen Hopkins and writers Wes Craven (!!!) and Leslie Bohem took the opportunity to go down swinging, indulging in all of the silliest, most over the top aspects of Freddy's legacy to create the most purely entertaining spectacle of shlock humanly possible. While it's undeniably trash, I'll be damned if the results aren't absolutely glorious.

The Dream Child starts off immediately with an opening sequence combining an artfully shot sex scene (luckily this doesn't actually set that much of a precedent for the film) with some spooky yet campy title cards, indicating a much bigger commitment to style than the previous film had. Alice, the survivor of The Dream Master, is a fairly interesting protagonist (not as good as Nancy, but a little bit better than Kristen was), despite her insistence on constantly telling random strangers that Freddy is the one behind the death that just occurred. Some time has passed since The Dream Master and she and Dan, the other survivor, have moved on, developing a new friend group for Freddy to kill off and graduating together.

Freddy is quickly reborn in one of the most over the top yet awesome set pieces in the series to date; a demonic rebirth in a run-down gothic cathedral in the middle of a lightning storm, set to heavy, evil-sounding piano music. Freddy then goes on to murder Dan in one of the most ridiculous kills of the entire series, in which Dan is speeding on a motorcycle that is actually Freddy, who then embeds his wires into his skin before crashing him full speed into a tractor trailer which then explodes, killing Dan instantly. "Don't dream and drive!" Freddy shouts.

After Dan's death, Kristen discovers that she is pregnant with his child. Freddy begins to become more active, somehow now striking while Alice is awake. The film tries to have some mystery surrounding the how of it, even though it's fairly obvious, but luckily it rips off that bandaid halfway into the film - Freddy is trying to commune with the spirit of her unborn child, feeding him souls and influencing him in dreams in order to create an apprentice of sorts through which he can kill freely.

The entire film is utterly ludicrous, yet contains more creativity in any one scene than The Dream Master did in its entire runtime. The camerawork is creative again, the practical effects excellent, the setpieces simultaneously hilarious and devilishly sinister, and it all oozes with a unique, campy energy that makes it unique amongst the other mediocre sequels. Freddy stuffs a girl's face until she chokes to death, kills someone in a comic book style shootout, duels with Alice and the spirit of her unborn child in a room filled with twisting staircases and non-Euclidean geometry, and more. The plot also involves a search for the missing remains of Freddy Krueger's mother. Why exactly this is the key to defeating him is unexplained, but who cares? It's all so fun that you don't really care to think about it much.

This is all grounded in character relationships that are actually kind of interesting, with Alice's best friend Yolanda not only not believing her but doing so in a way that is entirely believable and empathetic, as she seems to legitimately be afraid for her friend's sanity - until she is faced with proof that Freddy is real, in which she is loyal to the end (she's also Black and actually survives the movie, so more points over The Dream Master on that). Alice's father was an abusive drunk in the previous film (I didn't mention it at the time because it was unimportant), but in the time between films he's sobered up and corrected his ways and legitimately loves and cares about his daughter, and the dynamic between them is legitimately wholesome, particularly in a scene where Dan's parents, grieving and desperate for a child to care for again, threaten to take Alice to court for custody of her baby. The moment she makes it clear she's decided to keep and raise her child, her father leaps to her defense.

This scene really doesn't come back to play again, but it does add to a defining trait of Alice's character in this film; she is resolved to protect her child from Freddy's influence and raise it as her own. Another character suggests an abortion - something that would naturally be a solution to the problem, and it would be somewhat of a plot hole to not at least bring it up - but ultimately it refuses the idea, not because of some preachy message about how abortion is murder or but because Alice legitimately cares about the child and wants to keep him, and the film trusts her decision. It's all highly melodramatic, but it adds a different kind of grounded ridiculousness - some juicy drama that compliments the more bonkers kills and setpieces throughout.

The Dream Child is largely considered one of the weaker entries in the Nightmare franchise, and I can guess why; gone are the subtle, restrained scares, mystery and atmosphere building of the original or the legitimately compelling characters and story of Dream Warriors. Instead, The Dream Child is loud, shallow and ridiculous, without even a hint of restraint and filled with Freddy Krueger bursting out one-liners and breaking basically all of the rules previous films set to restrain him. If you're legitimately looking for a quality horror experience or a faithful successor to Wes Craven's original vision, this isn't the Nightmare for you, but it's bursting with an entire new kind of creativity; the kind that comes from a group of filmmakers just wanting to flex their cinematic muscles and have a hell of a good time without any of the restraints included with quality storytelling and franchise building to hold them back.

I can't stress enough how utterly fun this film is. It's certainly not quality, but it's not really trying to be. At the same time, it doesn't use that as an excuse for scamping on effort and creativity, either, like so many high budget B movies of recent years (and also The Dream Master, for that matter). It's all fine tuned to create a masterpiece of camp that's far from the indie horror brilliance of the original, but is a blast to watch in its own right. This film really has no reason to exist, but I'm glad at least that they managed to wring a little bit more out of the franchise before it's end. Luckily, this direct line of canon from the original would soon be ended for good - but not before one final Nightmare to close things off.