With Renny Harlin's A Nightmare Before Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, the Franchise Went MTV in the Best Possible Way

The franchise's top-grossing film kicks major ass

I’m glad that I watched 2010’s Never Sleep Again, the four-hour-long documentary about the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise from the people who brought you Crystal Lake Memories, the six-hour and forty-minute long movie about the Friday the 13th movies, for The Fractured Mirror, my upcoming book on American movies about filmmaking. 

If I hadn’t watched and written about Never Sleep Again and Crystal Lake Memories, I would undoubtedly have been eviscerated for not featuring these two horror documentaries, which combined last over ten hours. 

Just as importantly, Never Sleep Again gave me invaluable insight into my Substack journey through the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

In the essential documentary, I learned that Renny Harlin was a rough character when he aggressively pursued being part of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. For the ambitious young filmmaker, directing the third sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street was a dream job. 

When he directed A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Harlin had only a pair of films to his credit, the 1986 Mike Norris vehicle Born American and 1987’s Prison. Neither was a success. 

Harlin was so broke that he could only afford clothes he wore so frequently that he stunk to high heaven. The Finnish hotshot spoke very little English when he made his breakthrough film. 

That could have posed a problem, as a director’s job generally involves communicating your needs and desires to a large group of people. 

Harlin did not have much experience. He didn’t speak much English. And he reeked of body odor. 

What Harlin possessed in great abundance was ambition. He was in a terrible hurry to prove himself. He came to the gig with an excess of energy and ideas. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a young man’s movie. Harlin was still in his twenties when he directed. It’s easy to see why the Finnish vulgarian graduated to the big-budget, high-profile likes of Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger in the years following A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. 

On a less auspicious note, Harlin also directed the poorly received Andrew “Dice” Clay vehicle, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. 

Clay’s one shot at Hollywood stardom gave audiences a rock and roll detective with a sensibility that combined Raymond Chandler with MTV.

Harlin brings a similar sensibility to A Nightmare on Elm Street 4. It’s the MTV Nightmare on Elm Street movie due to the preponderance of pop songs on the soundtrack and in the film itself. A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack has ten songs, but the film also includes songs from Billy Idol (who would contribute the Golden Raspberry nominated hit “Cradle of Love” to The Adventures of Ford Fairlane soundtrack) Sinead O’Connor, Blondie and The Fat Boys, who contribute “Are You Ready for Freddy.

This last novelty song features Robert Englund rapping in character as Freddy Krueger and inspired a music video where group member Prince Markie Dee and his associates must spend a night in a haunted house to get his uncle’s inheritance.

I’d like to think that that was once the movie's plot, but they felt it was a little too goofy.

Instead, A Nightmare on Elm Street revolves around Kristen, a fragile young woman played by Patricia Arquette in A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors and Tuesday Knight here. 

In the previous film the heroine gained the power to control her dreams. When confronted with Freddy Krueger’s boiler room of terror, she taps in her dream allies/mental hospital alum Roland Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) and Joey (Rodney Eastman). 

These weary survivors do not appreciate being roped into Kristen’s madness or her dream world. They want to stay as far away from Freddy as possible but insist that he’s dead because he’s constantly dying, and then he’s constantly returning from the grave. 

In quite possibly the most audacious move in a movie defined by its audacity and rock and roll energy, Freddy is resurrected when a dog pisses fire on his unmarked grave and brings him back to life. 

That might seem silly and far-fetched, but Neil Degrasse Tyson has publicly stated that it’s not only possible but something that happens fairly frequently.

Just last week, a cute little golden retriever pissed flames onto Ted Bundy’s grave, and he was able to add three student nurses to his body count. 

Despite being black, Roland survived the previous film. He’s not as fortunate here. The filmmakers perversely bring back two major figures from A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors solely to kill them off as quickly as possible. 

Englund’s enterprising, Hip Hopping ghoul has murdered nearly all of the children of the parents who played vigilante and turned him into a crispy critter. He’s excited about being able to cross that off his posthumous Bucket List, but he wants the murderous mayhem to continue indefinitely. 

So Freddy tricks Alice into bringing him fresh meat. Freddy colorfully murders Kristen, but before she can dream eternally, she transfers her magical dream powers to Alice Johnson (Lisa Wilcox). 

At that point, Alice becomes the film’s vulnerable yet strong-willed heroine. As soon as she dozes off, Alice finds herself in Nightmare Land, which has one population: Freddy Krueger. She accidentally tags in Sheila Kopecky (Toy Newkirk), a black nerd with a big old brain full of numbers, science, and other nerdy information. 

Having killed his first batch of victims, Freddy moves on here. For all of his faults, and there are many, such as his compulsion to murder children and then teenagers, Freddy puts a lot of thought and care into his murders. 

He’s not some artless brute with a machete and a hockey mask chopping up horny teenagers: he’s an artist. Freddy cares. Freddy continually challenges himself to slaughter teenagers in as colorful and inventive a manner as possible. 

In that respect, he is like the hotshot in the director’s chair. Harlin directs the hell out of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. Every shot is as dynamic and exciting as possible. 

Harlin brought a lot of himself to what could have been a gun-for-hire gig. The dream sequences were largely the director's creation and based on his own nocturnal trauma. 

The series pop-surrealism reaches a giddy apex here. A sequence where Freddy’s knife glove hovers just above the ocean like a shark’s fin before the madman goes in for the kill is preposterous and campy but also works as a horror set piece. 

Englund gets his name above the title status for the first time in the series. He earns it. Freddy Krueger is very good at what he does. For Freddy, killing kids isn’t just a job; it’s a sacred calling. 

Harlin gets the most out of a modest six-and-a-half million dollar budget, thanks to the special effects and make-up wizardry of giants like Kevin Yagher and Screaming Mad George. 

A set-piece where a bugs-obsessed athlete transforms unexpectedly into a giant cockroach brings a Kafkaesque darkness and weirdness to the proceedings. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master marked the screenwriting debut of Brian Helgeland, the Academy Award-winning writer of L.A Confidential, who contributed a screenplay overflowing with provocative ideas as well as spectacle. 

Freddy is the most Freudian of slashers. His realm is the dream world. His knives get inside the bodies of his victims while his ideas invade their psyches.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 is the top-grossing film in the series other than Freddy Vs. Jason, for a very good reason. It’s crackerjack entertainment, a fright flick with style to spare, and one of the all-time great villains in one of his finest showcases.