A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child backdrop
A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child poster

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: THE DREAM CHILD

1989 US HMDB
August 11, 1989

The pregnant Alice finds Freddy Krueger striking through the sleeping mind of her unborn child, hoping to be reborn into the real world.

Directors

Stephen Hopkins

Cast

Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Erika Anderson, Valorie Armstrong, Michael Ashton, Kelly Jo Minter, Danny Hassel, Nicholas Mele, Joe Seely, Burr DeBenning
Horror Thriller

REVIEWS (1)

MF

Massimo Filograna

It has been a year since the last confrontation with Freddy. Alice is now a woman and is about to become a mother. The problem is that Alice's unborn child, having inherited his mother's medium abilities, has the unconscious ability to call Freddy from the grave. And so, our Freddy "Steel Claw" prepares a new plan: to reincarnate by replacing the baby's soul in Alice's womb with his own. But to do this, he needs energy and therefore new souls. The first victim will be the baby's father, who, having survived the fourth chapter, here finds a horrible end by merging in full speed with his motorcycle and crashing into a truck. Alice this time seems unable to stop Krueger's plan, as the key to Fred's power is enclosed in the very soul of the baby growing in her womb, which inhibits her powers... But fortunately, the ghost of Sister Amanda Krueger, Freddy's mother, will intervene to thwart the plan of her malevolent son. The film's atmosphere returns to that of the first two. Freddy is less "likable" and much more cynical. The jokes are cutting, less witty, but we are light-years away from the character created by Craven. Insipid, rushed, and predictable ending. The real title was "The Dreamchild", but the usual unreliable Italian distributors titled it "Il Mito" for obscure reasons. The same cinematic version, according to an interview given by Hopkins himself, was mutilated by 15 minutes of splatter scenes, and some sequences (like the one with the fridge) have become incomprehensible. The same fate of the baby remains a mystery, and indeed, in the sequel, there will be no trace of Alice or her son, who was supposed to be, according to the screenwriter's intentions, the dream child who would then kill Freddy in his own playground: the dream. Good special effects and the performance of mother Alice and Sister Amanda. But in the end, it leaves the viewer with a sense of incompleteness.

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