FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)
The Phantom feels good about this review, because with it he can help nearly all of his readers. All except those who have already seen FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE, that is. There's not much that can be done for those unfortunate few who bolted from the comfort and safety of their homes to see Freddy's latest (and purportedly, his last) ELM STREET film this past weekend. Perhaps they were disappointed by CHILD'S PLAY 3 the week before and figured that at the very least, nothing could be worse. Perhaps they were enticed by the prospect of great special effects -- after all, as the print ads read, "they saved the best for last." Perhaps the rare opportunity of seeing another film in 3-D did it. Or perhaps it was just their self-appointed job, as it was for the Phantom, Janet Maslin of the New York Times, and what appeared to be most of the employees of New Line Cinema's New York office (New Line has been the distributor of all of the ELM STREET films).
That in and of itself should have told the Phantom something. The premiere of TERMINATOR 2 was also filled with industry people (rows 10 through 14 were filled with nothing but ILM weenies), but that seemed easy to understand. After all, T2 was destined to be the summer's blockbuster film, and if it weren't for the dedicated effort made by the folks who work at the special effects houses, the film wouldn't be nearly the success it is. Why not go see it with a packed house of eager movie-goers the night before opening day and see how your efforts -- or those of your coworkers -- paid off?
But it's hard to understand what those folks from New Line were doing at the National Theater last Friday, except perhaps looking for an excuse to cut out of work early. Surely they couldn't have expected people to stand up and cheer (as they did at the end of T2). Or stay seated and applaud (as they did at the end of DANCES WITH WOLVES). Or even keep their dissatisfaction to themselves (as they do at the end of most films which fail to live up to their expectations)? Given the general grumbling heard by the Phantom on the way out, the last place he would expect a New Line employee would want to be last Friday afternoon is anywhere within range of rotten fruit. (Alas, the Phantom forgot to pick some up on the way in, so his preferred form of film criticism was denied him.)
So the Phantom can come to no other conclusion than that these poor folks weren't going to get paid last week unless they attended the 4:00 show in an attempt to help fill what would otherwise be a rather empty auditorium. Additional confirmation for this theory was provided outside the theater, where the Phantom looked on in amusement as the New Line folks were told that even with their industry passes it would still cost them $1 each to get in. Since New Line at this point has more unopened, returned copies of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II than it has dollar bills, the Phantom wasn't at all surprised to see that the National's steep cover charge might prove their undoing. Yet by the time the film was over, even they did little more than provide what the Phantom's believes was the very definition of a "smattering" of applause. They may not be hard workers; they may not be well-paid; but they are loyal.
Yet even a full refund wouldn't have kept the Phantom from wishing that he had bought some popcorn at the concession stand. How frustrating it was to have to leave the theater without being able to fully express his feelings about the nightmare that had just unfolded before him. And if some of the buttered kernels happened to fall on the heads of the New Liners, it probably wouldn't have surprised them, knowing as they did that at least one critic was in the audience -- Ms. Maslin, like other film critics, wasn't allowed to see and review the film before opening day because New Line didn't screen it before opening day. (As an aside, when a studio or distributor doesn't screen a film before opening day, you can be fairly sure that there's a reason for it; one can't pan a film one hasn't seen yet, can one?)
Well, one has now seen this film, and one is therefore now quite well prepared to pan it. As was obvious to every phan unfortunate enough to see Freddy in his last outing (THE DREAM CHILD), the ELM STREET series has really been on the skids for a few years now. The first ELM STREET film was a certified original, a unique twist on the by then standard slasher genre that allowed horror auteur Wes Craven to transcend the limitations of ordinary horror villains in a more-or-less plausible way. Freddy was a little more scary and a little less funny back in those days, and the sequels never really matched the original. On the other hand, the first two sequels were well made and very entertaining in their own right, and by the fourth (THE DREAM MASTER), Freddy had turned into a veritable cottage industry, spawning a television series and a line of Halloween makeup that made everyone involved an awful lot of money. In short, Freddy achieved the celebrity status that had always eluded Michael and Jason -- the serial killers from the HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13TH serials respectively -- and it quickly became apparent that New Line had the cinematic equivalent of the Golden Goose on its hands. Freddy's films were relatively inexpensive to make, and people apparently couldn't get enough of him.
That is until DREAM CHILD, when someone decided that people really *would* see anything with Freddy in it, regardless of how good -- or, in this case, bad -- it was. That's always a mistake, and in this case it left the Goose's neck on the chopping block, anxiously awaiting a reprieve from the farmers at New Line -- and more importantly, from Freddy's still-loyal phans. After DREAM CHILD, there were two ways to go. Either New Line could find a writer and a director who would breathe some life back into the series, or they could drop the axe and make whatever money they could as quickly as they could and kill the series once and for all. After leaving FREDDY'S DEAD, the Phantom should have asked the folks from New Line what they were having for dinner later that night, but he suspected that at least for some of them, roast goose was on the menu.
The problem with DREAM CHILD was that despite all the money spent on special effects (which were an increasingly costly and escalating proposition since THE DREAM WARRIORS), it was a fairly boring film. Not bad, really, but not interesting either, and shortly after it opened, word of mouth saw it to a speedy closing. All of a sudden, it seemed that Freddy wasn't perhaps the drawing card that New Line thought he was; after the smoke cleared, it wasn't clear whether there would even *be* another sequel.
But another sequel there is: FREDDY'S DEAD, the first of the ELM STREET films not to use the words "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET" in its title. That now seems strangely appropriate to the Phantom, for FREDDY'S DEAD is less like an honest sequel to the original 1984 horror classic than a big joke played on everyone who has the misfortune of seeing it. From the jokey title (a play on the early 70s Curtis Mayfield hit); to the 3-D glasses (which are in fact good for nothing but making you feel like a complete fool until the last 15 minutes of the film -- the first 115 are in two dimensions, though of course the characters are only drawn in one); to the throwaway special effects (which are not very especially special); FREDDY'S DEAD provides ELM STREET phans with a very sad, very tawdry sendoff for one of our favorite horror personalities. Romero did better by his DEAD; it's too bad that New Line couldn't have done better by Wes' Freddy.
What can be said of an ELM STREET film in which only three people die (four, including Freddy)? Such a film simply doesn't have its heart in the right place. Or what of a film that's advertised as being in "3-D FreddyVision" and yet has no 3-D effects until the last 15 minutes? (By the way, the joke was certainly on the Phantom and his fellow audience members at the National last Friday. We all dutifully put on our vintage 50s red/blue 3-D glasses right at the start of the film -- and then spent the next 10 to 30 minutes peering over them, under them, and around them in vain search of any effect that could even be construed as being in three dimensions. "There ain't a *damn* thing 3-D about this!" was the most apt summary overheard by the Phantom during the film's exceedingly flat beginning.) Still not convinced? Okay, how about Roseanne and her husband Tom Arnold as deranged residents of the now-childless Springfield? See, it's a joke, son! Laugh it up, why don't you!
The Phantom did indeed come close to doubling up once or twice, but it most assuredly wasn't from laughter. Rather it was from watching the most lackluster and uninteresting ELM STREET film ever. The characters were dull; the special effects were.... Oh, the Phantom went through this once already, didn't he? Comes from trying to write too many sequels to his own reviews, perhaps. Got your magic 3-D reviewing glasses on, phans?
The plot might have been interesting, but the idea -- discovering how Freddy became the oh-so-unneighborly guy he is by looking at scenes from his tortured past -- is almost completely wasted. Robert Englund does what he can out of makeup, but oh how the Phantom longed for Terry O'Quinn and a performance even half as good -- and half as scary -- as the one he turned in for THE STEPFATHER. The rest of the cast is uniformly uninteresting; character development has been rolling steadly downhill since DREAM WARRIORS.
We learn that Freddy has a child that was taken from him, and that he has been seeking revenge on everyone else's children since he was burned alive by the angry townsfolk of Springfield. It might have been possible to explore in some depth Freddy's relationship to his son or daughter (the Phantom's not telling which, though it hardly matters in the scheme of things), and that might have made FREDDY'S DEAD much more interesting than it is. Something along these lines was attempted in ELM STREET 2, and because of that it remains the most intelligent and interesting of the sequels (though perhaps not the crowd-pleaser that later sequels were). But such discussion and exposition is postponed until the "final confrontation", and by then it is much too late.
We do, however, get to see -- in 3-D, no less -- those spirits of the underworld with which Freddy Krueger makes his fateful pact. As the flames surge around him, these dream agents offer Freddy immortality as long as he spends it collecting children's souls, television residuals, and product endorsements. They may come from the depths of hell, but agents are, after all, agents. It wasn't clear to the Phantom whether these dream agents get 10% of the souls that Freddy collects, but he suspects that some arrangement along those lines was worked out. (Naturally the agents looked like flying skulls with short spinal cord tails -- all mouth and no heart, you might say.)
Alas, the dream agents have let Freddy down; with FREDDY'S DEAD, the Golden Goose has been cooked, and the series ends not with a bang but a smirk. Though the 3-D at the end is fun (the Phantom's always had a soft spot for 3-D, ever since it was revived in the 1981 spaghetti western COMIN' AT YA), it's a shame that it was implemented with red/blue glasses rather than polarized glasses -- the result is not nearly as good as it could have been, and so those phans who go in expecting something similar to FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 are going to be doubly disappointed.
It was kind of sad watching FREDDY'S DEAD and seeing what had become of the premiere horror series of the eighties. Though it concentrated less on horror than on crowd-pleasing special effects and humor in its later sequels, the ELM STREET series was like a favorite pair of jeans -- something you could slip into and feel comfortable with no matter how torn up it got. But Hollywood never seems to learn the lesson that last summer's season of dud sequels brought home with a vengeance: that although audiences may not always be as discerning as we critics would like them to be, and though they may not always know quality when they see it, they certainly have no trouble perceiving a lack quality and effort, and they'll stay away in droves from films that don't at least make an honest attempt to entertain, if nothing else.
About the only people who might enjoy FREDDY'S DEAD are those who will see *anything at all* in 3-D -- the Phantom isn't sure whether the video release will also be in "FreddyVision"; on the other hand, given the bad word of mouth that this last ELM STREET film is generating, it's likely that we'll all find out quite soon.
: The Phantom
: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
: {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgart
.
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