Just when Alice thought that she had destroyed Freddy Krueger forever (in one of his best screen deaths ever), Mr. Pizza Face comes back with a vengeance. "Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" is a weak, patched-together effort by director Stephen Hopkins, but it is also the most interesting of the Elm Street efforts.
The powerful protagonist who gave Freddy a good fight in "The Dream Master," Alice (played by Lisa Wilcox), is now graduating from high school. She is dealing with a typical reality in any teenage girl's life: she's pregnant by her boyfriend, Danny (Danny Hassel). Of course, she doesn't realize this until she unsuspectingly resurrects Freddy by dreaming of his mother being raped by a thousand mental patients (including one played by Robert Englund!). In one heart stopping moment, we see the burned Freddy fetus emerging from his mother's bloody womb, proclaiming in typical jokey fashion, "It's a boy!"
The rest of the movie consists of Alice fending off Freddy's invasion of her unborn baby, and there are some brief, hilarious nightmares involving three of Alice's friends. The best one involves a comic book artist who enters one of his own comic book worlds, where he fights Super Freddy!
Despite its flaws and its apparent rushed, disorganized look, "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5" does concern itself with certain teenage problems, such as pregnancy and abortion - unusual for what's essentially a slasher film. There is also a lot less of the jocose Freddy, and more of a nicely modulated performance by Lisa Wilcox; she restores whatever dignity the series warrants. "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5" is mediocre in many ways, but it is has some fun and thrilling moments. There are some bizarre, Lynchian special-effects.
For more reviews, check out JERRY AT THE MOVIES at http://buffs.moviething.com/buffs/faust/
E-mail me with any questions, comments or complaints at jerry@movieluver.com or at Faust667@aol.com
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