What the HELL happened to A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 4 The Dream Master!!!

I grew up within a video store, and it gave me many great memories, it also introduced me to horror films and I love that. I’ve looked back several dozen times over the years and I keep coming back to two things that brought me to find those films. It was firstly the forbidden part of it. They weren’t kept in a back room like the adult stuff was. Which for those who never grew up with video stores but heard tales of, yes. Yes they used to rent porn in video stores, which was kept in a room separate from the rest of the store. Either with a saloon door or a curtain. Ours had a combination curtain and beaded curtain. That way they heard every person who entered and shouldn’t enter.

I never did.

Supposedly.

But I loved that when I found horror, it was a section my parents told me was full of scary films that I might not be ready for. Of course I felt I was, but what kept me there once the forbidden films rush past was the art work. I have a book full of old VHS scifi and horror film art because there is genuinely nothing cooler than that. They had very unique often illustrated box artwork and it always drew me in. That’s what got me to rent Hellraiser, and the original Nightmare on Elm Street. It was just such striking imagery and I felt I had to see it. Had no idea what the hell it was about but I had too.

One of the first horror films I remember seeing in theaters was with my mom and a cousin. I was obsessed with needing to see this movie and buy the power for it. Because of all the horror box art and posters I’d seen, this one was the most epic of all of them. It was A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 Dream Warriors. Next to the Japanese vhs art for Poltergeist 2, this movies poster and art still stand out as being epic and amazing to me. Even though I was familiar with the first Nightmare I didn’t recall much of the second one. But the third one cemented me into the series.

Ever since then I’ve loved these movies and funny enough remained one of those growing up that I never had to fight my parents about going to see in theaters because my mom loved them too! It’s one of the few horror films we’d watch together because she loved his dark humor and I did too. I have a lot of sincere love for this franchise and when they get it right, it makes me a happy boy. When they fumble it, I can still enjoy it. Until Wes Craven did what he did returning to the series. But then thankfully the remake came along and I found a new thing to shake my head at and ask myself why can’t they get it right. Why did they need to do this.

So of course I had to include this in the series.

It would have been far too easy to switch it up and leap into the Chainsaw Massacre franchise. But honestly? I wanted to cover, dive into, and critique the franchises I loved because I’ll happily admit they definitely got it wrong down the pipeline with a lot of these, and some it just happened without their choice or say so. So the chance to get into these movies and explore the same? Damn right I would.

It’s kind of funny but sad that so far of these franchises? Friday the 13th was the one sole franchise to get it right through 6 films before falling off. Though some can debate that, absolutely. There are some that would say Freddy didn’t drop off until part 6 Freddy’s Dead. Which is a fair argument. Some would say it was any and all films past that. Again I can see that. But for a lot of us, it started a backwards slide after 3. This repeats another trend we’ve seen so far with the other two franchises we covered where they seemed to finally nail the thing, made a stellar film and a lot of money. But instead of shooting up and out into the stratosphere. They decided to do something else entirely. With some success but a sincere dip in quality. Which is important I feel to always bring up with each films breakdown. Though the fans weren’t entirely pleased with some of these, that didn’t chance the cultural limelight that shined on these films, and no light shined more vibrantly and readily, than it did on Freddy and Jason. The royalty of horror. Even if Michael started this gangster shit, these two stole the show.

Especially Freddy.

So with that being said. We need to see what happens when you manage a third film that not only managed to bring in fans lost with the sequel and wanting better, not only landed a great writer(Frank Darabont), but was the horror equivalent of Star Trek’s Wrath of Khan. It was a box office success, a great breath of life into the franchise and brought in thousands of new fans.

Naturally a sequel was the only way to go from there, and oh jim boy did we get a sequel. For better or worse, and just like we’ve said with Halloween and Friday the 13th. They built up the fanbase, delivered high hopes and set the stage. And then the sequel came.

Part 4 The Dream Master

With the incredible success of Dream Warriors, New Line slammed down their wallets and demanded a sequel to follow it up immediately. No waiting, no thinking it out. Just get Robert in makeup and start filming so we can keep theater seats moist and keep this puppy pumping out nightmare bucks!

As we learned with past franchises thus far. This would be a disaster.

Normally.

To make it even better, the studio was demanding a cast in stone release time for the film. Much like sequels from Michael and Jason they faced the mad dash rush and problems of the writers strike in 88’. So this meant screaming at a writer to produce a script before the strike, or saying fuck it we’re writing while we film. Which would lead to disaster as we’ve learned in the past.

Normally.

This is a whirlwind of freddy style antics with the film being the final girl in the story.

Because believe it or not, whether you hate or like this followup, it was a massive success. There was no way it would be anything else but in all honesty. It’s a bit hard to imagine, again. But like I had said before, there was a time in this world where Freddy was treated like a pop star. Because he was. He was appearing in music videos, he released an album of Freddy songs, there was an 800 number I remember as a kid you could call during October to hear a spooky freddy message. He was on talk shows, MTV’s headbanger’s ball. He had a television show at one point, a Nintendo game, board game and toys. All of which I had growing up. Hell when this movie came out that following October I went as Freddy for Halloween. There are likely photos still out there of this. My red and green sweater, plastic glove hand and oatmeal paste looking face makeup.

Horror was on top of the world and people loved it, with Freddy standing as king. Because he had personality and people ate it up. Jason had his fans as did Michael, but very incredibly few icons got the status and fanbase as Freddy.

So again, normally when you rush to push out a film, Like Halloween learned, and Friday suffered. When you fight to push out a script and end up filming without a script. As both learned. It normally doesn’t lead to a grand standing good time. But Freddy was Freddy, and people wanted more of Freddy. And somehow they managed to pull it off despite bodies being dragged behind New Lines bullet train.

So for those unfamiliar, let’s dig into;

The story

With Freddy not only defeated, but his soul put to rest and body buried on consecrated ground within the city’s wrecking yard with stolen holy water and crosses. Somehow Freddy returned, much to the dismay of surviving dream warriors Joey, Kincaid, and dream Jesus herself Kristen, the last surviving Elm Street kids.

Our three heroes whom found their strength in themselves through dreams, including Joey who cured his muteness through fighting Freddy, are all out of the hospital and living their best lives in High School. Or trying while Kristen keeps dreaming of Freddy’s boiler room. Fearing his return which her friends remind her nightly that they kicked his ass and he isn’t coming back. Now of all ways for things to go tits up, no one. Not one soul. Could have imagined or ever thought they’d say to someone, that Freddy was reborn, given life and a path back to the dreamworld. Through flaming dog piss. Yes, the pissing pooch belong to Cincaid, named Jason. Nudge, nudge, wink, nudge, wink, wink. DO YOU GET IT?!!! Jason the dog, pisses on Freddy’s junkyard grave, igniting out the tip of his lipstick startling both cincaid AND the dog, unleashing once again onto the lives of all, a piss fueled Freddy.

Within the first few minutes of the movie ALL the surviving cast members from Part 3 we cheered for and hoped the best of, were slaughtered by Freddy, and only one of the deaths remains the most highly questionable WE, will be getting into that soon I assure you.

As Kristen is about to be punted into the land of forever sleep, Freddy reads from the script and instructs her to reach out and pull a new friend into her dreamworld. Because Freddy is about to run out of vengeance kills and will need new kids he can go after. Kristen pulls her newest bestie Alice into her dreams and becomes the target of Freddy’s antics. But Kristen isn’t going to let her dream abilities go to waste, she transfers her abilities to Alice and now she has dream abilities. I say abilities because there is more than meets the eye with Kristens abilities past what we were told about being able to drag others into dreams. We shall see more on this soon. With the last of the Elm Street brats dead, Alice is here to usher in a new era of bodies for Freddy. Having no idea what Kristen gave to her, she ends up bringing her own friends into the dreamworld, unaware how she’s doing it. It’s a fun concept and fucked up that she’s killing her friends without knowing how to control this and Freddy is just racking up the XP. Eventually Alice grows into a strong dreamer haver person  and comes to the very slow realization she has been getting shared XP from Freddie’s kills. Every friend of hers that gets killed off, she ends up benefiting from by gaining their strengths of character and likely their flaws. While she gains kung fu from one friend she ends up inheriting their erectile dysfunction as well. Gaining genius levels of intelligence and engineering from another friend, also gives her the debuff of peeing every time she laughs. Now granted it may suck knowing the person you are somewhat friends with will unwittingly drag you into a death dream. But worse then that is the knowledge when you DIE she will inherit your personality and strengths. I mean my sister would love killing me and leveling up. Granted. But for everyone else it’s not really a high on the list friend feature.

Just saying.

So with the power of kung fu, intelligence boost and raw bad bitch energy, while dealing with pissing herself when she laughs, odd erectile dysfunctions and crippling depression. Alice finds herself ready to fight Freddy. In a showdown of mehness that we have to all deal with. While fighting Freddy and realizing he just can’t stop, won’t stop Dream demon for life. She needs to go back to the drawing board. Remembering her earlier mumbled out ADR dream master rhyme. She uses the power of evil seeing its own reflection and being vanquished. How Freddy managed never to look at himself, though having used a room of mirrors in the last film to torment and attack the dream warriors well. We can only guess. But it’s enough to take down the Freddy and he is gone. Alice ends up with one major league hunk by the end of the film. Her alcoholic father is sobering up and all is right in the world, until we get a chuckle from Freddy and we know shit is about to go down again soon. Just not, now.

There were, some problems with the story, for some of us.

Firstly people weren’t entirely happy with having lost the three faces we followed and cheered on during the last film. They were only brought in to die so we could move on. It makes sense in the end. You have to do something with the last of the Elm Street kids, and as long as they’re alive. Freddy can’t move on with his life. It sucks sure, but it makes sense

People also didn’t understand just how powerful Kristen apparently was given her original ability of dragging people into her dreams was changed to give Alice powers to fight Freddy, which ultimately didn’t work well for her. But you needed an angle so, it makes sense. For all we know she had it within her the whole. But she didn’t.

Fans also were curious as to why Kristen looks incredibly different from what we saw in the last film. But they also wondered what was wrong with Alice’s voice because it was rather oddly, some would say famously dubbed over.

AND people wanted to know just how. How in this world we live in, that these people live in. Is no one questioning just what magic Joey was performing to have ended up dying, drowned inside his water bed.

The man’s mother finds him trapped inside his waterbed, staring up dead eyed at the ceiling. My family had waterbeds for all of us growing up. It was fun but hell on our backs. Those beds have a small plastic nozzle that fits an adapter fitted to a hose. How a grown man fit inside this and ended up into his bed? Honestly the mom should have began by applauding him for achieving an illusion on that level, despite it going horribly wrong. Or she figured her sons curios interest in transdimensional teleportation and occult magick finally got the better of him.

To be fair this is also the same world where Johnny Depp’s character was sucked into his own mattress and turned into a blood geyser.

These things remain points which, are fair-that people often sight for why they don’t care for this entry. While I have my own gripes about the film I still like it enough. Dream warriors as I said was the first I can recall seeing with my mom and cousin in theaters. I only remember bits and pieces of going and seeing it with them. But I grew up and remember very vividly each Freddy film after that our family went and saw. It was just at that magical time growing up. It holds a place with me and always will. But again, not what I’d call a great Freddy film, but still fun.

Thankfully this film had actual trouble and faults along its path that could have lead to a vastly different potentially worse outcome. Or for all we know better?

Funny enough most the gripes we all have with the film are directly from the challenges this film faced.

The story as we got it, was interesting enough but still puzzling to people. But trust me when I say we got off easy. New Line had a habit, despite his later comments to the contrary. The studio would go to Wes Craven asking for his ideas and input on sequel ideas. Pitches that could bring Freddy back and further the franchise. Much like Lucas with Disney. Disney didn’t listen to Lucas, for wrong reasons, while New Line didn’t listen to Craven, for very good reasons.

Craven, likely on his toilet eating a breakfast burrito squeezed out the great idea of. Time travel Freddy.

You might be asking. Such things as, how the fuck? Why the fuck? Who the fuck? Yes time travel Freddy was the brainchild of Wes Craven. He pitched the idea that, Freddy. Through the power of dreams. Could Quantum leap his way in the dreamworld into the past, where he could haunt people throughout the generations. He could kill Hitler in his dreamworld. He could terrorize Aristotle. Make the founding fathers add no dreaming to the constitution.

Fuck that noise. Freddy could travel back to the first Elm Street movie and stop Nancy from killing him. EVEN BETTER he could haunt and kill the parents that would burn him alive! Holy fuck think about that. Freddy killing children in the real world while dream Freddy kills suspicious parents hunting him down. I take it back. This is a great idea!

But the studio said Ha haaa go fuck yourself.

We’ll unfortunately never know what time antics time Freddy would have gotten into. Instead the studio went, a different direction.

The next attempt with Freddy was a bit more grounded in reality and didn’t break the recently re-established lore of part 3. This new story, nearly happened. But eventually got reshaped and rewritten into what we got. This was the story of Alice and her brother Rick. Which we already know from the movie. Only this time, the two siblings would be born at the same time wonder twins with psychic powers, linked twin abilities and dream powers.

The idea was that these two grew up a little different from everyone else. They share the twin ability of knowing what the other is thinking, controlling dreams. One farts the other feels the ripple in their butthole. One has periods, the other has cramps. You get the idea.

They would share these abilities but Rick would be the more dominant sibling, with all the cool friends and social circles, while Alice would be the quiet Anakin type screaming into her pillow how he’s holding her back. In this version of the film Freddy attacks and kills Rick, which immediately Alice feels and reacts too, violently. She would absorb her brothers abilities. His power levels and unlocking her own with him gone and no longer feeling held back, Freddy inadvertently unleashes a powerful being like none we’ve seen before. It would have lead to a physical and psychic battle unlike anything seen before with Freddy and Alice.

That legitimately would have been a cool movie. So why didn’t we get that?

Unfortunately the director felt it was too complicated a story to explain. It would take time and effects to explain the twins linked abilities and powers. So rewrites were the order of the day. The writers began retooling the story into what we got. A confident loving older brother, a shy unsure of herself younger sister, forced to find her inner strength with the death of her brother and friends.

It’s still essentially the same story but I can’t help but feel maybe it would’ve benefited with the wonder twin powers element. It would have explained a bit more of what happened with Alice and her abilities. The film still handled it fairly well, I’ll give it that, though it’s not the best story they could have used after the events of the 3rd one. Maybe save it for a part 5 or 6. But not a direct follow up. Having a massive hit and characters people genuinely liked and cared for, heading into a direct follow up. That’s what you run with. You have those three finish their story, one last round with a mad Freddy, then you enter Alice, her twin and a new threat to fight Freddy. Instead they shoe horned the survivors in so they could quickly kill them off and move on to Alice and her story.

So with dropping Craven’s wonderful time travel idea, going into power twins and settling on normal teenage siblings. We had our story. What was next, of course dealt with the other mystery people wondered about.

The vanishing of Kristen.

Again going with people loving the last group of survivors. You had to bring them back even if to kill them off. Nancy did it so we must continue it. That meant Kristen would lose her star status as Freddy destroyer and Alice take the Throne. Let’s call up Patricia Arquette and get her busy with dying!

Sergio Leone had a similar moment while making Once Upon A Time in the West. He had to make one more western and when he decided on this. He wanted to introduce Charlese Bronson’s character the Harmonica man by having him kill at a train station, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Elli Wallach. He would kill his Dollars trilogy stars in his final western. These three men declined that invitation.

Patricia declined her offer. Not for the same reason as these three big names. But because like other actors learn and agents tell them, horror is safe. It’s a starting point that can open doors for you to find other, better projects. She was rising up the ranks and was wanting to move on after Dream Warriors into bigger roles. Nothing wrong stepping away from where you started and it often does lead to bigger and better things. Rather famously Marina Sirtis known for Counselor Deanna Troi in Star Trek The Next Generation. She had her start in Canon films of, varying degrees of shit. She was thankful for Star Trek rescuing her from that and no one could blame her. Same goes for Patricia. She left with good graces. To be fair I am glad she made the decision not to become a scream queen. That’s still something I struggle with being a thing. Patricia is a fine actress, but her scream makes me believe meta humans do exist among us and that her scream exploded a few brains on set and New Line spent a lot covering those ‘accidents’ on set.

Seriously the woman is a siren, if I go missing, you’ll know I was right.

So recasting wands waved and we moved on. We had the cast, we had our story and we had a script.

Did I make a typo earlier in mentioning writing on the fly while filming, when they actually did have a finished script? No. No mistake.

They fought as did Halloween and Friday the 13th too get their script pinned before the writers strike. They did manage that by an almost literal final minute. They had a basic script to go by. Usually on a set once your script is done. It still changes. You write additional dialog or change dialog. You may have to redo entire scenes, and in the case of horror, you need to write out your kills. Just like Pornos.

I’m not even joking it’s actually fun to know this.

In adult films, or pornos if you must. Be it from the golden age of adult cinema or the few films done today with plot(yes, plot) A writer turns in a roughly 25 page or so story which introduces the characters, sets up their scene, dialog and then insert place holders that can simply say “Sex scene” or “Actor and Actress have sex”. Then once filming begins and they get to the sex. They begin working out the specifics of the shot and what they want in it. Horror is done in the same manor where you have the introduction. The scene setup, dialog and then a placeholder for each kill. So once they get to it they can discuss what will happen, how it will be filmed. They write out each kill, talk with the effects team, setup the scene and go from there.

So the movie had a script yes. But as Hector Barbosa said, it’s more like a guideline. So we had a Freddy script introducing characters, setting up some scenes to lead us to our 2nd and 3rd act. But no dream sequences or subsequent kills.

With all writers having laid down their word processors and picking up signs for striking, this left the film with three minds to go through a daily on set routine. These brave souls were the director Renny Harlin, production executive Michael De Luca and producer Rachel Talalay. Whom daily mind you, would have to gather and brainstorm. All while filming mind you, the following.

Daily dialog for one. The actors like in our other franchises often didn’t have finished scripts for their scenes. The ended up actually letting the cast ad-lib lines during scenes as they felt that might make it feel more natural and realistic.

For complicated dream sequences that felt impossible to put on paper, they would circle up and tell their storyboard artist a loose concept for the scene and let him plan them out. I like that because it’s close to Avatar Legend of Kora, in having someone shout at you “DO THE THING!” and them well, doing the thing.  But it worked somehow.

Which happened a lot with this film. There were some fully fleshed out scenes, and a handful of dream sequences. But they couldn’t use them. Partly because of the budget they had not allowing them to film huge set pieces and build what would be needed for them. The other part was the fact that CGI was not readily available back then. It was still a tool for the very wealthy so it wasn’t as common to see. This is also why during the Freddy Kung Fu scene we didn’t actually SEE Freddy doing any fighting. With everything they originally had scripted for that sequence as Rick’s death was a main story beat and needed to be scripted initially. They couldn’t film it. So the whole thing was rewritten and Freddy became invisible. Why invisible?

Well, That leads into other challenges these three had to face on top of the script writing.

As we talked about, New Line was shoving this film as hard and fast as they could to get it in theaters. They told them exactly when to have it out and they meant it. That meant the time taken to work on a script they could film with, and coming up with the missing and new dream sequences. While the rest of production was moving . One hand didn’t know what the other was doing. To help combat this quickly falling apart production. The three minds doing the writing began setting about salvaging this train skidding on and off the rails.

They took their power ranger medallions and separated into three units.

Firstly we had the director. He would handle anything involving the main cast and dialogue scenes. His task would be to run through the writing of those scenes as quickly as possible, film the main cast with those scenes and get them moving out as soon as possible, head off to their deaths and get the fuck on to the next step.

Secondly we had our effects team working none stop. If you imagine a montage of one person sleeping while another toils away, waking up the sleeping partner and switches over to napping while the other continues the work? That’s about it. Because CGI was not on the table, every sequence in the dreamworld had to be planned out practically and that also meant testing to make sure it’d actually work. Given they had no time for that. This meant the moment Renny Had the sequences written, they were given these designs, and had to make mad dashes to create them and make it happen. That meant coming up with how to do and make work the pizza of souls, and eventually an unholy huge nearly life threatening 20ft tall Freddy. They blueprinted it, created it, filmed it now move on to the next part!

Next would be the final stages that didn’t need any of the  main players. The stunt work for each sequence, insert shots and transitions. Simple enough yes?

Now, with this in mind. This is how life while filming worked for you, the actor.

You go to the director, who is scribbling out on legal note pads scenes for you. If you ask him whats on the menu for you today? He either threw out pages or handed you huge storyboards from the artist and growled out this was your scene before writing out for everyone else and point you over to the camera. You film your scene and hand the storyboards Rennie gave you over to Rachel Talalay. She thrust you onto her mad max style motorcycle and rushes you over to the Effects unit. You had them the storyboard, they beg for food and water, this is paid upon delivery of your dream sequence. They quickly bring you over, film your death and wait to be fed. Once fed you are then black bagged and driven over to the later unit of stunts and insert shots where afterward you are given a slap on the back and the door slammed with your ass out the studio door. This was handled by De Luca. The man watching the storm of these units working, shooting, building, shooting, and fighting and shooting.

This filmset was absolute chaos and Mad Max is the best way to put it. Each unit was a world unto its own. They never spoke directly to one another just worked on the loose believe you were where you needed to be and did what was needed. If an actor wasn’t available? The show goes on, insert stunt unit and carry on. If the movie felt rushed and no time was given to rest between deaths? That’d be the reason.

Which was itself another issue these three had to deal with. Because we wouldn’t have Patricia returning as Kristen, they didn’t have a replacement on hand. This took time and on a bullet train that wasn’t stopping. That meant changes had to be made. Again If it sounds familiar, it is. Jason and Michael were watching drinking coffee thankful it wasn’t them this time. The eventual casting of a new Kristen did not happen until the absolute last minute. That meant with the film still being filmed. They had to do additional rewrites. What originally was meant to be a passing of the torch in much the same way Nancy did with Kristen in the last film, was now going to be a rushed job. This is why her two friends are killed off so quickly and why the only real shots we get of Kristen are one establishing her friendship with Alice, her fight with her mom and the famous beach dream sequence.

It would have felt less jarring to fans who complained about her and the others being killed off so quickly had they gone with what was originally intended. But alas. When the studio says do the thing you. Well yes. Do the thing.

Add to all this the fact they had a very thin budget which was quickly dwindling. It meant other sequences couldn’t be filmed. Like for instance the Freddy Kung Fu fight. With three units working independently and still somehow together. Their titular villain was being pulled every which way a dozen times a day. Between makeup, dream kills, visual effects shots and stunt work. He wasn’t always there for the other shots, more notably in this instance the dream kill. So instead of waiting for him to be available, Because again we gotta make that deadline. They simply settled on Rick kicking air, taking fake punches, and Freddy’s glove flying into his gut.

Which also change the story drastically as well! They meant for Rick to have more screen time and a bit more build up but. No time, no script. Move along.

All of this ended up making the film feel like a bundled mass blob of quick cuts, scenes that come and go with little effect and one quick kill after the other with little build up. It was far from ideal let alone functional.

And

Even then!

We still had two more boss fights! Because what would a world of chaos like this be. Without the studio stepping its toes into the waters.

The studio knew, as Moustafa Akkad did, and Paramount had with Jason. That they had a cash cow on their hands. They also knew what people liked from part 3.

Freddy was fun now and still wicked. He’s far removed from the monster who  would cut his fingers off in front of you and make you scared to think what he’d do to you if he’d do that to himself. So the studio wanted more of what people liked. They put out a mandate to the production. Make Robert Funny.

No scares, no horror. Make the man funny. That’s why we got Freddy in Sunglasses, the Greetings from Hell postcard, and Freddy eating soul food among other highlights. So no scares and no horror.

This also worked hand in hand with their second mandate for the film. Making the kills look cartoonish. Stylized music video like sequences that would appeal to younger people. They were ditching the grit and grime and marketing the film for the MTV generation. These changes were also why his makeup changed a third time from looking charred and torn, to part two looking more fresh and pulpy. To what later became known as pepperoni face. Larger pink scars vs raw burnt patches. A marketable Kreuger is a friendlier looking Kreuger.

The funny part of all this, is the  gore.

Because this film needed someone balancing a house of cards on top of an on fire trembling bullet train. They had to factor in the 2nd core of Freddy. The gore in his kills.

Now given what we have in the film. The most stand out scene we really have has to be the bug transformation. It’s pretty up there on the visual gross out scale and you can tell the effects team had a lot of fun with that. That scene passed studio inspection because it was gross, it was cool, but most importantly being in line with the new Freddy, it wasn’t bloody. If you thought there wasn’t that much blood in the movie? You are right, there isn’t. Originally however? They were making offerings to the blood god daily. For instance Kristens exit from the film, was changed from her charbroiled ending. Originally she was going to meet her fate on the sunny beach. And not nicely.

The effects team made a prosthetic chest they were rather proud of for the actress. Freddy would chase her down pin her and begin taring her apart. We’re talking guts flinging, tit flesh flying in chunks and blood everywhere. Blood for the blood god!

Kincaid’s death was also changed. In the film he gets stabbed and embraced by Freddy, which is still pretty great. But originally Freddy grabs him from behind and rams his gloved hand through his chest. Another fountain of blood and gore.

Even the cockroach transformation for Debbie was changed. That actually did include a good deal of blood as well. They drew it out and wanted something more on par with the painful, agonizing transformation from An American Werewolf in London.

Freddy also tormented Alice a lot more. There was a dream sequence filmed where Alice sees her father being kind hearted and happy for a change. No longer the drunk argumentative parent from earlier. She feels happy with his, only for Freddy to burst through the wall like the Kool-aid creature(That is NOT a man) and slams her dads head through a wall. You’d think that would make the cut but apparently Robert did so with a ‘lot’ of anger and it came off way too intense.

They even filmed a huge, and expensive set where Kristen was standing outside her home, only to see the entire house split down the middle, crumble and reveal Freddy’s home. The effects crew spent three weeks and a lot of pennies making this.

All of these were cut and changed. Dramatically. Both by the studio and their demand for a funnier Freddy, and, or old familiar friend the MPAA

Oh yes. This was during their prime 1988 was not safe for any horror film. Pop icon or not. All these original deaths were cut

This is why Kincaid got a polite stiletto stab in the belly and woke with tiny pools of red on his chest. Why Kristen got a nice bath in the flames instead of her tits cut off, and why bug lady got smothered in slime vs blood.

First the studio and their mandates made cuts. The house splitting apart? The dads head through the wall? That was the studio. They wanted to move on past Kristen and get into Alice who was the new heroine. So they fucked over Kristen to move on. Same with the kitchen sequence. That was cut as well for pacing. They wanted things to move along, and again. Funny Freddy, not menacing Freddy.

The rest fell solely at the feet of the MPAA. Which resulted in further script changes and into reshoots. On top of further chopping up scenes and appearing more like sequences.

Again that Simpsons line pops back up. “Stop it, he’s already dead!”

But they would never stop. Not for several more years.

Just when you thought the movie would be released? The studio had to let test audiences take a look. Which lead to a new ending as well. On top of everything else.

Remember, the studio who demanded. Not asked for or suggested.  But actually flat out demanded a release date set in stone. Causing the chaos that was this films production. Still felt they had the time to meddle in it, right down to the wire.

Also imagine not being happy with the product you forced through and make everyone lose their minds trying to piece together literally every fucking day. Go figure.

The original ending had a bit more of a happier, cheesier tone. It featured a special rig built by the effects crew where once Freddy was gone. We’d see the heavenly spirit orbs of the Elm Street kids and Alice’s friends floating off to the great beyond, everyone thanking her as they did and Freddy would lay on the ground twitching, shriveling into a husk as more and more of his life energy souls fled his body. Freddy was tormented, in pain and souls were clawing free. Eventually the husk of Freddy turned to dust. Leaving his glove and hat behind.

Audiences laughed apparently at this and, this was fun to find out. They didn’t find it scary. Well the studio didn’t give a shit about the last part. But they did care about the spirit orbs looking comical so. The ending was changed out and what we got was the vastly edited down and reshot ending. This is why Freddy’s ending moments look so disjointed. Because they were! It’s almost a travesty but a great wonder at the same time. In concept and from how the cast and crew described it. This sounds horrific and cool. So just how bad were the spirit orbs that this had to be cut out? Honestly it very nearly mirrors what later happens to Freddy in the follow up to this. So there was obviously an idea there. But it apparently either was ahead of its time, or really did look that bad. Given the ending we got? It really is close to this and even that is still..I mean it’s awesome seeing Freddy struggling as the souls fight back. They tare the mans body apart. We also had some sweet rockin soul tits in there. The body rig they built was massive and also had its own set of issues. But the ending does convey near the same. They worked in bits of what they had while shooting more and. I mean again. I’d love seeing what that looked like, but alas.

But after all this. The apocalyptic filming camps. Cast changes, constant writing and changes to the film. It was given its final rating and blessed by both the studio and the MPAA, released onto the world making its targeted release date.

All of this on TOP of a little lawsuit against Will Smith for releasing a song they intended to have used in the movie he wrote for, only to have the deal fall through and him releasing it anyway.

Somehow, despite everything. The film was a massive success.

Mirroring Jason and Michael, this films budget was in the single digits at around $6 nearly $7 million. It ended up making a killing in the box office taking in very nearly $50 million. It was just a few shy of that settling in at $49.3 million.

Just for context? That was the highest gross of all the Nightmare films and stayed that way until Freddy Vs Jason, 15 years later.

Audiences and critics mirrored each other. You had critics who loved it and the new turn for Freddy, you had new and young fans who absolutely loved it for the same reason. Funny pop Freddy, kick ass music and a soundtrack you could pick up at Tower Records. Then you had the critics who found is cheesy and over the top, and the fans who missed scary Freddy. They didn’t like dream comedian Freddy or his antics. They didn’t like the terror free nightmares and wanted scary.

It’s hard writing Scary without wanting to immediately type of Scary Terry. If you know, you know.

This film was the height of Freddy popularity. Of course it was going to get a sequel for sure now, and Robert would continue making the circle of appearances and being the awesome man he still is. The film signaled the changing of the guard and would serve as the beginning of the divide for fans. Something we’re all a lot more used to now, but back then was still something new. Honestly at the time you could compare it to Star Wars fans who declared Empire Strikes back as the best Star Wars films and hated Return of the Jedi  for the Ewoks and humor, where other fans felt Return of the Jedi was the best in the saga and offered a great closure to the trilogy.

Simpler times man. Simpler times.

Today this sequel still stands much as it did when it came out. Most love it, Others hate it. But both camps agree the effects work that came out of this was amazing for the time and something some effects classes still study, rightfully so.

The movie and how you perceived it at the time also in large part depended on the Freddy factor. When you came into the franchise and when Freddy solidified for you as a figure. For me it was Dream Warriors as I remember it having the biggest impact on me growing up. I’ve had friends who had the same effect but with part 4 and they defend The Dream Master as being the pinnacle of the series. The high water mark. While the rest of us believe that falls on everything they got right with Dream Warriors.

The fact we can still debate where it stands overall in the franchise and people still love it despite or because of the drastic shifts in tone and Freddy overall is itself a conversation. But the fact this film even finished, let alone came out as good as it did given everything it suffered through. That’s really something. And again both Freddy and Jason went through the same baptism of fire. But they also had their high point of resurrection when given time and care. The fact Freddy managed that with Dream Warriors, and reinvented himself to start status in the follow up instead of moderate success and is also something. Everyone fumbles the ball after their high point. But Freddy managed to break the box office. Holding off the downfall for at least a little longer.

In the end this film, while divisive and definitive. What nearly derailed it and cost us Freddy. Was the same thing that gave us the Freddy we all know now. The studio.

Without their insane rush, staff working without a writer let alone a clue what was going on, The heavy edits and demands by the studio. We would have a very different film. But would it had been better? No idea. You could say it likely would have been. But as it is, What the hell happened to Freddy was the direct result of what does, has, and still can happen in Hollywood where from the panicked fired of chaos and uncontrolled anarchy, can come gold. Despite their near killing of the film. They managed to make bank and lead the series into its new heroine, and new Freddy. But would the same success follow in the next film? I mean…if your drunk enough, anything can look good to someone.

That being said, we have more Freddy to look forward too. We also have more ADR’d Alice to look forward too. Seriously why was she dubbed? If we had a literal siren screeching at us, she couldn’t have been that bad. Right?