FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE (1991)

cult horror

By Glenn Buttkus on July 26, 2014 • ( 1 Comment )

 

    FREDDY’S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE (1991)

aka A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 6: The Dream Lover

SLASH’S SHITFACED SATURDAY

Hey, how are you demented Kruegerites doing? It is already time to saddle up, gird our loins, and check out Part VI of the NIGHTMARE franchise, so let’s get to it.

It is with several cups of sadness though, that I must report that we have stumbled into the TURD SEQUEL; I swear it’s like the producers did not have a clue, so they found an old pair of Wes Craven’s underwear, after he had been so disappointed in the way these greedy Indie assholes had treated the series, that he shit himself & left his fecal-laced underwear on the producer’s desk. They scraped the shit out, ironed it into several screenplays, then (gee whiz) they hired a female director to helm this sorry sack of feces (something they probably regretted, since they never hired another woman to direct again).

I hardly know where to begin. First of all there is no carry over from ANOES 5, no fucking connection or mention about Alice Johnson, or her son, or her friend Yvonne; breaking the first commandment in horror series mandates;

Thou shalt not allow any swinging dicks or nasty snatches or pee-soaked infants that may have survived a previous movie in the franchise to fucking stay alive; they must be fucking destroyed.

Fact is that Wunderkind Peter Jackson was hired to write the first screenplay; in his script Freddy was aging & growing weaker while imprisoned in the Dreamworld. The surviving teens of Springwood, Ohio would have drug-fueled slumber parties for kicks, (probably including sex, nudity, & some banging rock-&-roll)–& the kids would all enter the Dreamworld together and gang-fuck and kick Freddy’s ass. The draft was never used; too bad, this concept had possibilities.

Enter Michael Almereyda with his screenplay, & my humble opinion, he had his shit together; did his research, made the logical connections to ANOES 5, slash-dotted his fucking “i”s, & took care of business; Jacob Johnson, now 16, the son of Alice from 5, was a major character in this draft. Alice, now in her 30’s, was killed by Freddy. Then he had Joey, Taryn, & Kincaid, all killed in 1987 in ANOES 3; Dream Warriors, return here in 6 as the Dream Police–Taryn was the “Blade Cop”, Joey was the “Sound Cop”, & Kincaid was the “Power Cop”. Now this was some savvy writing!

Director Rachel Taladay, appearing to be fucking clueless, stated that she “disliked the original script immensily”, & applauded Michael De Luca, one of the damn producers on ANOES 6, who wrote a “replacement script”, saying that De Luca had “saved the day”–& De Luca, drenched in bull shit humility stated, “Frankly, I was surprised when they didn’t ask me to write the script in the first place, since I was the one that did a last-minute rewrite on ANOES 5,” This is a perfect example of a Producer being both delusional & forcing his Director to kiss his butt in public.

This film was her feature movie debut, but she’s managed to stay active in the Bizz since then. She has directed 50 film projects since 1991, did GHOST IN THE MACHINE (1993), & TANK GIRL (1995), before spending the rest of her directing career working in Television.

Declan Quinn did the cinematography, directing 53 films since 1989; ANOES 6 was his second feature film; others included THE BALLAD OF LITTLE JO  (1993), VANYA ON 42ND STREET (1994), KUMA SUTRA; A TALE OF LOVE (1996), MONSOON WEDDING (2001), COLD CREEK MANOR (2003), & RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (2008).

The musical score was done by Australian rocker Brian May. He wrote 47 scores since 1967, including MAD MAX (1979), ROAD GAMES (1981), THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981), MISSING IN ACTION 2 (1985), & STEEL DAWN (1987). 

So what we ended up with was a mish-mashed screenplay that never knew what it’s POV was, a comedy bordering on a Road Runner cartoon, a bone fide Slasher film in which nubile maidens & svelte pretty boys could get their innards spread all over the floor and the camera lens, a morality tale, an absurd but surrealistic look at nightmares & their impact on the “modern” field of Psychiatry? Alas, it touched on all these, but clearly never became any of them.

They did assume that by doing some Star Cameos that they could put some lipstick on the Piggish Boar; but of course, they fucked that up too.

 

Johnny Depp made his triumphant return to the series as a TV Host spouting some poorly written copy,

 

listed in the credits as the Guy on TV.

 

Alice Cooper showed up for a couple of minutes as teen age Freddy’s Stepfather, wearing a slovenly ball cap, looking like a Gomer Pyle reject, a fucking wimp that would have been mugged in Mayberry–taking his belt off & administering a whipping which looked about as real as watching Liberace bitch-slap one of his companions with a feather duster.

 

Tom Arnold & Roseanne Barr (so fat at this juncture she looked a lot scarier than Freddy) showed up to do a stupid scene at the Springwood Annual Fair, something about being childless, & wanting to take one of the teen agers home with them;

dialogue so lame, it never would have made it into a sketch on the Comedy Channel at 3 a.m. on the fucking Thursday.

 

Yaphet Koto had a regular part as Doc, and to his credit he did struggle to make a purse out of a sow’s sphincter.

 

Executive producer Robert Shaye played a Crypt Keeper ticket seller who wore a Freddy glove with all the finesse of a 10 year old reciting a speech from HAMLET.

FREDDY’S BABE GALLERY

Lisa Zane played the lead, Maggie Burroughs.

 

She provided us with a couple of hazy small titty-shots in a previous film.

In one of the other films she was in, she did a Lesbo scene with Heather Graham;

which may be a cheap shot, but it gives us a chance to include a fab tit-shot from Heather to brighten the gallery, right?

Lezlie Deane played tough bitch Tracy.

She was nice enough to provide us with several wholesome tit-shots.

Thank-you Ms. Deane.

Stella Hall played the Stewardess, & all I could find for her was a nice cheesecake sexy public appearance shot.

Believe it or not, TV veteran star Elinor Donahue had one film where she actually, OMG, showed herself in a bra; so here it is, folks.

OK, let’s try & trudge through the actual synopis; set like 10 years after the conclusion of ANOES 5, it was announced that Freddy Kreuger had managed to kill every teen ager in Springwood, Ohio, all except one, who is missing & might be, could be, Freddy’s actual not adopted son.

We meet John Doe, once of Springwood, in a dream; he’s in an airliner (shown as a matte plastic model, looking as cheesy as the F/X of the B movies of the 40’s) sitting by a window–it is stormy, rainy with lightning, & he is terrified, peering out the window out onto the wing. He does this about 5 times, aping that wonderful scene in a Twilight Zone episode (first done by William Shatner on TV, then John Lithgow in the movie) where a monster appears on the wing & only the one passenger can see him–but fuck no, after this tease, Freddy never appears. He begs to be put in another seat, is told to shut up & is called a pussy; which he was.

His seat drops through the bottom of the plane; he wakes up in a bed, in a room, in a house in Springwood, across the street from 1428 Elm St., the Thompson House with the pristine red door. He runs barefoot down the street, comes to the city limits (we know this because we see the Welcome to Springwood sign.

He meets the ticket seller, who warns him not to miss the bus, which shows up going 90 m.p.h. driven by Freddy, that smashes into John Doe, who simply hangs on to the wiper blades until Freddy brakes & he is tossed into another cartoon version of Springwood. Freddy gets out of the bus and says Be a good little dog & go fetch! Go fetch what, assholes, more teens, the morning paper, a leg bone from an old Kreuger kill, what?

He is picked up by some cops doing a Tootie & Muldune routine from CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU? & is transported to a Youth Shelter, (we are not told that this place is not in Springwood, but it must be nearby we figure out later)–where we meet the next line up of disposable teen age victims, Spencer, a drug addict who suffers from parental abuse,

Carlos, a hispanic gang banger wannabe who wears a hearing aid secondary to parental & compeer abuse, Tracy, a troubled girl suffering from sexual abuse from her actual father, who practices kung fu 10 hours a day–all under the care & supervision of Maggie, a social worker with a heart (played by Lisa Zane, who was 30 but looked 40, having been ridden hard for 20 years herself). She may have been flat-chested, with bags under her dark eyes, but she was a fucking terrible actress to boot; stinking up every scene she contaminated.

OK, to continue with the horse shit plot parading as tapioca pudding, Maggie decides to take John Doe back to Springwood to see if this jogs his memory (oh yeah, after his opening scene nightmare he had convenient amnesia). Maggie herself, in a scene with Doc, admits she is having nightmares, but refuses “dream therapy” from Doc, who substitutes as a kung fu instructor for Tracy a lot of the time; though he never shows us any fucking moves of his own.

Carlos, Tracy, & Spencer have stowed away in the Shelter’s van, but Maggie doesn’t notice them until they get to the Springwood Fair, in which all the remaining residents wander around apparently completely insane. This was a scene that could have been super Surreal, but the director totally missed the boat with it, presenting us with a cheesy set, idiotic dialogue, & illogical plot.

Maggie sends the escapees back to the Shelter in the van; oh sure, they were completely trustworthy, right? & how the fuck was Maggie & John Doe supposed to get back to the Shelter? We have the very lame plot device of the teenagers driving in a time loop, not being able to escape the city, imprisoned by a invisible force.

Maggie & John visit the old Springwood High School & somehow they stumble onto data showing that the real Freddy Kreuger had his child taken away from him after the murders (was that when he got out of prison on that technicality but before the Elm Street parents cornered him and burned him alive?)

Who the fuck knows, or cares? But the teenagers in the van are exhausted, so they abandon it and slip into a vacant house (which happened to be 1428 Elm St., of course).

As they hunt for beds to sack out in, even though it is only about noon, each one, of course, finds a separate room. We all know the mantra, fall asleep and meet up with Freddy, then do the blade bogey.

Carlos falls asleep first, wakes up in his old neighborhood. His mother comes in, verbally abuses him, then turns into Freddy & attacks him, cruelly cutting off his ear & taking his hearing aid. Freddy then replaces it with a super amplifier that makes Carlos cringe at every little sound. Freddy conjures up a chalkboard, & as Carlos pleads with him,  he rubs his blades noisily over the chalkboard, making Carlos’ head explode .

Spencer found a couch with a broken TV in front of it; as he begins to doze off this is where we get the fab J. Depp cameo as the TV guy. Meanwhile Maggie & John D. visit an orphanage where the bughouse Matron, played by a skanky Elinor Donahue (who was on FATHER KNOWS BEST for those of us that are older than fucking dirt, & can remember that)–she seems to recognize John D., but then not, leaving us with more doubt.

Now fuck, let’s see, Tracy is restless, so she split & went after Maggie & John, & the trio hiked back to the Thompson House–but OMG, too late, for blond pony- tailed Spencer, is asleep, midst nightmare video game where his abusive father is the super villain. John & Tracy enter his dream in a pathetic attempt to save him;  Maggie does not seem to have the ability to enter dreams.

But, of course, it is too fucking late, & Spencer is tossed into a ten mile deep hellish pit; & wallah, scratch teen #2. Tracy exits the dream, but she & Maggie cannot awaken John–so they do the honorable thing & run off & leave him, hoping to escape themselves, but they are stopped at the city limits, & they witness Johnny dropping out of the dream sky & landing on a bed of spikes; empaled (with little to no gore, real cheesy effects), as he was dying his last words were “it’s not a boy” ; no shit, a fact that we as viewers had figured out a half an hour before as Maggie’s dreams revealed that she was little Amanda Kreuger playing in the back yard with a normal- looking Freddy as Pop.

So Maggie & Tracy return to the Shelter (in the piece of shit van I guess, somehow bursting through the invisible force, right?) only to find that the other employees at the Shelter have no memory of the slain boys, & no records of them. Maggie sits down with Doc, & figures out that she needs to go to sleep at some point & confront Freddy herself–but before she does this, Tracy, obviously exhausted by the trauma of that day, finally falls asleep herself; she meets her fat, hairy, greasy father, wearing a beer-stained wife-beater over his big gut, as he puts his arms around her, licks her face, & demands some Daddy Sugar; nobody has to know. 

Tracy breaks his grip & kicks him in the face, when, you guessed it, he turns into Freddy. They have a lame kung fu fight, & she seems to be hurting him (but he is in denial, like the black knight in MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL, who has had his arms & legs cut off yet still wants to fight ) but in desperation she puts her hands over a hot stove to burn them, thus waking up.

So Tracy & Doc arm Maggie with axes, knives, lead pipes & such, to ready her to confront Freddy in her next dream. Doc has had his own encounter with Freddy, & he tore off a piece of his sweater, bringing it back into the “real world”, so their plan (like several others in previous films in the series, is to hang onto Freddy, and be awakened by friends so that Freddy could be killed for real in the Real World; Jesus, can’t they come up with something more original that that tired fucking beat down dog?

Now this is where it gets cute; Doc insists that she wear a pair of 3D glasses in order to “see better” in the dream–& be able to access Freddy’s actual memories; this being the clue for the forewarned  audience to put on their  3D glasses; so the last 15 minutes of the film is in sucky-ass 3D;

New Line Cinema’s first foray into this, & they should have used those funds to buy a better script, and better actors. I watched it in fabulous 2D, & believe me I didn’t miss a fucking thing.

Oh man, now Maggie enters the Dreamworld, & she enters Freddy’s memories immediately. She sees him as a 10 year old, being bullied by his classmates for being the bastard son of a 100 maniacs, then sees him as a teenager being whipped by his dorky stepfather. Then she enters her own dream memories, finds herself as the 5 year old Amanda in the backyard with the normal-looking Freddy, where he confirms her identity, then strangles her mother in front of her for ratting him out as a child murderer–he thanks her for being his conduit to reach outside the confines of Springwood, to have access to fresh teens, like the ones she just brought him, stating that “Every town has an Elm Street in it!”  

Maggie quits fucking around & jumps his shit; the wrestling match that ensues is lame beyond belief, stage combat reduced to the level of a THREE STOOGES 1945 short comedy.  I must also state there are a ton of close-ups for Freddy in this combat encounter, & it becomes painfully obvious that Robert Englund has tired of 3 hour make-up sessions, & has opted to wear a rubber mask; one that looks as phony as a Halloween mask sold at the fucking Dollar Store.

She somehow holds him down, & Doc/Tracy wake her up; but poof, no Freddy, fake rubber mask or otherwise. Tracy makes sure Maggie has all the real weapons for the last combat. Maggie finds Freddy, looking all normal, but still in costume while looking like the real Robert Englund (who has spent several scenes looking like himself).

Freddy is lying in a heap in the corner, whimpering, begging for forgiveness; but as Maggie draws near, Psyche, he changes back into regular Freddy.

Maggie throws ninja stars, hunting knives, and axes at Freddy, pinning him to the wall, shooting him with a cross bow for good measure. As he struggles to pull out all of the weapons, Tracy tosses Maggie a lit stick of dynamite, which she plunges into his chest in a hole left from an extracted butcher knife, while Maggie, Tracy & Doc, run out of the room, letting Freddy explode into a million evil pieces; the sixth death scene, but obviously not the last.

Maggie takes off the 3D glasses, while she, Tracy, & Doc all High Five each other & shit, smugly smiling as she says: Freddy’s Dead.

Roll the end credits over a lame-ass Rock song about Freddy, only slightly superior to the super lame-assed Rap songs that have closed the last two films.  Well, Freddy is dead, again, & so is my butt after suffering through this absolute piece of Chihuahua shit.

Rotten Tomatoes rates the film at 20% Critic’s Approval with only 34% of Audience Approval.

POSITIVE REVIEWS:

VARIETY wrote: “Sixth & final edition in the Nightmare on Elm Street feature series delivers enough violence, black humor, & even a final reel in 3D to hit pay-dirt with horror starved audiences.”

Janet Maslin of the NEW YORK TIMES wrote: “The Elm Street films have always been a cut above the competition, so to speak, with their playfully malevolent dream sequences & their mocking ever-resourceful villain.”

NEGATIVE REVIEWS:

Steve Newton of GEORGIA STRAITS wrote:”Freddy Krueger’s 3D death is about as lame as the rest of this crummy flick; the 6th & supposedly the last in the often imaginative but ultimately numbing Nightmare on Elm Street series.”

Kim Newton of EMPIRE MAGAZINE wrote: “The one interesting idea–what would a town be like if all the teenagers had been slaughtered in five movies?–is just thrown away with a few cheap jokes.”

MY RATING:

As you are very aware by this point, I found this entry in the Nightmare saga to be held together with bubble gum & dog shit. The shoddy illogical stupid script left no wiggling room for the gaggle of amateur actors & veterans alike to make anything valuable out of it. A possum run over 100 times, lying alongside the road, partially submerged in gross sewer run-off, pecked to pieces by crows & gulls, can not become an entree at a Road Kill Diner or a decent companion for an hour & a half. This putrid piece of hairy lumpy camel dung does not a good movie make.

I still am pissed off at the rubber Freddy Halloween mask Robert Englund wore for the whole film–does he think that we, as viewers, are fucking idiots, or that we have not seen the five films preceding this lame three-legged bitch with ticks, fleas, & mange? Plus the “babes” in this turkey are mostly flat- chested bad actresses that could not do a convincing performance in a third rate porno movie, or the sleeper section of an 18-wheeler parked at Howard’s Truck Stop just outside of Bumfuck, Ohio.

Really, folks, this opus came off as a Wayans’ brothers dip-shit comedic parody, a SCARY MOVIE : Prototype; where Keenan, Damon, & Marlon all wear white-face make-up, cross dress as the “hot bitches”, & a stoned hyper Robin Williams played Freddy–coming off like a Willy Wonka wet dream that even Will Ferrell or Ben Stiller would have refused to participate in.

So on the scale of 10 big time golden stars on the HH celluloid spectrum, this puss-dripping dead-on-arrival piss- poor excuse for an Indie horror flick gets a whopping 1.7 stars; & that’s being fucking charitable.

 

Categories: cult horror, Don't even bother, If you're already drunk, Indie horror, Shithoused Saturdays, There isn't enough liquor in the world, titties, Torture porn

Tagged as: 90s horror, a nightmare on elm street, ANOES 6, boobies, boobs, cult horror, Freddy's Dead, horror review, review