A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

Directed by Stephen Hopkins. Starring Lisa Wilcox, Erika Anderson, Kelly Jo Minter, Joe Seely, Danny Hassel, Robert Englund, Beatrice Boepple, Whit Hertford, Nicholas Mele, Valorie Armstrong. [R]

Fifth entry in the franchise finds the heroine of the last outing (Wilcox) now pregnant with a baby that ol’ Freddy Krueger has designs on—cue the groan-inducing slew of taglines from the marketing department: “Freddy delivers,” “Now Freddy’s a Daddy, and he’s killing for two,” “It’s a Boy!” (the “best” one, however, pays no attention to the pregnancy angle: “Roll over Beethoven—it’s Freddy’s Fifth!”). Dumb, noisy, confusingly-plotted, and poorly-acted; simply put, Wilcox’s Alice is a far cry from the series’ past heroines (Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy and Patricia Arquette’s Kristen), so there’s no reason to care about anything that happens to her or that plot device fetus of hers. A few grotesquely elaborate design pieces and wonky camera tricks are no recompense for a non-threatening villain that delivers far more embarrassing puns than frights. It can’t even get the Freddy song right—those creepy jump-roping girls change up the lyrics! Spoils the franchise pattern, too, by being the exception to the rule that the uneven-numbered episodes are the decent ones. Followed by Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare.

38/100