A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master movie poster
Directed by	Renny Harlin
Produced by	Robert Shaye
Written by	Wes Craven (characters) William Kotzwinkle Brian Helgeland Jim Wheat Ken Wheat
Starring	Tuesday Knight Ken Sagoes Lisa Wilcox Robert Englund
Music by	John Easdale Craig Safan
Cinematography	Steven Fierberg
Editing by	Michael N. Knue Jack Turner Chuck Weiss
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	August 19, 1988
Running time	99 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Preceded by	A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Followed by	A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is the fourth film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. It was released in 1988. The film was directed by Renny Harlin.

[edit] Plot summary

Kristen (Tuesday Knight, who replaced Patricia Arquette), Joey (Rodney Eastman), and Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), have been released from Westin Hills and are now living normal lives and attending high school. Kristen has managed to make some new friends -Alice (Lisa Wilcox), a young, bright girl who is a frequent daydreamer, Sheila, a brainy, quiet girl with asthma (Toy Newkirk), and Debbie (Brooke Theiss), a tough girl, but hates bugs. She has also found herself a boyfriend, Rick, who happens to be Alice's brother.

Kristen begins to have bad dreams and feels as though Freddy has once again come back from the dead. During one of her nightmares, she pulls Kincaid and Joey into her dream. In school the next day, Kincaid and Joey confront Kristen about pulling them into the dream.

As it turns out, Freddy is indeed back. Kincaid wakes up one night, only to find himself locked in the trunk of an old junked car. When he opens the hood, he realizes that he is in a salvage yard - the same one that Freddy's body was buried in. Kincaid spies his dog, Jason, digging and urinating in the ground nearby. The ground begins to shake and the plot where Freddy lies begins to sink deeper into the ground and open up. Inside the grave, the bones begin to grow flesh. As soon as Freddy is resurrected, a pile of junked cars comes crashing down on him. Freddy quickly recoups and kills Kincaid. A little later, as Joey is watching television, he begins to feel something moving beneath his waterbed. When he pulls back the sheets he finds a woman swimming in his bed. Before he can react, Freddy bursts through and kills him.

The following day at school, Kristen is concerned when her friends fail to show up for class. At home that night, her mother gives her a sedative to help her sleep. When Kristen falls asleep this time, on Alice's advice, she tries to convert nightmares into pleasant dreams, to no avail. Even in her good dreams, Freddy appears and ruins everything. Kristen eventually finds herself in Freddy's boiler room. It is explained that Kristen is the last child from Elm Street, and Freddy needs her help to get more children. When Freddy is about to kill her, she screams for Alice. Alice appears suddenly in the boiler room just as Krueger kills Kristen. Before Kristen dies, she sends her power, the power to pull people into her dreams, to Alice. Before the power can reach her, it passes through Freddy first, taking a part of him with it.

As Alice tries to understand what has happened, and who exactly Freddy is, her friends begin to die. First, Sheila and Rick are killed. While taking a test, Alice accidentally pulls Sheila into a dream where Freddy is waiting; the same thing happens to Rick later. After his death, Alice teams up with Dan Jordan (Danny Hassel), who was one of Rick's closest friends. Together with Dan, Alice tries to get to Debbie, their last surviving friend, before Freddy finds her. Unbeknownst to the two teens, Freddy is able to control their movements. Trapping Alice and Dan, Freddy is able to reach Debbie and kill her before Alice and Dan intervene.

Following a car accident, where Dan is injured and rushed to the hospital, Alice returns home to prepare for one final battle with Freddy. Alice goes to sleep to help Dan before Freddy can kill him. As Alice and Dan search for Freddy, the doctors wake Dan and he is pulled from the dreamworld. Alice, facing Freddy alone, attempts to use all of her abilities against him. Nothing seems to work. It isn't until she is reminded of the final verse of a children's rhyme about the "Dream Master" that she is finally able to defeat Freddy, by making him see the evil that is inside. Alice releases the tortured souls that Freddy imprisoned. Krueger's clothes fall lifelessly to the floor. The film ends with Dan and Alice at a fountain some time later. She tosses a coin in and makes a wish. As she and Dan depart, she decides to keep the wish to herself as Freddy's image appears in the ripples left in the fountain from the tossed coin.

[edit] Trivia

In addition to the gravestones seen for characters Kristen Parker and Roland Kincaid, markers can be seen in the background for Donald Thompson and Nancy Thompson, John Saxon and Heather Langenkamp's characters, respectively, who were killed in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

[edit] External link

• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at the Internet Movie Database
• A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at The Nightmare On Elm Street Companion