Alice, having
survived the previous installment of the Nightmare series, finds the deadly
dreams of Freddy Krueger starting once again. This time, the taunting murderer
is striking through the sleeping mind of Alice's unborn child. His intention
is to be "born again" into the real world. The only one who can stop Freddy
is his dead mother, but can Alice free her spirit in time to save her own
son?
This movie seems to be a draft of what it should have been which I believe
is a direct result of the rushed sloppy nature I get from this film. It
was written, made and released within less than a year of the previous
sequel. This movie retains allot of darkness and puts Freddy (visually
anyway) in the shadows like in the first 3 films. However it is all under
blown and distorted when he gives out his unnecessary one liners. They
just didn't work in this film as it retained a strong gothic style. There
wasn't much room for practical jokes... so just when you were getting into
the dark mood of the film Freddy would say something rather dumb and break
it. He was his own worst enemy in this sequel which does lack but is still
very enjoyable, especially to a monster Nightmare on Elm Street fanatic like myself. Storywise it is very interesting but their are many
missed opportunities, again... a direct result of this films rushed nature.
It's less on quality and more on quantity. There was a big opportunity
to create an eerie threatening image of Freddy once again, him praying
and abusing an unborn child's dreams to his advantage. It takes his original
concept from killing teenagers in their dreams to a even darker level...
but unfortunately, no. He isn't very threatening in this film and appears
to be more like a comic book villain. He even says "goochy goochy goo"
towards the end of the film which makes me cringe and I'm sure Wes Craven
wouldn't have been very happy with that.
Throughout the movie, especially the scenes filmed at night, there seem
to be a blue filter which cleverly undertones the child-like innocence
about this movie. It is a representative color of a young boy, baby blue.
Freddy is mainly shown in darkness and shadows and there is some strong
gothic imagery. Gargoyles, churches, church art, and the simple fact that
a lot of scenes are filmed at night. I like the characters which helps
a lot as Freddy was a bit of a let down in this movie. They have enough
onscreen time each to make me care for them. Some interesting mythology
throughout the films undertones of the deaths of each character are hinted,
but very cleverly done. Greta being treated like a doll by her mom and
her herself having a collection of dolls, online to shock-to-death and
get smashed to the floor like a doll herself by Freddy.
This movie also dives into a bit of Christian mythology. This film isn't
dark enough for an errie horror movie (like the original) but isn't bright
enough in color for a superior horror with stylish hints of comedy which
leaves it floating around... if this movie wasn't so rushed then who knows.
The climax of the movie is very weak, so simply there is enough good about
this movie to keep you watching even for non-fans but is one of the weaker
entries to the series. Alice is wonderful as always... some nice imagery
and its nostalgia to the late 80's early 90's. I don't think Yvonne was
very representative of the era. The "black grounded trendy girl" spouting
out lines ending with "girl" and looking like she belonged in a music video.
She was a pleasant supporting character and a nice advisory to Alice. To
be honest I don't think Gretta looked like she would be friends with Marc,
Alice, Yvonne and Dan... so she's a bit out of place. Some interesting
FX work and imaginative deaths. But through the movie Freddy always takes
his presence one step further to break much positive thoughts.
It's fun, dark, but tainted. It has style but don't expect a superior horror
movie.
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- The
evil laugh heard, as the end credits begin to roll, is taken from Vincent
Price's performance on Michael Jackson's landmark 1982 pop classic, "Thriller".
- Both horror author Stephen King and comic book writer Frank Miller were offered the job of writing and directing this movie.
- One
portion of the film was made to be viewed with 3D glasses.
- When Alice wakes up from her nightmare in the asylum, and Robert Englund appears beside her in bed and pins her down, originally he said, "There's no such thing as safe sex." The line was excised from the film.
- The graduation sequence was cut down significantly to speed up the pacing of the film. As a result, there are several continuity errors. Among the cut footage was Dan's graduation speech, dialogue between Greta and Racine, a rap between Yvonne, Alice, and Greta, additional dialogue about parents and future plans, and a scene in which Alice's father gives her a camera she had been saving up for as a graduation present before she went to Paris (if you watch closely, you can see Alice hand her father a camera before they go to take the group picture).
- Lisa Wilcox's name appears on the opening credits, but not on the ending credits.
- Hopkins was given 4 weeks to shot and 4 more weeks to edit the film. This mean that he had to shot on one stage while they dressed the other, so they could shot almost continually. After he made it, the studio was impressed and gave Hopkins Predator 2.
- The
bike that attacks Dan is a Yamaha V-Max 1200.
"School's out, Krueger" was a replacement line when a minor wasn't permitted to say "Fuck you, Krueger".
- One
aspect of the movie that the film makers regretted was not having a larger
body count. After the film was released they realized that that's one of
the
reasons the series was so popular.
- While
filming the climactic ending, a heat wave went through California pushing
105 degrees. The candy glass that the crew was using for windows melted
all over the warehouse floor. That particular day they filmed a candy glass
scene for 21 hours. By the time they were finished the melted sugar was
over 1 ft. thick. The crew said they smelled like a carnival threw up on
them.
- The
license plate on Dan's motorcycle spells FREDDY.
     
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