Movie Review #50: Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

 

I had to do something somewhat special for my 50th movie review, so I decided that I had to discuss a Nightmare on Elm Street movie which somehow I had not done up to this point. I don't know who my favorite horror icon of the 1980s would be if you asked me today but when I was a kid it was Freddy Kreuger for the simple reason of he scared the fucking shit out of me. I was fine from Jason. He only killed people in Camp Crystal Lake and also Space and New York. I was never going to go to any of those places! I was fine with Leatherface because well they lived in Texas and I didn't even know where Texas was when I was 10 years old! Freddy however would get you in  your dreams and no matter how hard you tried you had to go to sleep sometimes. Scared the HELL out of me and I loved it. 

I will always hold a special place in my heart for those movies for that exact reason. They all scared the hell out of me, except New Nightmare. I didn't get any of that meta shit when I was like 10 and I still don't like that movie. The rest of them for all of their flaws I still enjoy watching today, not really scared of them but still can't get enough of them. I choose Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare because well I've been doing this "watch the most disliked movies in each popular franchise and review them for you fine people" for this Halloween for some reason. Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare is one of the most disliked Nightmare On Elm Street movies and I don't understand why. I think it's pretty good actually.

So the set up is this, 10 years from 1991, so 2001, Freddy Kreuger has killed every teenager and child in Springwood except for one, John Doe, he sends him off to help him find his daughter (John doesn't know this but still) and well he does and several other teens find their way to Elm Street too. Freddy Kreuger finally finds his daughter (whoops spoiler) and uses some new powers he's gotten for this movie to escape Springwood and go to a teen rescue shelter. It's up to Yaphet Kotto, this feisty chick named Tracy and Maggie (who is also Freddy's daughter!!!!) to take him down for good!

So here are the big things I like about this movie. I really enjoy for the most part all of the characters. Spencer is a fun drug user type character. Carlos is fun. Tracy is great. The interactions between all three of them are tons of fun. I enjoy Yaphet Kotto but to be fair I would enjoy that mumbly black man in anything. Period. Lisa Zane really should have been as popular as her brother Billy. She did voice the SHE HULK in the 1990s Incredible Hulk cartoon so that is pretty awesome!! Everyone does a fine job of acting. Except John Doe. This guy just seems out of it for the entire movie, like he's on more drugs than Spencer (did you know he played Jon Arbuckle in the Bill Murray Garfield movie? I thought you should know about that). Plus the character is a weird blank slate that isn't much fun to watch. He's a drag on the whole thing really (although some of the Nightmares hes in have funny moments like an old lady who tells him "Don't be a pussy" after he says hes afraid of heights.) When it comes to the characters and acting  well Robert Englund is clearly having the time of his life as Freddy Kreuger, doesn't matter if he's being scary or a big crazy murder clown. the man LOVES doing this.

Another problem I have with this movie is that I wish they had given Freddy a different death in this movie. They already used the "Let's bring him into the real world!" thing in the first movie. Didn't feel right just redoing for the last one. I guess I'm just a little picky. Anyway I don't know where else to mention this but Spencer plays a Tiger Electrionics Handheld and I just gotta say that Tiger Games sucked ass so badly. It was like a shitty game boy and we all knew it. Just give me $20 instead of that Tiger Handheld mom! Uh... yeah. I think this review is over.

FINAL VERDICT: I enjoy this film quite a bit. It's still a very enjoyable motion picture and I'm always up for watching it. I think to be fair that these days everyone shits on the remake (rightfully so) but I don't want to talk about that movie so I'm going to pretend it's 2002 and people are shitting on this movie so that making this blog post makes more sense.