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

... aka: Freddy 5: L'héritier du rêve (Freddy 5: Heir to the Throne)

... aka: Freddys sidste mareridt (Freddy's Last Nightmare)

... aka: Nightmare 5 - Il mito (Nightmare 5: The Myth)

... aka: Nightmare on Elm Street 5 - Das Trauma (Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Trauma)

... aka: Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, A

Directed by:

Stephen Hopkins

The raging success of the Elm Street series couldn't last forever. The first four films were all huge box office hits, with each installment grossing more than the last. Things hit their zenith in 1988 with THE DREAM MASTER, which became a Top 20 box office draw by year's end. Soon after, Freddy received his own syndicated TV series, enabling fans to watch him every single week. For free. This easy access to the popular dream slayer combined with market over-saturation, including endless silly Elm Street merchandise, led to consumer exhaustion by the time part 5 hit theaters in the summer of 1989. It also didn't help that this particular entry was notably different than the two previous films in both tone and execution. Sure, we still get plenty of the terrible one-liners, but this is still darker, drearier, more serious and less "fun" in the traditional sense. Director Hopkins was dead set on making a gloomy, more Gothic-style horror film as opposed to a colorful, comedic slasher, and that's precisely what he did here. However, that change didn't sit well with series fans and helped contribute to The Dream Child falling far short of audience and box office expectations. And by far short, I mean to the tune of nearly 30 million dollars. That's quite a fall from grace in just one year!

In a 1990 interview with Fangoria, the director stated that he was content with the product that he initially delivered to the studio, but that interference from both New Line and the MPAA (who forced them to cut down some of the violence to secure an R rating) ruined the final film and now he considers it "a complete embarrassment." In the 2010 Never Sleep Again retrospective documentary, various cast and crew members bemoaned endless script rewrites and basically admitted they just started making things up as they went along. Co-writer John Skipp claimed they "liposuctioned all of the soul and intelligence out of the story" and producer Robert Shaye wrote off the whole affair as "arguably lame."

Reception of the film, both then and now, and from fans and critics alike, pretty much align with cast and crew assessment. To date, this is the second lowest-grossing of the entire franchise. It's also the third lowest-rated Elm Street film on Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd and the second lowest rated Elm Street film on IMDb, which puts it right there at the bottom with the dreadful Freddy's Dead and awful 2010 remake. Have you actually ever met anyone who thinks The Dream Child is the best Elm Street film? I mean, I guess it's possible, I just never have.

Lisa Wilcox, with a more attractive look and somewhat improved acting skills, reprises her role as Alice Johnson. In the previous film, Alice started out as a shy, mousy pushover with a since-recovered alcoholic father (Nicholas Mele) but, thanks to her special ability to acquire standout qualities from her deceased peers, emerged as an ass-kicking dream realm heroine. Alice was able to acquire enough skills to put an end to Freddy's reign of terror for the time being and snagged football jock Dan (Danny Hassel) as a boyfriend in the process.

Now Alice and Dan have moved on with their lives and just graduated from Springwood High. She's still working at the diner and not entirely sure what she's going to do with herself while he's eyeing football scholarships. The two have a new (and much smaller) clique of friends, including candy striper / diver Yvonne (Kelly Jo Minter), aspiring model Greta (Erika Anderson) and comic book nerd Mark (Joe Seely), and have also consummated their relationship. Which, ya know, who cares, right? I wouldn't either except for the fact this directly factors into the plot and they've decided to show us all that during the opening credits of the film as if we wouldn't be able to put two and two together ourselves.

Alice begins to suspect something sinister is afoot when the nightmares suddenly start all over again. She first dreams about nun Amanda Krueger (Beatrice Boepple), starting with her getting locked in a nuthouse overnight where she's gang raped by a hundred loons, followed by the eventual birth of the baby conceived in said rape. Only this isn't a normal infant but instead a little IT'S ALIVE-style evil demon baby. The creature goes into a cathedral, where Freddy (Robert Englund) is reborn. The catch? Alice doesn't even have to be asleep to encounter Freddy now. It's as if something, or someone, is able to pull her in.

Dan becomes Freddy's first victim, when he causes him to crash his truck after making him envision a motorcycle he's driving rips off all of his flesh. Alice then learns she's pregnant with Dan's child. She's visited in the hospital by a young boy named Jacob (Whitby Hertford), who turns out to be the child Alice's fetus has the potential of growing up to be. However, it's soon discovered that Freddy is using Jacob's dreams (?) as a way to lure unsuspecting victims to their doom so he can then feed the souls of the victims to the fetus (?!) in an effort to be reborn. Why he needs to be, or would even want to be, a mortal human again when he can already slaughter countless people in the relative safety of a nightmare world has me scratching my head. Yes, this is convoluted. Yes, this is all just a silly and desperate gimmick to keep the series going. Yes, this is all dumb as hell. And, yes, I feel dumber for having to even type all this nonsense out.

Some of the worst plot points from DREAM WARRIORS get recycled, with the ghost of Freddy's dead nun mama heavily factoring into the proceedings. According to local legend, she went crazy after giving birth, was committed to an asylum and hung herself. In reality, she was likely murdered by Freddy. For some reason, a bogus funeral was held after she died and her funeral plot was left empty, while her actual remains were hidden somewhere else. Alice suspects she'll have to find those remains in the now-abandoned asylum and give the nun a proper Christian burial on consecrated ground in order to stop Freddy. Blah blah blah.

The film does seem like it's trying to say a few things about teen pregnancy... I just can't figure out WHAT exactly. Adoption and abortion are both given as options, but our heroine isn't the least bit interested. Instead, she insists on keeping the baby come hell or high water. However, in the context of this film, that turns out to be an appallingly selfish decision. Keeping the baby means she's willing to sacrifice the lives of others in the process. Innocent people die as a direct result and she doesn't seem to really care all that much about it. In fact, at one point she even flat out says that SHE has nothing to worry about. Since Freddy is mostly invested in her fetus, he can't kill her, after all. As for the reasoning behind her decision... Well, Alice "saw him inside of me growing," while getting an ultrasound. That's it. Not sure that justifies letting a psycho have a go at everyone you know, but hey.

Hilariously, the pregnancy content is so muddled and poorly thought out that the film was condemned both by Pro Life and Pro Choice camps. According to the AFI Catalogue: "The movie's opening at Mann's National Theater in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, CA, was protested by both the National Coalition on Television Violence and the Alliance for Survival over its violent content, as reported in the 12 Aug 1989 LAHExam. Although the film had yet to be screened for the general public, the groups based their protests on past violence in the series and from a press release and promotional advertisement they claimed showed the character "Freddy" possessing the mind of an unborn child to hurt the mother. The film also brought the ire of several "pro-choice" groups which claimed the movie was "anti-abortion propaganda." Carol Lieberman, a University of California psychologist, claimed the film was arguing that a woman should never abort her fetus even if it means death and destruction to herself and the people around her."

Nearly all of the pluses here are primarily things money can buy. Dream Child had a healthy enough budget (8 million dollars [equivalent to around 17 million today]) to afford top notch special effects artists and production designers so at least the whole thing looks polished and it has some pretty impressive make-up and visual effects, including some cool stop motion work from Doug Beswick, a character doing battle with "Super Freddy" (Michael Bailey Smith) in a black-and-white comic book world, KNB gore make-ups like a victim being force-fed to death and an M. C. Escher-inspired finale. Unfortunately, that's not enough to really make up for the all the other areas where this film fails. Visualizing things discussed in previous entries feels cheap, lazy and redundant and the whole film feels lifeless and bland, which is matched with the rather dreary visual look, resulting in a film that's neither fun nor scary.

There were two soundtrack albums; one with Jay Ferguson's score released by Varèse Sarabande and a second featuring both heavy metal and rap songs, which was released by Jive. The song "Bring Your Daughter... to the Slaughter" by Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, which won the Razzie Award for Worst Original Song, was a surprise #1 hit in the UK. There were also tie-in music videos for Whodini's "Any Way I Gotta Swing It" (which was also an extra tacked onto the end of the original Media VHS release) and Romeo's Daughter's "Heaven in the Backseat."

★1/2

Las vampiras (1969)

... aka: She Vampires, The

... aka: Vampires, The

... aka: Vampire Girls, The

Directed by:

Federico Curiel

Reduced to acting for the likes of Al Adamson, David L. Hewitt, Ted V. Mikels and Coleman Francis in a number of God awful films in the mid-to-late 60s, John Carradine essentially said "Fuck this!" and went down to Mexico to try his luck there. And, well, he basically ended up starring in a bunch of junk there, too, but at least this junk was a bit more fun, had slightly higher production values and was a change of pace. Plus he was always prominently billed and probably treated like the big star he was. While these films may have expanded his international appeal a bit, they don't appear to have done much for his Hollywood career since he was back acting for some of the same hacks when he returned to America. To my knowledge, none of the Carradine Mexican films ever received an official English-language release. Some did play in U.S. theaters, though; distributed by companies like Azteca Films and Columbia Pictures, but in their original Spanish language forms only. And Carradine, who did not speak Spanish, was always dubbed.

Carradine's Mexican output started with playing Satan in the ghost comedy Autopsia de un fantasma / "Autopsy of a Ghost" (1968), which also featured Cameron Mitchell and Basil Rathbone (in his final role), and the very interesting surreal short subject Los chicles / CHEWING GUM (1968), which was originally meant for a larger aborted project. He continued the following year playing a Nazi mad doctor in Enigma de muerte / "Secret of Death" (1969; also directed by Curiel), another mad doctor hoping to restore a formerly-beautiful woman's scarred face in MADAME DEATH (1969) and, you guessed it, yet another mad doctor, this time working on a youth serum, in Pacto diabólico / "Diabolical Pact" (1969). His fourth 1969 Mexi-horror, Las vampiras, at least didn't cast him as a mad doctor for the fourth time in a row, but instead as the temporarily deposed King of a vampire clan.

Carradine opens the film playing himself in an amusing, though brief, to-the-camera monologue explaining to us the ties between bloodsucking and Satanism and claiming that Edgar Allan Poe himself believed that vampires existed (which I highly doubt!) and thus so should we!

We then meet up with wrestling star Mil Máscaras (aka The Man of 1,000 Masks aka The Man Who Goes Through More Wardrobe Changes in a Single Film Than Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra) as he flies into town in his monogrammed airplane and then goes to an arena for a wrestling match against "Black Man" (he's black in case you were wondering) that lasts over 5 minutes. While driving through the country later that night, Mil and his personal assistant (Manuel Garay) witness a car accident. They find no one inside the wreckage, but a bunch of bats fly out as soon as they open the door. Later, "Black Man" disappears before a scheduled re-match and, again, bats are spotted flying out of his dressing room. Our hero begins to suspect that vampires are responsible and, since this is titled Las vampiras, he would be correct. Meanwhile, another bat witness, private eye Carlos Mayer (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.), hits the TV news to let the public know he saw bats emerging from a stolen Transylvanian airplane that recently landed in Mexico, but he's laughed out of the studio by the host.

After helping him do some research, Mil's secretary Alicia is found dead in her home; drained of blood and with fang wounds on her neck. The policemen on the case scoff at Mil's suggestion she was killed by a vampire. The wrestler then teams up with Carlos to investigate. The two start by checking out the Omega Cemetery, which is a breeding ground for all things evil because it was built by (gasp!) atheists and contains no crosses or religion doodads. They encounter more bats when they break into the tomb of Veria, the Countess of Alucard, who's been buried there since the 17th Century.

Now revived, Veria (María Duval) has taken up with a slew of other mujeres vampiro led by Aura (Marta Romero). Representing the Transylvanian sect of vamps are Badja, Cripta and Xenia, while Aludia, Boza and Zuedla are the Mexican reps. They all wear green, full body spandex bodysuits with wings and stand around flapping their arms up and down. The vamp chicks are all pissed off because nearly all of their ancestors have been wiped out by vampire hunters. Now there are no vampire men left... Well, except for one: Count Branos Alucard (Carradine). Though he was once "Supreme King of the Vampires," Branos is now elderly, half-senile, impotent and almost powerless due to a previous attack that left an oak splinted permanently lodged in his brain (?!) Due to his weakened state and psychological problems, he must be locked up in a cage. At least that's the story power-mad Aura is trying to sell everyone.

What's really going on is a struggle for power between Aura, who now proclaims herself "Queen of the Vampires" and Branos, who is merely faking his madness to trick her. Right now, Aura's got the upper hand since he's locked up and she can starve him and keep him weak. Branos claims he'd be just fine to lead them if only he could get a little blood. Caught between the two but more sympathetic to Branos, Veria orders a "Satan's Trial," which involves a dance of the vampire girls ritual as they leap around, spin in circles and flap their wings, which is hilarious but, to be fair, also fairly well-done as they at least hired real dancers to perform it instead of making the actresses do it. The rite concludes with Veria and Aura having to duel with torches, which unfortunately gets interrupted by more pressing matters. The girls are forced to temporarily put their grievances behind them for the good of their species.

Aura's wants to enslave men and find only the most athletic, courageous and intelligent men to transform into vampires to help them repopulate. Mil Máscaras and Carlos become targets because they were already spotted in Veria's crypt, which also puts a target on the back of Carlos' girlfriend Marian (Maura Monti). The vampires eventually acquire a posse of obedient muscle men, who are infected with some kind of virus that makes them brainless but gives them the ability to function as slaves for hundreds of years.

There's a booby-trapped room with a giant mace, a bunch of string bat attacks, a Vaseline-smeared nightmare sequence, lots of unflattering cone bras, boring scenes of a police lieutenant (Dagoberto Rodríguez) snooping around, a "tournament" where Mil and Carlos have to face off against armed warriors to prove themselves, fantastic opening credits featuring cut-outs of beautiful women's faces and blood-dripping letters and Carradine facing the indignity of trying to threateningly rise from a frilly, tasseled pink and purple coffin. The finale is weak and unexciting, but there's plenty of good dumb fun to be had before then.

I'm not aware of a single official home video release for this title, not even in Mexico. If you stumble across a DVD or DVD-R release, it's a bootleg. The version I happened to watch was recorded off Univision affiliate KMEX Channel 34 out of Los Angeles.

★★