tdrish
I say no to this awful, gut wrenching trash. I was more confused then anything, and the more you watch, the more confusing it is. The movie doesn't make any damn sense. First, and foremost, I want to point out that Freddy is already dead before the movie even begins. At least, going by logic, he is suppose to be. Stay with me. In A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, we learn that Freddy is using the dead souls of the kids to not only stay alive, but to become stronger as he goes. At the end of A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, all souls that were living inside Freddy are released, leaving Freddy completely soulless, and therefore....dead, I mean, that is how they got rid of him. He's dead! In A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, he finds life through the soul of the unborn child of the dream master ( the new dream master, the old dream master passed away in Part 4 ). He finds life enhanced through three new victims, but at the end of Part 5, when the Dream Child turns against Freddy, those souls too are ripped free from him, leaving him....soulless, so he is once again, dead. Okay? With me, so far? He's dead! So! Fast forward to The Final Nightmare, which offers absolutely no explanation how Freddy is back to life. The film opens up in a very bizarre manner, if you ask me. We start the movie out with a whack job of a teen on a plane, the plane starts acting funny, you think its going to crash, and let's just say some weird sh*t goes down more then the plane does. One victim is ripped through the ceiling of the plane, leaving this teen screaming "It's not fair! I was almost out!". Huh? What's not fair? Almost out of what? What the hell just happened, what the hell is going on? Now, as if that's not confusing enough, we find him ripped downward through the floor of the plane, and he's falling faster then Kmarts stock market to the ground. Okay! He's clearly having a nightmare, so he wakes up...only to find his house is flying, and Freddy is flying outside his window, in Wicked Witch Of The West form, saying: "I'll get you, my pretty. And your little soul, too." Okay! Time out for some questions. It's clear Freddy is after a soul, so what the hell is keeping him alive in the meantime, what soul is he using? And is this dipsh*t still sleeping, or is this all really happening? And who the ( BURP!) wrote this script!? It seems like everything was written at a nine year old level. Okay! So he's awake. At least, we think so. Now he's rolling off a hill. He's still rolling off a hill. He's doing some more rolling. Still rolling. Credits are still rolling, he's still rolling....what the...mother flipping hell...the credits are still going, I feel like I've been watching this for a half hour! Okay, he's stopped rolling. Now he's being hit by a bus. Guess who's driving? Yeah, and now he's found by a couple of police officers outside a town he's not even from. So, he's not sleeping, this is all real? WHICH PART!? If he got hit by the bus, he'd clearly be dead, that's what happens to the kids who die in their sleep in the Elm Street franchise, are you cancelling out everything that we were taught? WOW! So now, we got some new kids to kill off...even though the last of the Elm Street kids were all killed off, meaning these kids have absolutely no connection to Freddys demented vendetta, but, oh well...let's kill them off anyway, right? And they die in some strange ways! One victim finds his hearing aid enlarged, exploding his head like a watermelon. Another victim dies while Freddy is playing a video game. ( I joke you not!!) And why is blood coming out of a TV set, was that ever explained? And why are these kids breaking into an abandoned house they don't live in, to get some sleep? Isn't sleep what they all try to avoid, you know, to stay alive? AND HOW IS THIS HOUSE STILL GETTING POWER, IF IT'S ABANDONED? Somebody needs to start forking up some answers. I haven't had this many questions since I went to church last. And, of all things, this movie boasts "They saved the best for last." PFFT! Everyone knows the original is the best. To say the least, The Final Nightmare was a total sh*t splat, by the time it was finally all over, I was even asking myself questions about previous Elm Street films that I thought didn't have any questions to begin with. And, as if the movie wasn't confusing enough, we have a discovery that is made. Freddy had a child. Ummm...who would f*ck this guy? Never mind! I'm done. 4 out of 10 stars. Suck it, Final Nightmare.
TheLittleSongbird
The original 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' is still to me one of the scariest and best horror films there is, as well as a truly great film in its own right and introduced us to one of the genre's most iconic villains in Freddy Krueger. It is always difficult to do a sequel that lives up to a film as good as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' let alone one to be on the same level.As far as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' sequels go, there are good ones such as 'The Dream Master' (number 4) and especially 'Dream Warriors' (number 3) but also disappointing ones with 'The Dream Child (number 5) and this 'The Final Nightmare' (the second film 'Freddy's Revenge' was also underwhelming but not as much as 5 and 6). Very little to recommend, with the only good things being Robert Englund doing his conscientious and freaky best and the haunting music.While a little better-looking than the fifth film, being not as crude and self-indulgent, the suitably nightmarish at times production design is wasted by the film looking drab and dreary and it can look sloppy. The 3D looks cheap and was truly pointless. Like the previous film, erratically paced (both rushed and tedious), ridiculous and non-atmospheric story with scares that are unimaginatively derivative, too far and between and vapidly tame on the whole. It lacks any kind of originality and is all very ho-hum.Englund aside, the acting is both bland and annoying. The cameos from Rosanne Barr, Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper were just as unnecessary as the 3D and are neither interesting or funny. Like the fifth film though, the cast have to work with an awkwardly clunky script and irritating characters that are written childishly and make decisions that frustrate. Even the humour doesn't work, Freddy's one-liners are more stale and toe-curlingly groan-worthy than twisted or witty and what was darkly comic before is replaced by an overload of cheese. The direction is largely unimaginative, while there is far too much of an over-reliance on gimmicks (none fresh or clever) and the ending is one of the lamest and most tacked on there is in horror.Overall, an incredibly tired entry and suggestive that the series is dead. 2/10 Bethany Cox
MaximumMadness
Released in 1991, "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" was one of the last big franchise slasher-flicks to be released in the first half of the 90's, and it definitely was a sign of things to come for the following years- being one of those movies that signaled the downfall of the once prosperous sub-genre of horror. Despite slasher films gaining an immense and thriving popularity throughout the 1980's, by the time the decade ended box office numbers had started to drop drastically, and movie-goers became increasingly apathetic towards seeing teens and 20-somethings being butchered on screen. And despite the "Nightmare on Elm Street" saga beginning with a trio of genuinely well-made films that had a lot of imagination and style, the series was quickly losing steam. By the time part five was released in 1989, it was becoming clear the franchise didn't have much time left, and it was decided that the the sixth film was going to be the "final chapter"...Directed by franchise co-producer Rachel Talalay, "Freddy's Dead" is an odd and occasionally intriguing bit of madness that tries its hardest to tie the entire series together and wrap it up with a nice, clean bow... but it's so tonally confused and so immensely bizarre in its execution that comes across more as a messy bit of self-parody than the climax of a long-running franchise. It's a film of trendy gimmicks and in-your-face visuals geared at the "Mtv generation", and feels at odds against the rest of the series. More focused on misplaced gags, bizarrely kinetic camera-work and a messy 3D climax than delivering a satisfying conclusion to the story of Freddy Krueger, "Freddy's Dead" is a contrived cartoon of a climax that fails to satisfying.In the far-off "future" of 1999, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) has succeeded in killing almost every single child in the town Springwood, Ohio- save for his final victim, a young man who manages to escape his grasp but suffers a head injury and the accustomed accompanying amnesia films like this like to throw in. Whisked away to a clinic for troubled and abandoned teens, "John Doe" (Shon Greenblatt) joins a ragtag group of troublemakers under the care of Dr. Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane), whom decides to help him cure his amnesia by bringing him home... Upon arrival, all begin to be plagued by twisted nightmares of the burnt madman, and it becomes clear he has an endgame in play... and that "John Doe" might not have been his actual target after all...Director Talalay and writer Michael DeLuca relish in piling on the strange and the weird in "Freddy's Dead", and indeed it does have the occasional flash of brilliance thanks to series-star Robert Englund's fearless portrayal of Freddy Krueger. But it goes too far too often to leave the audience with any feeling outside of complete apathy. This is a movie with a key sequence that is built entirely around a protracted and woefully unfunny cameo by Roseanna Barr and Tom Arnold, and a major set-piece with a head-scratching and incredibly dated "Super Mario Brothers" parody... let that sink in. Gone are the subtle nuances and disturbing visuals of previous installments, here replaced with broad gags and convoluted pop- culture references. The film does try at times to inject some new ideas into the mythology of Krueger and his curse upon Springwood in its rare serious moment, but much like the rest of the film, it feels misguided and messily inserted, giving the viewer a sense of storyline-whiplash. Though I will not spoil it, the film promised an "explanation" for Krueger and his powers... and it's just pathetically delivered.Though perhaps the most perturbing and tragic thing about this film is that this wasn't merely another "Nightmare on Elm Street" film that turned out poorly... this is indeed to date the last canonical entry in the entire original saga if one does not include the crossover spin- off "Freddy vs Jason." This was for a long time the final impression that fans were left with for that story- the final chapter. And that makes it all the more a letdown. The Freddy timeline doesn't go out with a bang, but with the most dreadful of whimpers. A mish-mash mess of screwball comedy, messy references and only the faintest hints of horror or terror.To give the film some minor credit, there are a few good aspects peppered in. Englund knocks it out of the park as always and does seem to be having a good time with the role. Co-star Lisa Zane is appropriately sexy and does what she can with her wonky dialog and characterization. And the movie does manage to muster up on singular dream sequence that felt like classic "Nightmare on Elm Street" magic... this time delving into the head of a man whose hearing aid is amped up to eleven by Freddy. But these are just moments... just small pieces of a puzzle that never quite comes together and ultimately leaves you feeling unsatisfied. "Freddy's Dead" barely musters by with a very poor 3 out of 10.
