Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is resurrected when a dog pisses fire on his remains (really) in this slog of a sequel from 1988.

Abandoning the novel angle established by Dream Warriors, New Line kicks Wes Craven and Patricia Arquette out of bed and sleepwalks all the way to the bank. Dubbed the “MTV Nightmare” for its music video aesthetics and trashy tone, The Dream Master became the highest-grossing instalment in the franchise until Freddy vs. Jason. It also launched the career of Finnish director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea), who would go on to direct and marry Geena Davis.

Unfortunately New Line’s fixation on the bottom line caused a race to the bottom. Shooting started without a script or director, which is evident in the ensuing mess and revealing of the studio’s approach: start with the kills and work backwards.

The cynical tactic reduces the franchise to the Halloween/Friday the 13th death-by-numbers template, the narrative irrelevant. “Freddy kills some more teenagers” is not a plot, especially when half of them have no connection to Krueger or his killers. As a result there is zero connective tissue between dream sequences, themselves as forgettable as the performances.

Part 4 trades the compassionate characters of its predecessor for cartoon caricatures, particularly the asthmatic nerd (Toy Newkirk) complete with comically oversized glasses. These kids’ only relatable characteristic is their inability to stay awake during this film. This disregard for characterisation is best explained by a quote from Harlin: “We’ve reached a point where the audience sees Freddy as the hero. They come to these movies to hear his funny lines and see him do those amazing things.”

Not only does this represent a fundamental misunderstanding of mass child-murderer Freddy Krueger (and arguably the entire genre), it also renders him a pizza-faced clown who dons Theatre of Blood-style disguises (doctor, nurse, shark) and speaks exclusively in bad puns like a temperature-swapped Mr. Freeze.

That perversion of Wes Craven’s evil vision for the character is doubly insulting in a movie that references the filmmaker, using a The Hills Have Eyes poster and a diner called the Crave Inn. If you want to pay tribute to the series’ creator maybe don’t call the child-killer of his nightmares the hero?

Ironically this Freddy is actually harder to root for than Craven’s version, who at least had a twisted logic to his vengeance killings that made him frightening and believable. Now he just kills indiscriminately and stupidly, basing each murder on the sole characteristic of each victim. For instance the karate guy is killed by karate, and the maths nerd by maths. “Amazing things” indeed. But only one image truly sums up The Dream Master: the dog pissing on Freddy Krueger’s grave.