Overall rating: 2/10
General consensus among the people participating in this project is that Nightmare on Elm Street 5, is probably the worst film we’ve watched so far. I might dislike it so much because it’s about babies and there is way too much womb in it, but I think I actually dislike it because it is stupid and boring. I mean yes, the baby thing is horrible and off-putting and seems to have a weirdly pro-life message (unborn babies have souls as soon as they are conceived!), but more than that it’s incredibly lame. Seriously, Freddie is defeated by an unborn baby and a ghost nun? I think at that point I was simply in favor of anything that would put an end to this crapfest of a film.
It’s a shame because there are some cool set pieces in the movie. The opening dream is creepy – the final girl (same as in the last film) gets trapped in Freddie’s boiler room naked. Naked in an uncomfortable place is such a classic scary dream – plus we got to see boobs – that it seemed like a strong opening. Alas, it was all downhill from there. The other cool set piece is at the very end when they give the boiler room the M.C. Esher stairway treatment but like the rest of the special effects in the film it was wasted and unable to salvage the train wreck of a plot.
The biggest problem I had with this film, aside from the fact that there were only three deaths giving it our lowest body count yet, was that they seemed to have completely abandoned scary in favor of gross and zany. The death scenes are long, “ironic”, full of special effects, and too rare. Alice, the final girl, even has a black female friend who also lives though she is attacked and menaced. They’ve taken the idea from part three, if you like something, be it puppets or heroin, Freddie will kill you with it, and made it lame and zany. I just really hate zany. And babies. I think there is a zany Freddie baby in here a few times.
Anyway, the overall on this film is that there is a very low body count (three), lots of gross gore but barely any blood, and one major female black character who lives (there is also a black nun who shows up briefly in one scene).
If you don’t watch one movie from this series, don’t watch Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.
Continue reading for a list of victims and final girl.
Final Girls 