Tag: Rodney Eastman

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988, Renny Harlin)

The Dream Master has a really lame final scene, which is too bad since the second half of the film actually gets rather good. The script–from Brian Helgeland, Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat–is impressive for a couple reasons. First, it gives Lisa Wilcox a great hero arc across the traditional gender lines–she’s the nerd crushing on Danny Hassel’s hunk, but she ends up saving him. Sure, all of their mutual friends and her brother had to die for her to magically inherit their individuality and let it fuel her own, but she does use the power for good.

Wilcox is enthusiastic and sincere, which makes up for her performance being a tad light.

The story arc doesn’t really need Robert Englund or Freddy Krueger, but he’s a decent enough addition as far as the villain of that piece. It’s just not the only thing going on in Dream Master, which opens with continuation of the previous film. The film starts with the previous entry’s three survivors–Tuesday Knight, Rodney Eastman and Ken Sagoes–making a new life for themselves (in high school). Knight (taking over for Patricia Arquette) is dating Andras Jones, who’s Wilcox’s sister. Brooke Theiss and Toy Newkirk are also part of the group. And even though this group is somewhat aware of Knight and company’s previous troubles, they don’t experience it. Not until about halfway into the picture, because Dream Master takes the very awkward–but thoughtful–approach of handing the film off between sets of characters.

Knight’s okay, so are Hassel and Jones. Everyone’s likable enough, which seems to be intentional (Theiss, the jock, and Newkirk, the nerd, tease each other but are still besties).

Bad music from Craig Safan. Decent photography from Steven Fierberg. He shoots it a little dark, but once an effects sequence gets going, he’s careful to make sure to show enough. The effects sequences are fantastic, whether they’re large scale set pieces or just the gross-out stuff.

As for Harlin’s direction–it’s a mixed bag. Some of it’s really good. The dream sequences he can play like action scenes, those scenes do well. The ones he does for horror? Not so much. He tends more towards the sci-fi handling, wanting to make sure the audience understands exactly what’s going on. It works out well enough–there’s not much horror in the screenplay, which instead relies on neat narrative tricks and devices.

Dream Master takes a while to get going, but once it does, it works out quite well. Until that moronic last scene, where it cheats the audience out of seeing Wilcox as a “regular” hero, not just a dream one.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987, Chuck Russell)

Dream Warriors is masterful in its manipulation; it’s the very definition of franchise building. Screenwriters Wes Craven, Bruce Wagner, Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell wrap what appears to be particular kind of narrative–after a film away, Heather Langenkamp–the original’s protagonist–is going to be the focus. Only she’s not. Then it’s like the character who opened the movie–Patricia Arquette–is the actual focus. Only she’s not.

And no one’s going to think Craig Wasson’s the focus, even though he at least gets to participate in it–the focus is building a mythology around Freddy Krueger, a mythology with nothing to do with the actual narrative and entirely self-contained. According to the IMDb trivia page, Craven had it just the opposite; so either Russell or Darabont went in and separated things out. The screenplay is admirably constructed. It’s bad and dumb, but it’s well-constructed for what it’s trying to do.

But Dream Warriors isn’t just masterful in that type of manipulation. Whether it’s getting away with tons of fantasy special effects in a mainstream horror movie or turning the audience’s passive dislike for a character into a tacit approval of Robert Englund’s terrorizing of them, the whole thing is an expert package.

Mood is very important here because, as a director, Russell never wants to show his hand. There’s a certain respectability Dream Warriors is going for, what with having Dick Cavett and Zsa Zsa Gabor in the opening titles, which are a very classy sequence of arts and crafts from Arquette, set to Angelo Badalamenti’s (initially) way too good–for the movie–score. Roy H. Wagner’s photography reminds of giallo, with its shadows against the strong colors of the sets. Except Russell’s rarely ambitious in his direction. Editors Terry Stokes and Chuck Weiss have some effective cuts with Badalamenti’s music, but none of them have to do with Englund’s villain or even the sensational dreamscape where most of the big action takes place. Instead, they’re for the setup, when Dream Warriors is trying to appear sincere.

The acting is mostly bad. Often because of the script’s silliness. Expert construction or not, it’s silly. Langenkamp suffers the worst, except for maybe Priscilla Pointer, who plays the head psychiatrist of the Dream Warriors–a bunch of teens Englund is haunting. Pointer’s character isn’t just played as mean, she doesn’t even get anything to do with it. Arquette’s a little better than Langenkamp but not much. Craig Wasson plays another psychiatrist and even roughs up John Saxon at one point. Saxon’s so out of it he doesn’t look embarrassed in that roughing up scene. John Saxon was in Enter the Dragon. Craig Wasson shouldn’t be able to rough him up.

The rest of the supporting cast is a low mediocre. Except for Larry Fishburne. Larry Fishburne’s excellent. Movie should’ve been about him.

But it’s not made to be excellent, it’s made to further a franchise–and it succeeds. It even gives Englund some occasional good moments amid his otherwise one-note, sensationalist routine.