A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a 1988 American fantasy slasher film directed by Renny Harlin from a screenplay by Brian Helgeland and Scott Pierce. It is the sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and the fourth installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film follows Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) reappearing in the dreams of Kristen Parker, Joey Crusel, and Roland Kincaid, where he uses Kristen's best friend, Alice Johnson, to gain access to new victims in order to continue his killing spree.
Following the release of Dream Warriors, series creator Wes Craven pitched his own idea for a fourth film. However, it was turned down in favor of another sequel. The Dream Master is often popularly referred to as "the MTV Nightmare" of the franchise.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master was released on August 19, 1988. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $49.4 million at the domestic box office on a budget of $6.5 million, which made it the highest-grossing film in the franchise in the United States until the release of Freddy vs. Jason, a crossover with the Friday the 13th franchise, in 2003. It was followed by A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, released in 1989.
Plot A year after surviving Freddy Krueger's killing spree at Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, Kristen Parker, Roland Kincaid, and Joey Crusel have been released from Westin Hills and returned to their normal lives. However, when Kristen dreams that she is in Freddy's old boiler room, she summons Joey and Kincaid into the dream, fearing that Krueger might be back. Joey and Kincaid, disgruntled, insist that Freddy is gone. The next day, Kristen meets with her boyfriend, martial arts enthusiast Rick Johnson, and their friends—Rick's shy and quiet sister Alice, Sheila, an asthmatic genius, and Debbie, an athletic girl who dislikes bugs.
Kristen has become popular, while Kincaid and Joey are considered outcasts in school. Kincaid and Joey confront Kristen at school for pulling them into her dream and tell her that their days of dream hopping are over, and she might end up bringing Freddy back by mistake.
That night, Kincaid falls asleep and awakens in a junkyard, where Freddy has been accidentally resurrected. Though Kincaid puts up a good fight, unable to contact Kristen to pull him out of the nightmare, Freddy kills him. Joey is up late watching TV and listening to music but eventually falls asleep. He awakens to a Playboy model swimming in his waterbed until she morphs into Freddy, pulls him into his waterbed, killing him as well. Kristen is heartbroken to learn that Kincaid and Joey are dead, feeling guilty that she could not save them realizing Freddy is back to finish the three of them off. At dinner, she realizes with horror that her mother has put sleeping pills in her meal because Kristen has not been sleeping. She tries to resist but eventually falls asleep. As the last of the Elm Street children, Freddy taunts her into summoning one of her friends into the dream so that his torment can begin anew. She summons Alice, and Freddy throws Kristen into his boiler. Before she dies, Kristen transfers her dream power to Alice. When Alice and Rick arrive at Kristen's house, they find her bedroom on fire and discover that she has burned to death.
At school, Alice falls asleep during class and inadvertently brings Sheila into her dream. Freddy kills Sheila, making it appear like an asthma attack. Rick begins to believe Alice and has a dream in which an invisible Freddy kills him in a martial arts dojo. With each death, Alice changes—she acquires the abilities and personalities of her dead friends. Freddy targets Debbie next, transforms her into a cockroach, and crushes her in a roach motel. Trapped by Freddy in a time loop dream with her crush Dan Jordan, Alice tries to ram Freddy with her car to save Debbie but collides with a tree in reality, injuring Dan, who is rushed into surgery.
In a dream, Alice rescues Dan, but he gets injured, prompting his surgeons to wake him up when he starts bleeding out in real life. Alice now has to face Freddy alone. She uses her friends' dream powers against him. When Freddy seems to be winning, she recalls a nursery rhyme called "The Dream Master," which instructs one to show evil its reflection. She forces Freddy to face his own reflection, causing the souls within him to revolt. The strain tears him apart. Alice's friends' souls are released, leaving Freddy a hollow husk. Months later, Dan and Alice are on a date when Dan tosses a coin into a fountain. For a moment, Alice sees Freddy's reflection in the water but chooses to ignore it as they walk away.
Cast
Lisa Wilcox as Alice Johnson. Wilcox was not initially considered for the lead role of Alice (see below for more details). In this film she plays a more timid version of the character who would later return in the sequel. Danny Hassel as Dan Jordan. Hassell was not expecting to be cast and assumed that the producers giving his character the same name as himself meant they were not that interested in his role in the script. Nonetheless, Hassell, along with Wilcox, would return in the sequel the following year. Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger and nurse (with different make-up). Englund returned for his fourth appearance in the role of Krueger; the time-loop sequence of Alice and Dan trying to save Debbie is often quoted by him as his favourite in the whole series. Tuesday Knight as Kristen Parker. Knight assumes the role of Kristen which had been played by Patricia Arquette in the previous film. Knight would contribute the film's soundtrack and, in 2010's documentary Never Sleep Again, other cast members suggest that her prominence was the result of a personal relationship between her and director Renny Harlin, something both Harlin and Knight deny. Brooke Theiss as Debbie Stevens. Theiss would later star with original Elm Street star Heather Langenkamp in ABC sitcom Just the Ten of Us. Theiss was pleased that her character later became an action figure. Ken Sagoes as Roland Kincaid. Sagoes returns from the previous film although he recalled in 2010 telling his friends not to buy any popcorn and go straight into the film as his onscreen appearance was minimal. Rodney Eastman as Joey Crusel. Eastman, like Sagoes, returns from the previous film and also meets his demise relatively early in the picture. Andras Jones as Rick Johnson. Jones plays Rick, the brother of Alice and boyfriend of Kristen. Jones would later recall being stalemated by the rest of the cast after shooting had completed and hinted at a possible conflict with director Renny Harlin. Toy Newkirk as Sheila Kopecky. Newkirk plays Sheila, a mathematics and science expert who helps Debbie with her homework. An asthmatic, she is suffocated by Krueger midway through the film. Newkirk recalled in Never Sleep Again that she was asked to redub all her lines after initial filming in order "to sound more black". Nicholas Mele as Mr. Dennis Johnson. Mele plays Rick and Alice's alcoholic father; his character was slated to die in this film in a cut scene where Krueger forces his head through a fridge door. The scene was cut for time constraints and Mele returned in the next film. Brooke Bundy as Elaine Parker. Bundy was surprised to be asked back after her character appeared to be killed by Krueger at the conclusion of the previous film; it was later suggested that this was a dream of Kristen's. Elaine inadvertently kills Kristin when she spikes her food with sleeping tablets, allowing Krueger to attack her whilst dreaming. Linnea Quigley as soul from Freddy's chest
Robert Shaye appears uncredited in a cameo role as Alice's teacher talking about a positive and a negative gate of dreams and Aristotle's dream philosophy.
Production Development A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise originator Wes Craven presented his own pitch for the fourth Elm Street film, but producers Sara Risher and Robert Shaye turned it down, instead going with the "Dream Master" pitch as a progression of the "Dream Warriors" concept from the previous film. Risher explained that:
Shaye felt that Craven's idea did not have the impact the producers were looking for. Craven and his writing partner Bruce Wagner were later contacted about doing rewrites for the script, but turned down the offer as Craven felt that they should have been approached as artists of the original material. Brian Helgeland was at New Line Cinema around Christmas 1987 about a script named Highway to Hell, a pitch that was turned down by them and would not be realized until 1992; the company was desperate to get Nightmare 4 going as they lacked both a script and a director for the film at the time. Mike De Luca begged Helgeland to have a try at it and come up with a script within two weeks; he went to his parents' house and finished the script within nine days, sending it to New Line with FedEx. Helgeland's script was a rewrite of William Kotzwinkle's original script. Ken and Jim Wheat, under the pseudonym Scott Pierce, were brought in next for further polishes; the Writers Guild of America credited the shooting script to Helgeland and the Wheat brothers, with Kotzwinkle and Hedgeland receiving story credit.
In an interview with Midnight's Edge, director Tom McLoughlin said that after completing Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), New Line offered him the job on The Dream Master. His one caveat was that he wanted creative control. The studio could not adhere to the demand, specifically because they had already begun filming without any director. McLoughlin said:
Eventually, the director's work was given to Harlin, who had previously directed only two low-budget feature films: a Finnish action film Born American in 1986 and an American horror film Prison in 1987. Rachel Talalay claims that she and the other producers felt that since the audience was so familiar with Freddy Krueger at this stage, it would be harder to replicate the scare factor of the first two films; instead they decided to continue in the same vein of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) rather than focus on pure horror. Harlin felt that Freddy had become the James Bond of the series, the one the audience roots for, saying:
Rick Johnson, played by Andras Jones, was originally slated to die in a Freddy-induced elevator accident in the dreamworld. According to the producers, this scene had to be cut for budget concern reasons and was rewritten with the infamous karate dojo scene seen in the theatrical picture.
Casting
The role of Kristen Parker in Dream Warriors had been the debut role for Patricia Arquette, but was recast with actress Tuesday Knight for the sequel; producer Sara Risher said she was disappointed at the time that Arquette could not reprise her role, commending her as an "integral part to Nightmare 3" and as well-liked by the rest of the crew. In Assault of the Killer B's: Interviews with 20 Cult Film Actresses it is stated that "Patricia Arquette reportedly fought the [horror genre] label, turning down a hefty offer to reprise her heroine role, instead favoring more dramatic roles and becoming a respected thespian in the Hollywood community". Knight had been the first new actor to be cast for the film other than the four returnees from the previous film. Returning actors Rodney Eastman and Ken Sagoes expressed disappointment that the character of Kristen had to be recast and of the defaulted reunion with former co-star Arquette, while Knight on her part has admitted to having felt out of place due to the recasting. On the auditioning for Alice, Lisa Wilcox recalls that "I did a screen test with Tuesday Knight, who'd already been cast as Kristen Parker. We did the scene where we're sitting outside the school talking about having matching luggage. Then I did another screen test with Brooke".