A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is a 1989 American gothic slasher film directed by Stephen Hopkins and written by Leslie Bohem. It is the sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) and the fifth installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. It stars Lisa Wilcox, and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. The film follows Krueger, using a now pregnant Alice Johnson's baby's dreams to claim new victims.
Following the success of the previous film, Hopkins was quickly hired to direct a sequel. The general tone is much darker than that of the previous films, with a blue filter lighting technique is used in most of the scenes. The film had a troubled production, with many changes made to the script during pre-production, and had many scenes removed from the final cut.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child was released on August 11, 1989. The film grossed $22.1 million on a budget of $8 million, marking a steep decline in box office receipts from its two predecessors, though still a box office success and became the highest-grossing slasher film of 1989. It received generally negative reviews from critics.
The film was followed by Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).
Plot A year after surviving Freddy Krueger's killing spree, Alice Johnson is in a relationship with Dan Jordan. One day, while taking a shower after having sex with Dan, Alice has a vision of herself dressed in a nun's habit with a name tag saying Amanda Krueger, at a strange asylum. She is attacked by patients at the hospital but wakes up. The next day, Alice is graduating from high school alongside her new friends: Greta Gibson, an aspiring but reluctant supermodel; Mark Gray, a comic book fan; and Yvonne Miller, a hospital volunteer and swimmer. Alice confides her nightmare to Dan, who tells her she is in control of her dreams.
On her way to work, Alice finds herself back at the asylum, where she sees Amanda giving birth to a gruesomely deformed baby. Amanda tries to collect the baby before it escapes, but it sneaks out of the operating room. Alice follows the baby into the church where she defeated Freddy in the previous film. The baby finds Freddy's remains and quickly grows into an adult, hinting to Alice that he has found the key to coming back. Alarmed, she contacts Dan, who falls asleep en route to see her. Freddy attacks and electrocutes Dan, turning him into a frightful man/machine hybrid before sending him into oncoming traffic. Alice sees Dan's body come to life and taunt her before she faints. Waking in a hospital, she hears the news of Dan's death and that she is pregnant with his child. During the night, she is visited by a young boy named Jacob, but the next day, Yvonne tells her there are no children on her floor, nor is there a children's ward.
Alice tells her friends about Freddy and his lineage. Yvonne refuses to listen, but Mark and Greta are more supportive. That afternoon, at a dinner party at her home, Greta falls asleep at the table. She dreams of herself snapping at her mother and ranting about her controlling nature before Freddy arrives and forces Greta to eat her own organs before choking her in front of a laughing audience. In the real world, Greta falls down dead in front of her mother and their guests. Yvonne and Alice visit Mark, who is grieving Greta's death, and a rift forms between them. Mark falls asleep and is nearly killed by Freddy, but Alice saves him before seeing Jacob again. Jacob hints that Alice is his mother. Alice requests that Yvonne get her an early ultrasound and discovers Freddy is using Jacob as a conduit to attack her friends even when she is awake and has been feeding him his victims to make him like himself.
Yvonne and Dan's parents still believe Alice is crazy. Dan's parents insist that she give them the baby when it is born, which Alice refuses. Alice and Mark research Krueger and the nun Amanda. Realizing Amanda was trying to stop Freddy, they investigate her whereabouts, and Alice goes to sleep, hoping to find Amanda at the asylum. While there, Freddy lures her away by threatening Yvonne, who has fallen asleep in a Jacuzzi. Alice rescues Yvonne, who finally believes her. Mark falls asleep and is pulled into a comic book world, where, after becoming a superhero to fight Freddy, he turns into a supervillain, transforms Mark into a paper cutout, and slashes him to pieces.
Alice goes to bed to find Freddy and save her son. Realizing Freddy has been hiding within her every time she fell asleep, she draws Freddy out from within herself. Yvonne finds Amanda's remains at the asylum, and Amanda joins the fight in the dream world, encouraging Jacob to use the power Freddy had been giving him. Jacob destroys Freddy, and his infant form is absorbed by his mother, while Alice picks up baby Jacob. Warning Alice away, Amanda seals Freddy away in time.
Several months later, Jacob Daniel Johnson is enjoying a picnic with his mother, grandfather, and Yvonne. Some children jumping rope nearby are humming Freddy's rhyme, hinting at Freddy's return.
Cast
Lisa Wilcox as Alice Johnson. Director Stephen Hopkins was keen for Wilcox to return as Alice, feeling that her story from the previous installment remained incomplete. Whilst Wilcox received top billing in the opening credits, her name was accidentally omitted from the end credits. The character of Alice is more assertive in this film compared to its predecessor and she eventually gives birth at the end of the film to her and Dan's child. Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger / asylum inmate / waiter. Englund's makeup was refined again for this film by Howard Berger to make Freddy look older than in previous installments. Kelly Jo Minter as Yvonne Miller. According to director Stephen Hopkins in the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again, he cast Minter as she "rocked, she was a real firebrand". Minter enjoyed acting in the film but found her diving scenes near the end challenging as she was suffering from food poisoning at the time. Along with Alice, Yvonne survives at the film's conclusion. Erika Anderson as Greta Gibson. Greta's character is that of a model who is constantly having to watch her diet. Anderson's death scene, where she is force-fed by Krueger required the actress to undergo a lengthy makeup process and the final scene was severely cut down to comply with the MPAA. Danny Hassel as Dan Jordan. Along with Alice, Dan is the only other teenage survivor from the fourth film but is killed early on in The Dream Child. Hassel felt lucky that the producers had remembered him enough to ask him back for the sequel but, as with Erika Anderson, had to ensure a lengthy makeup process for his death scene which was also heavily edited down to comply with the MPAA. Beatrice Boepple as Amanda Krueger. The character of Amanda Krueger, a nun who was raped at an asylum and later gave birth to Freddy, was previously played by Nan Martin in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Boepple plays a younger version of the same character but found the birth sequence difficult as she was on her period. Whit Hertford as Jacob Johnson. Hertford was 11 years old when he was cast as Jacob, a future version of Alice's son. Hertford was already experienced acting in the horror genre having appeared in Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) and the revived Twilight Zone series. As a minor, he was not permitted to utter the scripted phrase "Fuck you, Krueger". Joe Seely as Mark Gray. Mark is a comic book fan, who has an unreciprocated crush on Greta. Seely recalled in 2010 that he wanted the character to look more gothic but was given dyed blonde hair and bright waistcoats in order to complement Erika Anderson better. For his death scene which takes place in a comic book world, Seely had to have extra makeup to appear brighter on screen. Mark's death was also heavily edited in accordance with MPAA guidelines. Nicholas Mele as Dennis Johnson. Mele plays Alice's father, also returning from the previous film. According to Mele in an interview for the Never Sleep Again documentary, a death scene for his character had been shot for the previous film but omitted due to time constraints, thus meaning the producers could bring him back for this film. Alice's father in this film is a reformed alcoholic and more assertive in supporting his daughter when she discovers that she is pregnant. Burr DeBenning as Mr. Jordan. DeBenning was already known to the film's producers, having a played the role of Dr Serling in the episode "It's a Miserable Life" from the spin-off TV series Freddy's Nightmares. Mr Jordan wants Dan to pursue a football career and later threatens to have Alice institutionalized in order to gain custody of her child. Clarence Felder as Mr. Gray
Freddy Krueger is also briefly portrayed onscreen by actors Michael Bailey Smith (as 'Super Freddy') and Noble Craig (as 'Merging Freddy').
Production A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master was released in 1988 and quickly became a financial success and the highest-grossing film in the series to that point. With the production of the TV spin-off Freddy's Nightmares and a plethora of merchandise available, the profile of the franchise was at its highest point thus far.
Screenwriter Leslie Bohem, as interviewed in the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again, originally pitched the basic storyline for The Dream Child to New Line executives during pre-production for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. New Line executive Sara Risher was pregnant at the time and took exception to the idea of a newborn Freddy Krueger clawing his way out of a woman's womb. After giving birth, Risher started to think about the storyline and realized that the teenagers who had watched the original film in 1984 were now starting to grow up and have their own families, prompting the development of The Dream Child in late 1988.
Pre-production was challenging primarily due to the frequently changing script. Director Stephen Hopkins recalled that the bulk of the final film came from Leslie Bohem's script, although John Skipp and Craig Spector also added material, causing the Writers Guild of America to intervene when deciding ultimate credits. Bohem's original draft had Alice and her friends rehearsing a school performance of Medea and he said it was, "very weird". Director Hopkins was keen for the film to have more Gothic imagery than its predecessors, leading to inserted footage of towers, castles, and a dungeon-like asylum.
The final editing was challenging due to the demands made by the MPAA to reduce the onscreen violence, blood, and gore. The most altered sequences were those for Dan and Greta which were edited down several times before a theatrical release with an R rating in the United States.
Deleted scenes Several scenes were removed from the final cut. The graduation sequence, which showed Alice's father giving her the camera, was significantly reduced. As a result, there are several minor continuity errors such as Alice holding airplane tickets moments before Dan gives them to her as a surprise gift.
Upon its release, the movie was also subjected to some cuts in the sequences of Dan's, Mark's and Greta's deaths to avoid being classified "X" by the MPAA due to their extremely violent and graphic nature. An unrated version of the film, which contained longer, more graphic versions of Dan's, Greta's and Mark's death scenes, was originally released on VHS and Laserdisc formats. In Dan's scene, cables can be seen sliding under the skin of Dan's arm, a large piece of the bike pierces his leg, and the skin on Dan's head is much more graphically torn off while he screams in pain. In Greta's scene, Freddy slices open a doll that begins to bleed and Greta is shown to have a gaping wound in her stomach, from which Freddy starts to feed to her. In Australia, the scenes were cut in cinemas, but restored to the VHS release.
Music