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ON THIS DAY ON HORROR - August 19th

"A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: 

THE DREAM MASTER" released in 1988

Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) returns from the grave once again to terrorize the dreams of the remaining Dream Warriors, Kristen (Tuesday Knight), Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) and Joey (Rodney Eastman). But this time Freddy os about to meet his greatest adversary; the shy introverted sister of Kristen's boyfriend, Alice (Lisa Cox) who holds a power that even doesn't yet know she has that could vanquish Freddy once and for all, in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master!

Watch the A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master trailer below!

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Some time has passed since the events of The Dream Warriors, Kristen (Knight), Kincaid (Sagoes) and Joey (Eastman) have been released from Westin Hills and are living lives as normal teenagers, with Kristen finding a new group of friends including her boyfriend Rick (Andras Jones), Debbie (Brooke Theiss), Dan (Danny Hassel), Sheila (Toy Newkirk) and Rick's shy sister, Alice (Wilcox). However, when Kristen's starts to feel the loss of control of her dreams, she confides in Kincaid and Joey who angrily explain that dreaming about Freddy just might cause him to return. That night, Kristen stays awake to keep from dreaming, but Kincaid falls asleep and awakens in a junkyard where his dog Jason innocently resurrects Freddy from his grave! Freddy quickly dispatches both Kincaid and Joey, and then goes after Kristen.  With no choice, Kristen tells Rick, Alice, and Dan about Freddy's legacy before her mother Elaine shoos the three of them away from the run down Krueger house. That night, as Kristen begins to fall alseep (her mother crushing spleeping pills into her drink), she is again attacked by Kruguer. Being the last of the Elm Street children, Freddy goads Kristen into calling on one of her friends, so that his fun can begin anew. She calls Alice into her dream, and Freddy kills Kristen by throwing her into his boiler, but not before Kristen manages to pass her powers to Alice. Using Alice's newfound powers against her, Freddy tricks Alice into pulling her friends into her dreams where he can get to them, first killing Sheila and Rick, and then trapping Alice and Dan in a timeloop while he dispatches Debbie. When Alice and Dan get into a car accident trying to escape, Dan is put under sedation for surgury. Knowing that Freddy can get to Dan while he's unconscious, Alice finds her inner strength and readies herself to join him in his dreams and face Freddy in a final battle for who will be the dream master!

[after Kristen calls Alice into her dream]
Freddy Krueger: How sweet. Fresh meat!

Top:   The cast of A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master;

Above:   Freddy (Robert Englund) becomes a pop culture icon!

With the popular release of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in Feburary 1987, producers at New Line Cinema began their search for a new screenwriter and director to helm Freddy Krueger's next outing. Oscar-winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland was hired to write the film after being recommended by Robert Englund, for whom he penned the screenplay to Englund's directorial debut 976-EVIL (1988). The film had a release date set but no script or director, and Helgeland was hired under the condition that he could deliver the script within seven days. He was advised by New Line head Robert Shaye that if the script came in a day late, they didn't want it. Helgeland then flew home to Massachusetts for Christmas and wrote the script sitting at his father's kitchen table. He FedExed the finished screenplay back to Los Angeles and made his deadline. Of course with a screenplay only written in seven days, Bob Shaye and producers weren't impressed, and hired "Scott Pierce" (a pseudonym for screenwriters Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat) to improve the screenplay. One of their inclusions was the "time-loop" sequence. Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner had originally come up with the concept a film that involved time travel through dreams. However, producers Robert Shaye and Sara Risher felt that this was too high a concept for an Elm Street sequel and didn't think it fit the formula that Craven created with the first film. Over the years, Shaye obviously changed his mind and Robert Englund would later state that this sequence was his favorite part in the film because it seemed like a visual of a dream that keeps repeating itself.

After moving to Los Angeles from his native Finland, director Renny Harlin's story of how he got the chance to direct Dream Master has become folklore among fans of the franchise; Having already directed his first US feature Prison (1987), Harlin would constantly show up at New Line Cinema's offices and repeatedly request to speak with producer Robert Shaye. Meanwhile, for a variety of reasons, producers didn't like any of the other directors who came in for meetings about Elm Street 4, and Harlin always seemed to be around. Eventually, his persistence won the day, to some degree because he was so clearly impoverished that his clothes never seemed to change day-to-day and even began to smell. They had to hire him just so he could afford some new clothes, or so Bob Shaye jokes. During the writing of the film, director Renny Harlin and some of the producers by chance happened to bump into famed director James Cameron. Cameron somewhat facetiously asked Harlin "How are they gonna bring Freddy back to life this time?" To which Harlin (also somewhat facetiously) replied "A dog pisses fire on him and he comes back to life!". The idea ended up being used in the film, although in a more metaphorical manner with Englund explaining that the dog urinating fire onto Freddy's remains is meant to, "symbolize a Hell-Hound and how evil Freddy truly is."

Freddy Krueger: Wanna suck face?
Sheila Kopecky: No!

Top:   Sheila (Toy Newkirk) "sucks face" with Freddy!;

Above:   Debbie (Brooke Theiss) is slowly transformed into a cockroach in her nightmare.

Over the years, there have been many differing versions of the story behind Patricia Arquette not returning in the role of Kristen Parker. According to Harlin and her Dream Warriors co-star Rodney Eastman, Arquette's agent simply asked for too much money to reprise the role. But since Arquette's first child was born in January the following year, a far more likely reason was she could not return for the fourth movie because she was pregnant during filming. Tuesday Knight was hired to replace Arquette in the role of Kristen, with Eastman reprising his character Joey for Dream Master, along with co-star Ken Sagoes returning as Kincaid. Eastman and Sagoes had a poor experience filming Dream Master, who both wanted larger parts in the film and were shocked to see they were in reduced parts, and didn't feel the heartfelt reunion with Tuesday Knight in this film because she had replaced Patricia Arquette. According to Annette Benson, the Casting Director, over 600 actresses auditioned for the role of Alice before Lisa Wilcox was chosen (Wilcox later said Alice was made for her because she was a shy teenage girl who thought she never get a boyfriend).

With filming beginning in April, 1988, the filmmakers had a scant 4 weeks to shoot Dream Master (although they had a budget seven times larger than the original Nightmare on Elm Street). According to Harlin, Shaye was never really comfortable with Harlin as director and rarely ever spoke to him throughout the shoot even though he would visit the set quite often. That made filming Shaye's cameo scene a bit difficult. The resulting tension meant Harlin lived each day on set like it would be his last because he was fairly positive Shaye was going to fire him at any moment without warning. As the script was not completely finished by the time production began, the filmmakers ran into a roadblock about what to do with Andras Jones' character Rick; Ricks death was originally supposed to happen in the elevator with the elevator falling apart all around him, until he is falling in just dark space. However, according to Renny Harlin, they had already run out of money and were unable to afford this effect. It was then suggested that he live but his funeral scene had already been filmed, so the idea for his karate/dojo death scene was conceived because his knowledge of karate had already been established earlier in the film.

Freddy Krueger: Welcome to Wonderland, Alice!

Top and Above:   Alice (Lisa Wilcox) embraces her powers as the new dream master to defeat Freddy!

During production, the writers, director and producers couldn't figure out how to kill Freddy at the end of the film. Eventually, during a meeting, they discussed all of the possible ways to kill a villain or creature in a film (shooting, stabbing, burning, etc.). They then realized that all of the methods they were thinking of came from external forces. And they decided to do just the opposite - come up with a way for Freddy to be killed by an "internal force." Thus, the concept of Freddy's reflection cause the souls of his victims to revolt and tear him apart from the inside was born. For the scene where we see the souls crying out from Freddy’s chest, they built a 20-ft replica of Freddy’s chest, and covered the front with a thin, latex dental damn-like material.  Three mostly nude actors, with very theatrical body paint, entered the prop from the back to give the appearance of souls attempting to break through Freddy’s chest.  So, if you thought you saw a woman’s nipples during that scene you weren’t wrong.  As shown in behind the scenes footage in Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, at one point the prop actually toppled forward, taking all of the semi-nude performers with it along with at least one camera operator. No one was seriously hurt.

Reportedly, Renny Harlin's original version of the film was considered to be "too campy and ridiculous" by New Line Cinema, which is why some cuts were made on the film before theatrical release. Harlin's original cut had an alternate score and many deleted and extended scenes. These included more scenes with Kristen, including a nightmare scene in which she is chased by Freddy soon after he killed Joey and Kincaid, and an extended version of the beach scene where Freddy's shadow is touching and burning her with sunburns. Small parts of both of these scenes can be seen in US and foreign trailers for the film, and there are also some stills showing the extended beach scene. There was also an additional nightmare scene with Alice dreaming that her father turns into Freddy.

TRIVIA:   Director Renny Harlin would base this film on Chinese Ghost Story and created all the nightmares himself based on dreams he had through out his life.

Top:   Director Renny Harlin with producer (and future director of Freddy's Dead), Rachel Talalay;

Above:   The special effects crew pose with the giant "body of tortured souls" model

Released with a eye more towards the MTV generation of horror fans, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: Dream Master would become the highest-grossing entry in the Elm Street series (not including Freddy vs Jason in 2003) with $49 million in the US. As well as being the highest grossing horror film of 1988, it was also the highest grossing film for New Line of its entire year! The success of Dream Master convinced producers to create Freddy's Nightmare's for network television (which would air for two seasons with Freddy acting as a Cryptkeeper like character, introducing each episode), and see the release of many films that tried to cash in on Elm Street like Bad Dreams (1988), Brainscan (1994) and The Monster (1993). The person who most profited from Dream Master was it's director, Renny Harlin. After the film came out, Hollywood studios were wooing the Finnish director to helm their next big projects. Harlin would go on to direct the biggest blockbusters of the 1990's;  Die Hard 2 (1990), Cliffhanger (1993), Deep Blue Sea (1999), and two movies with his then-wife actress Geena Davis, Cutthroat Island (1995) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996).

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   56%