Fowler's Frights 2015: Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Starring: Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt
Directed by: Rachel Talalay


After 5 movies with our beloved Freddy Krueger, New Line Cinema decided that the sixth film would be the final one. At the time of its release, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare was given a grandiose treatment, even going as far to having an actual funeral for Freddy Krueger. By now, we know better that this was NOT the last film to feature Freddy Krueger. Even more embarrassing is the tagline that they saved the best film for last and if you poll most Nightmare fans, they'll agree that Freddy's Dead is arguably the WORST film in the franchise. I won't go that far, but the film's still pretty bad. With a cheesy 3D gimmick attached to the film and enough jokes to consider this the point where Freddy finally "sold out" to the mainstream, this film feels like an absolute parody and the furthest Freddy has ever been removed from the tone of the original Nightmare on Elm Street film. Let's not wait any longer and dig right into the campy schlock that is Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.

Robert Englund completely ditches any elements of horror for Freddy Krueger and play him as pure comedy. When we first see him, he's impersonating the Wicked Witch of the West. We also hear an amazing amount of bad puns, mannerisms that belong in a Road Runner cartoon, and possibly the greatest product placement for Nintendo I've ever seen on film. Sure, he's not the same Freddy we saw in the first film, or probably even the third film, but Englund still knows how to make him fun to watch.

The characters in the film are as transparent as you can imagine. We follow the adults a little more here than we have in previous installments, and the teenagers are pretty easy to understand. Relatable characters are fine as a concept, but you need to be able as an actor to bring more to the table in order to break out of your character's archetype. We don't get a lot of that here. Instead, they shove nothing but new characters down our throats and throw in a couple of interesting celebrity cameos from Roseanne, Tom Arnold, Alice Cooper, and Johnny Depp. That more than makes up for uninteresting main characters right?

The film's climax delves into Freddy's psyche and shows us his origin, while also cashing in on a cheap gimmick to put the final act of the film in 3D. I'm not sure what the effect looked like in theaters at the time, since I saw this on a standard Blu-ray disc at home, but I'm sure it wasn't the 3D spectacle that today's moviegoers are used to seeing. The origin is fine, but then we get possibly the weakest death that Freddy ever had, and it's the death that's supposed to keep him dead forever. Naturally, he doesn't stay dead, but I can imagine how pissed the diehard fans (or Fred Heads) were imagining that THAT was the way their iconic villain was finally killed off. But, as poor critical response proves, you can't keep a good character like Freddy dead for long, rendering Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare utterly pointless.


Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare definitely loses some points for not being the final Nightmare film, and also gets docked points for not being scary. Some death scenes are fun, and diving deeper into Freddy's origin is slightly compelling, but they belong in a better film. Only watch this film if you're curious of how they planned to kill off Freddy.

Comment below to share your thoughts on the movie or to discuss a topic that I left out of my review

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare and movie images are copyrighted by New Line Cinema