Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

Director: Rachel Talalay
Starring: Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt

Synopsis:
After a spate of suicides among teenagers in Springwood, the lone survivor escapes the town, only to be put into an institution for runaways, which opens up new victims for the real cause of all the deaths: Freddy Krueger.

Impressions:
For the most part, I've been surprised at how little the Nightmare on Elm Street series has suffered from sequelitis. There were modest dips in 2 and 4 and a little bit more in 5, but all told, the quality level was pretty well maintained with each entry doing enough that was interesting to make it worthwhile. Now, I knew about this film's reputation before watching it, but I of course was going to give it a fair shake. Well, the clown shoes went on pretty much right out of the gate and abundant silliness followed. If you take the franchise seriously to any degree, this is more than a little insulting and a terrible way to end the series. However, I never took it all that seriously to begin with, so I was enjoying how dumb it got. As with all entries in the series, I look for interesting things to be done in the dream sequences and I particularly like what they did with Carlos, playing on his deafness and cutting the sound out for most of it. For the final sequence, we get some really corny 3D, which adds another layer of silliness. Let's not forget the use of Night on Bald Mountain, which is very on the red rubber nose of this movie. There are some stuff they do with the lore that I'm not quite sold on, but as this is the end of the original continuity, there's not much point in letting it get to you. (Also, we needed more Yaphet Kotto.) If the movie happens to strike your funny bone like it did with me, you should have a good time with it, but I can definitely see why a lot of people hate it, so take it or leave it, as you will.

Rating:
50/50