A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989) Review

Spoiler-free so you can read before you watch

Horrorific content by Yo Adrian on October 20th, 2020 | Movie Review | A Nightmare on Elm Street Series, Slasher, Supernatural, Campy, Pregnancy

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It's about Freddy getting through to the real world via the dreams of an unborn baby.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child was directed by Stephen Hopkins (who also directed The Reaping and Predator 2) and stars Robert Englund (from Scream, Queen! My Nightmare On Elm Street and and Abruptio), Lisa Wilcox (from FredHeads: The Documentary and The Quiet Room) and Kelly Jo Minter (from The People Under The Stairs and Popcorn).

Now Freddy's a daddy

The Dream Child starts off with a sensual sex scene between Alice and her dream jock followed by a nun, Freddy's mom, being gang raped by a hundred maniacs followed by a nightmare of a before-dead Freddy getting handsy with Alice followed by Alice's high school graduation and a reconnecting with her now sober dad followed by another nightmare of the nun leading Alice into a demented hospital to watch her demented birthing of baby Freddy followed by baby Freddy tearing up a church before stretching into full grown Freddy and shouting...

"It's a boy!!!"

Whew. A hell of a lot of cringey shit happens in the first 20 minutes.

The next 20 minutes aren't much better. Dan, Alice's dream jock, tangles with Freddy and has two of the cheesiest nightmares in the entire franchise. One involves a truck that turns into Freddy and another involves a motorcycle that turns into Freddy as The Terminator. Dan dies and Alice learns she's preggo.

The Dream Child is off to a sketchy start.

But it gets worse. The next nightmare has Freddy playing chef and force feeding one of Alice's friends until she pops. And if that doesn't sound bad, the use of claymation to show rotting food should. I haven't seen claymation this bad since the scene in Basket Case where Belial tears up the motel room.

I grew up watching Freddy and have always loved this franchise, but The Dream Child just sucks, there's no way to spin it. It's a low-budget generic cheesy mess.

Worth Watching?

Hard pass. The Dream Child brings nothing new to the table, it's just a mashup of all previous movies.

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Yo Adrian

Founder and Executive Director of all things Horrific at AllHorror.com (Ok, actually I'm just a guy who watches way too many horror movies. It's unhealthy, really).

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