Customer Reviews

Freddy's Dead - The Final Nightmare [VHS]

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(32)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

My word! I'll start off with the story. Basically Freddy has killed all the teenagers of Springwood, so he needs a new stomping ground. We then meet Freddy's previously un-heard of daughter, who works in a home for wayward teenagers. I think you know what happens. He kills some kids and then his daughter kills him. That's it!
Rachel Talalay takes the job of directing this pathetic attempt to kill off one of the biggest horror icons ever. Does she do a good job? Well, I'm sure my star rating say's it all.
The acting is awful. Not by everyone, mind you. The women who plays his daughter does an alright job and Yaphet Kotto, the guy who was in the first Alien film, is the only character who you actually quite like.
Let's talk about Freddy now. Well, what can I say? Mrs. Talalay actually made me not like him... I mean it! Okay, his wise-cracking antics were a bit O.T.T. from number 3 onwards, but this one really got on my nerves. In this one we had Freddy spouting lines like "Great graphics".
Next I'll talk about the deaths. Oh my god! What happened here? After viewing the deaths in this film, I'm not sure whether it was a comedy or what. They were atrocious! Only one was remotely 'Freddyish' (the one with the deaf kid).
Also, from a film that sets out to kill a big name, it does it in rubbish fashion. What an imagination the film makers had. 'Let's kill Freddy off by literally blowing him up!' I could have come up with a better death than that on the toilet! And also the 3-D...it looked absolutely dreadful. No ILM, put it that way.
I'm sorry, but Rachel Talalay should be ashamed of herself, she really should. I honestly do believe that this film is the reason why we had to wait so long to see Freddy back on the big screen in his original form (not including New Nightmare). I think that New Line Cinema were a bit reluctant to use him again, after this film bombed.
So, you have been warned. If it were up to me, this film wouldn't be a part of the Freddy story, but it is. And because I'm so loyal, I own it on video and DVD. But really, though, this film is diabolical.

If ever there was an indicator that the 'Nightmare' franchise had run outta steam, 'Freddy's Dead' was it. The storyline was a bit too surreal and muddled, and wasn't always easy to follow. Freddy's array of "witty" one-liners were so corny and dated (e.g. references to those "Your brain on drugs" commercials and the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System), I found myself groaning at every other word that came outta his mouth. The Freddy-kills here were so over-the-top and cartoonish, I was half-expecting the Acme Co. to be prominently shown in the closing credits (sadly, Freddy couldn't find it within himself to kill off the characters played by Roseanne and Tom Arnold). And don't even get me started on the 3-D sequence (shown in 2-D on this platter, (un)fortunately), which featured visual effects that would've looked high-tech and halfway decent, had this movie been made about a decade earlier. And, like all the other 'Nightmare' flicks before this, 'Freddy's Dead' wasn't all that scary to me. I laughed, I cried, I kissed four bucks of DVD rental money goodbye. But fear and fright were nowhere to be found.

Despite the silliness of Freddy's kills, I found them rather entertaining, and the main reason why I decided to give this a view. Also, remember the part when that homie was just laying on the couch smoking a joint, and he sees that Carlos dude in the t.v. set telling him to lay off it? I also liked checking out Freddy's back story, even though the parts of his past that they show are rather brief, this to me is a funny stoner movie. Now if the screenwriters only had him take out Roseanne and Tom Arnold's characters in a really gruesome fashion, this bad-boy would of earned an extra * from me.

I think most would agree that this particular Freddy movie is the goofiest of them all. It isn't even very scary, but still manages to be creepy. Even though it's the most goofy Freddy movie, does that mean it's not entertaining? Of course not! In fact, I think this is the most entertaining one in the series; not the best, but the most fun to watch. Freddy's back and is unleashing a bloody trail of dead teens in "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare."

A child psychologist is trying to help a group of troubled teens. But things get out of control when a John Doe enters her life, who turns out to be the last survivor of Elm Street. She finds out that the two of them have something in common; nightmares. John learns that the reason why Freddy has kept him alive so long is because he has a kid and is trying to get to him/her (there's even a possibility that John himself is Freddy's son). Whoever his child may be, the child is the key for Freddy to explore a new playground, enabling him to unleash his murderous wishes all over again.

Like I said, this isn't a very scary Freddy movie. It even resembles a comedy most of the time. But I still think it's a great flick. It's the most enjoyable of the series, but it isn't the best. Robert Englund still has it down as being Freddy Krueger. No way in heck would anybody else be able to tackle down the role as he has. And it's neat to see him have more lines in this one. As mean as he is, he can be pretty funny.

As enjoyable as the movie is, it does have a tendency to get overly goofy. I think they could've made it a little more scarier. The other ones before might've been funny, but they were also scary, too. That's the only real flaw of the movie, as it's one you shouldn't take very seriously. It's a fun and enjoyable flick and nothing more. It's not trying to be the "Great American Movie."

The DVD isn't loaded with a lot of extras. You can watch it in Dolby Digital or in the original stereo mix. The picture looks really good; a big improvement over the VHS version, of course. There's cast and crew biographies that you can explore as well. I don't know if this is included in the single DVD version of "Freddy's Dead," but if you pick up the complete set there are 3-D glasses included that allows you to watch the end sequence in 3-D. Pretty cool extra, if you ask me.

All in all, "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare," while not the scariest one in the series, proves to be quite an enjoyable movie. That is, if you don't take it too seriously. It's a great one to see, especially if you've seen the rest. Although it's the most criticized in the series, I still think it's the most enjoyable one. And make sure you watch the end credits, to see the life of Freddy Krueger. A great time, if you ask me.

because this is THE worst of the lot (LadyLestat of Birmingham, Alabama, I agree completely!).

If you thought "Freddy's Revenge" completely killed Freddy as a credible monster, you have to watch this. This totally ruined Freddy as a monster and thoroughly discredited Wes Craven's original storyline.

Nowhere in any of the previous movies was there even a hint that Freddy had a kid, so where the folks who made this disaster pulled that from (except their anal cavities) I haven't a clue.

And couldn't these people think of anything other than teenagers who were orphans and crazy with a counselor who dreamed the same dreams they did but didn't know it? (That angle was exhausted in "Dream Warriors.")

The ending was cornier than the beginning and the saddest part of all is that Freddy was brought back yet again (with Nancy, who, supposedly, died all those years ago in Part 3, now with a son).

The only part I enjoyed of this movie was Johnny Depp's cameo (the original Nightmare on Elm Street was his first movie role.)

Freddy Kreuger went from a scary monster who you couldn't shake off after watching the original Nightmare to a complete laughingstock.

So much for trying to appease the masses.

I thought this movie sucked really, really bad. This movie will NEVER see better days. I will admit the FX's were all right for what they were, but they weren't all that. But come on people. If Freddy were ture evil he could never die.And the only reason I rated it a one is becouse there were no negative numbers.

When 1989's "Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child" failed to live up to the box office standards set by its predecessors New Line Cinema decided to borrow a page from Paramount Pictures' "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" movie. Promising to put an end to Freddy Krueger's reign of terror over the dreams of Springwood's teens once and for all "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" was released in 1991. Directed by "NOES" series veteran Rachel Talalay (a John Waters refugee) and featuring cameos by a slew of celebrities (Roseanne and then-husband Tom Arnold, Johnny Depp in his only 'other' "NOES" appearance besides the original film, Alice Cooper, etc.) "The Final Nightmare" could have been a decent ending to a horror movie series that had gotten progressively less scary and more ridiculous with every passing installment. Instead the powers-that-be at New Line chose to once again travel the well-worn path of comedic overkill that had robbed Freddy Krueger of his menacing aura in "NOES" movies 3-5. Though marginally better than the abominable creative abyss that is "The Dream Child" this sixth and last "NOES" movie is only marginally better than its predecessor.

In part six of the Nightmare on Elm Street series, dream monster Freddy Krueger has finally killed all the children of his hometown, and seeks to escape its confines to hunt fresh prey. He takes the last surviving teenager in Springwood out of his domain and into the real world, in order to recruit his daughter as part of a plan to escape the confines of Springwood, and continue his killing in the rest of the world. However, she discovers the demonic origin of her father's powers and meets Dad head-on in a final showdown.

In the film John Doe, has lost his memory and Maggie believes that only way for him to get back to go back to Springwood. Unknowingly, Tracy Spencer and Carlos are in the back of the van. Maggie eventually discovers that she is the daughter of Freddy Krueger. And once she discovers the demonic origin of her father's powers she sets out to destroy him for good.

Doc has found a way to get Freddy for good. Maggie goes under and tracks him down. She sees what is behind his madness. Being picked on by kids at school. Being abused by his evil stepfather (played by Alice Cooper). She finds him, grabs him, where Doc wakes her up. Freddy appears and begins chasing Maggie. They battle for awhile, where Maggie finally kills him off. Doc, Tracy, and Maggie walk on happily, knowing Freddy is finally dead.

The story involves some mumbo-jumbo about the existence of a real-life Freddy Krueger daughter that could potentially be the only person that could kill pizza face for good (hey, wasn't this also the same premise for 1993's "Jason Goes to Hell"?). The town of Springwood could sure use a savior because (a) all the kids have left town in order to avoid dying in their sleep and (b) the adult population has grown catatonic with guilt and shock over the whole Freddy Krueger thing (especially since they unleashed the monster on their offspring by burning alive the child rapist with vigilante justice). Dr. Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane) recruits the help of a helpful guy simply known as Doc (Yaphet Kotto, clearly owing someone a favor by appearing in this film) and hightails it to Springwood to investigate. Maggie brings along a bunch of psychotic teens (Lezlie Deane's Tracy, Rick Dean Logan's Carlos, etc.) whose sole reason to exist is for Freddy to dispatch them one by one via some of the silliest set pieces to ever appear in an "NOES" movie. If you thought the Freddy Krueger character had become a caricature of itself in "Dream Warriors," "Dream Master" and "Dream Child" then "The Final Nightmare" pushes the audience's tolerance level for unfunny gags and insufferable situations well past the breaking point.

At one point Freddy becomes a videogame character and beats one of the expendable teens with a modified NES Power Glove (remember that useless peripheral?). Not only is this whole videogame death sequence (a) not funny, (b) not scary, (c) not gory and (c) not particularly well made, but it also follows on the heels of "NOES 5's" similar comic book-inspired death scene. The filmmakers are clearly running low on energy and ideas at this point of the series. How else to explain Krueger dressing up as the Wicked Witch of the East from "The Wizard of Oz"? Or the asinine and pointless 3D ending that (a) explains nothing about Freddy's past and (b) hasn't even been given a proper video transfer for the stand-alone DVD version of "Freddy's Dead"? "The Final Nightmare" didn't turn out to be Freddy Krueger's swan song (two movies have been released since starring the gloved one in quasi-supporting roles) but it ended up being the last "NOES" movie in the original series. What a pathetic whimper of a sendoff New Line Cinema ended up giving what was at one point the company's biggest intellectual property asset! On its own or as part of its venerable slasher series "Freddy's Dead" is an absurd and idealistic stab at keeping a movie franchise sunk deep in a hole of its own making.

Released in September of 1991, "The Final Nightmare" is an amusing bad movie that looks pretty good on DVD. The Widescreen Anamorphic (1:85:1) & Full Screen (1:33:1) Video Transfers are the best yet for a "NOES" movie, upholding the high standards that New Line's Platinum Series DVD's are known for. No compression artifacts, visible flaws or film imperfections will take viewers' attention away from the movie's atmospheric cinematography (a mix of psychedelic colors, shapes and shadows that recall the syndicated Freddy Krueger TV series), serviceable special effects (the Nintendo-inspired Freddy videogame sprite gave me "Comix Zone" Genesis flashbacks!), creative art/set designs and serviceable camera angles. Even though I personally dislike the look of "Freddy's Dead" (especially since it lacks the support for 3D glasses that its counterpart in the Eight-Disc Box Set offers) it certainly holds its own on the DVD format. The English Dolby Digital 5.1 & 2.0 Surround Soundtracks do serviceable justice to the movie's noisy sound effects, music (strident and generic throughout the movie's running time) and beyond-idiotic dialogue are excellent across the board. The 5.1 mix features the best speaker separation and panning effects yet in the series; even the 2.0 Surround audio track is passable (though the 5.1 track is obviously the preferred one).

English Closed Captions are also included, along with a handful of bonus features inherited from the "NOES" Box Set. One of them, sadly, isn't the ability to watch the movie's anti-climactic ending in true 3D. The Theatrical Trailer, 'Jump to a Death' Feature and DVD-ROM Content (screenplay, Cast & Crew information and the sixth of seven Dream World trivia games related to each individual movie's body count, classic catch phrases, etc.). The absence of the bonus features from the Eight-Disc DVD Box Set in "The Final Nightmare's" stand-alone disc would be lamentable if the movie wasn't such an atrocious and ill-conceived ending to one of horror cinema's biggest icons. Oh well, at least this isn't as puke-inducing a waste of celluloid as previous Freddy Krueger disasters like "The Dream Child" or "The Dream Warriors."


The last movie in the original "NOES" lineage before the spin-offs ("Wes Craven's New Nightmare") and knockoffs ("Freddy Vs. Jason") took the series in a whole new direction, "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare" not only lies in its title. It also fails to give one of cinema's best horror icons a sendoff worthy of the character's wasted potential. Technical specs are solid but the bonus features (including a gimmicky use of 3D for its underwhelming ending that ISN'T included in this stand-alone version) continue to leave a lot to be desired. If you want to own this movie bad enough then you might as well spring for the "NOES" DVD Box Set and the envelope with the 3D glasses that upgrades "The Final Nightmare's" ending from terrible to laughably terrible. Here's my rating of Freddy's Finale.

PLOT: The story was actually quite good, it invovled Freddy's daughter destroying him once and for all. Overall, I found the Freddy's Dead storyline to be quite entertaining. The only problem I found with it was that a bit too comical, and it therefore took out a lot of the intensity and suspense that a final sequel should have. 7/10

GORE: By far this film has the silliest and most comical death sequences in the whole series. A guy getting sucked into a video game after smoking weed, and latino boy who explodes from a demonic hearing aid. The death's in this film are as ridiculous as they come, but their still entertaining to watch. Overall, the death scenes did have some gore, but not a whole lot. 7/10

BODY COUNT: The same body count as the previous film, only three people get killed by Freddy Krueger. Freddy's comical approach to killing teens was brought from the previous film "The Dream Child". 5/10

NUDITY: There is no nudity in this film

OVERALL RATING: 6/10

Well there who have it folks Freddy's Finale, ENJOY!!

This ridiculous (and that's saying something) sixth (but not final as opposed to it's title) installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street series doesn't have one good thing going for it. Sloppy direction from Rachel Talalay (Tank Girl), a poor script (even though it tries to delve more into Freddy's past), and too few (and poorly done) deaths with little or no gore. The nice cast, which includes Breckin Meyer, the late Yaphet Kotto, and inspired cameos from Roseanne, Tom Arnold, Johnny Depp, and Alice Cooper who graces the screen as Freddy's abusive father. The climatic ending was originally shot to be presented in 3-D format in theaters (if you purchase the box set of Nightmare films it includes two pairs of 3-D glasses just for this film, but none are found in the stand alone package), but there is hardly anything here worth embracing, even for long time Nightmare fans. Fortunately, original creator Wes Craven would return for the last installment, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which breathed fresh life into the stale series.

I recently re-watched this again, and I have to agree, this was definately the worst of the bunch that I've seen (I haven't yet seen Freddy vs. Jason, so don't know how it would compare). I wouldn't give it 1 star, as I was somewhat entertained, but this was definately below average for so many reasons. One of the reasons I pick on the original was it's idiotic dialogue, (for example, Nancy asking her dad to "arrest" Freddy when she pulls him out of her nightmares), but the dialogue added humor to an otherwise very disturbing tale. Part 6, however, was lacking the chills that made all the other movies that much scarier. The stoner in the video game was interesting, until it showed his "real" body running around the house like a cartoon with those awful sound effects. But what I really found annoying about this movie was the story. Nancy had connections in the first 3 movies (as a character in 1 and 3, and her diary that served as a background in 2). The characters in 3 overlapped into 4, and the characters in 4 overlapped into 5. Amanda became a known character in 3-5. So in a way the stories were all connected. Then comes 6, where the only real connection to the other movies was Freddy. We learn Freddy was married and had a child, none of which was disclosed in any of the other films, that he needs his child to escape the boundaries of Springfield without knowing why, and that one child remains who may or may not be blood-related to Freddy, but where are his parents/adoptive parents? It felt as if they forced a story in order to finish Freddy off, and they didn't bother with trying to find connections to the first movie. Forget all of that, though, what about pulling Freddy out of the dreamworld into reality? What a plot twist!... Oh wait, wasn't that what Nancy tried to do in the first movie? Why didn't it work then? That's the question a lot of people have, and the only thing I can think is that it didn't work for Nancy because it was all a dream (which would seemingly mean she pulled Freddy from one dream into another?). In part 6, we do learn more of Freddy's past, but unless you've watched the other previous movies you don't know why he is what he is, and what led up to his birth in the first place. And the dream demons, while an interesting idea, seemed out of place and not handled very well. I know they are planning to remake the original, and from what I can tell they plan to relaunch it as a franchise. If the directors are listening, my opinion is to make it a trilogy (nothing more than that as it seems that movies tend to die after the 2nd or 3rd installment), and use part 1 as the basis of part 1 remake, part 3 as the basis for the remake sequel, and parts 4 and 5 as the basis for the remake's finale.

Director: Rachel Talalay
Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt, Lezlie Deane, Ricky Dean Logan, Breckin Meyer, Yaphet Kotto, Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold.
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rated R for horror violence, language and drug content.

This film, which was promised to be the sixth and final installment of the popular, commercialized horror series, starts with a parody of "Wizard of Oz" and then progresses from an intense psychological thriller into a maniacal heap of nonsense. Lisa Zane stars as Maggie Burroughs, a counsellor at a shelter for abused and homeless kids. When John Doe (Shon Greenblatt), a troubled teen with amnesia, is taken to the shelter by the cops, Maggie uses the handy clue of a newspaper cutting he has about Springwood to find out a bit more about him, and decides to take him back there to try and jog his memory. Stowing away in the van are three other patients at the shelter - Tracy (Lezlie Deane), Carlos (Ricky Dean Logan) and Spencer (Breckin Meyer) who predictably provide plenty of fodder for what we all know is coming next. Of course Freddy (Robert Englund) is still lurking about in their dreams, but the new twist is that one of these characters is related to Freddy and he's in the mood for a family reunion.

The movie smartly concentrates on the possibilities offered by the blurring of the line between reality and the dream world of unconsciousness, which is the exact thing that made the original movie so successful. Back then, you had a villain that was morbidly likable and a premise to which anyone could relate to because it's based on the real life crossing of that line, which you never really notice doing. Unfortunately, the movie trips all over itself with a series of ridiculous killing scenes which illustrate the sheer extent to which writers are running out of clever ideas for how Freddy should claim his victims. Breckin Meyer makes an early appearance as some Freddy fodder and suffers a video game fate in which the entire movie stops in its tracks so that Freddy can put his feet up on the desk and kill someone with a joystick. It's not hard to tell that this movie was made at the height of Nintendo hysteria. We do get an interesting look into Freddy's past in which we learn not about the disturbing method of his conception, but what hid life was like before he became the Freddy Krueger we know. The kids in the movie come up with a pretty clever (and long overdue) plot to kill Freddy once and for all, but it's good that this was not the final installment in the series, if only because it would have been such an anticlimactic close to a series that had thus far spawned five sequels and fans around the world.

saw this tons of times on vhs and tv
just as sick, funny, shocking as the other Nightmare on Elm street movies
see this
i'm so glad I have it on dvd