What is the plot - in one sentence? So, after the events of the First Nightmare on Elm Street, the one surviving girl is now a psychiatrist for a group of teens in an asylum who suffer similar night terrors and have to deal with the dream-invading monster Freddie Krueger.
I don't have time, just spoil it for me? It turns out that all of the teens there were children of the vigilante group which killed Freddie Kreuger. Using some hypnosis and the skills of one of the group, they are able to enter a dream together and fight Freddie. A doctor at the asylum is given hints by a very spooky nun on how to defeat Freddie (hint: burying his body) and that eventually happens. All is well for the survivors, but a sequel is hinted at, and then delivered a little while later.
What is the meaning of the title? They go into dreams to fight Freddie, that's fair enough. It's also the title of a very bouncy song at the end of the movie.
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| Tongues for the memory. |
Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? No, surprisingly, though it's VERY of its time, generally everyone is treated pretty well. The final three to survive of the gang are a black guy and two females. There's a very strange scene where a nurse seduces a young boy, getting out her boobs and then appearing with Freddie Kreuger head, but... hey, I liked that. There's also the fact that Freddie Kreuger's mum, as a ghost-nurse, tells the doctor about how Freddie was conceived (she was locked in an asylum over a weekend and raped repeatedly) - the nun being a) Freddie's mother and b) a ghost are up there as among the least surprising plot twists of all time.
Any thoughts? There are some really inventive deaths here, and the whole thing is impressive. There's a death where Freddy is a puppeteer sending a guy to commit suicide, and another death where a TV-obsessed girl is sucked into a TV which is a great set piece. The whole thing is a lot of fun, with a few scares, and some cool special effects. It's not high art, but it's a lot better than I would have expected.
It also features a lot of things which you think are something changing into something else by magic, which is always unsettling: a girl changes to a skeleton, an attractive nurse turns into Freddie Krueger, and a couple of other times. It worked on my drunk ass.
Would you recommend this? I have seen the first, and I like it. I have seen that one from the mid 90s where they're making a movie about nightmare on elm street, but it starts affecting all of the actors in it. That's a good one (Wes Craven's New Nightmare), but I haven't seen any of the others, and I'm happy to have it that way.
The only downside is the is the main woman, Nancy. She's really annoying in this movie, which is weird because in the other two that I've seen, she's not bad. But here, as a young doctor's assistant (?) she's really annoying, and her relationship with the doctor is creepy and unconvincing. Oh, John Saxon fights CGI skeleton and it looks like shit, but other than that this is about as good as a 3rd part of a horror series can be, I'd rather watch it than the Exorcist 3, for example, and that's a good movie.
Final thoughts? Patricia Arquette is cute in this, she's essentially the star of the movie, though I don't know how old she was when it was filmed. But on the whole this is not bad, with a few frightening bits, Lawrence Fishbourne in a fun role, and I was happy to find that the old lady doctor who ends up firing the two other doctors, is still alive at 97. Actually, was Nancy meant to be a doctor already? It was only a year or so since the end of the first Nightmare. Weird.
Here we go, that's 41 down, if you want more of my disconnected thoughts, check this.
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