Saturday, August 16, 2003

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

I suppose it's telling that right after one of the most inventive and creative murders in this series (the kid with the hearing aid), we get what's got to be the lamest setpiece in any slasher series ever. The Nintendo-inspired death of Breckin Meyer's character is so extraordinarily dopey that you have to wonder if the creators knew they were making a horror film. This kind of who-the-fuck-cares-anyway vibe permeates most of this movie, which ignores all the mythology built up over the previous five films and seems to have been tossed off by people who'd never seen a Nightmare film before. And just when you think it can't get worse, in walks the 3-D sequence, which apparently looked incompetent even in theaters. Even the pointless cutesy cameos suck (with the exception of a certain Oprah Noodlemantra, who has a funny bit). No wonder Wes Craven made New Nightmare -- Freddy Krueger deserved a far better sendoff than this pathetic thing.

Grade: D+