| Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare | |
|---|---|
| |
| Riffed by | Ronin Fox Trax |
| Riffers | Ronin Fox, Vamperica |
| Series | A Nightmare on Elm Street (Series) |
| Date Released | August 2014 |
Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare is a 1991 American Horror film and the sixth in the A Nightmare on Elm Street Series. It was intended to be the final film in the franchise, though future films were still produced. The film marks the first time in the series that the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" name was left off of the title of the film, instead using Freddy's name for brand recognition. Rachel Talalay made her directorial debut with the film, after having been a producer for previous entries. She also developed the story with screenwriter Michael DeLuca. Freddy's Dead was the first film produced by New Line Cinemas to feature the use of 3-D technology, though due to budget restraints only a ten minute sequence at the end of the film was filmed in 3-D. Robert England reprised his role of Freddy Krueger in the film in a plot that revolves around the last teenager alive in Springwood luring a group back to the devestated town so that Freddy Krueger can break out and begin killing other children in the world instead of being limited to the decendants of his killers. Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt, Lezlie Deane, Yaphet Kotta and Brecken Meyer also star along side notable cameos by Johnny Depp, Rosanne Barr, Tom Arnold and Alice Cooper.
While financially successful, marking the highest opening weekend gross in the series until Freddy vs Jason, the film was recieved poorly by critics and fans often regard it as one of the worst of the series.
Ronin Fox Trax released their riff in August of 2014 and is available through iRiffs and Gumroad. They have released four previews including a true teaser trailer with no riffing and a "redband" trailer with some adult language.
Synopsis and Preview[]
[Spoilers Begin]
Ronin Fox Trax-Freddy's Dead The Final Nightmare Teaser
According to a computerized map of the United States that only recognizes the existance of one city that used to be one state to the west, it is the future (of 1999) and Freddy Krueger has killed all but one of the children left in Springwood. That child, a teenage boy, is escaping via airplane when the plane starts tearing apart and he falls out. He wakes up suddenly and finds himself in a mild case of copyright infringement as his house is falling out of the sky with Freddy playing wicked witch outside the window. Escaping the house, he runs into the middle of nowhere, gets hit by a bus and knocked out of some strange border of the dream world and told by Freddy to "go fetch."
Waking up on the street, the teenager wanders into town and is picked up by police. They drop him off at a youth shelter under the care of Maggie Burroughs, a case worker who is also trying to help Carlos, a physical abuse survivor with a hearing aide; Spencer, a pot-addicted boy with a penchant for explosives rebelling against his overbearing and controlling father; and Tracy, a tough girl who uses aggression to deal with her past of sexual assault. Also helping the kids is Doc, a psychiatrist who is conveniently steeped in equal parts dream analysis and fakey dream mysticism.
Ronin Fox Trax-Freddy's Dead The Final Nightmare Teaser 2
Maggie is troubled by recurring nightmares and finds that the escaped teenager, called John Doe due to his amnesia, has very similar dreams. He also is carrying a newspaper clipping from Springwood that reminds her of a water tower she sees in her sleep. Wanting to get to the bottom of it, Maggie decides to take John back to Springwood to investigate. While on the road, they discover that Carlos, Spencer and Tracy have stowed away in the back of the van in order to run away from the shelter. They arrive in Springwood together, in the middle of a strange street festival. They notice that there are no children in the town, and everyone there seems out of their minds in some way or another. Maggie orders the stowaways to call the shelter and drive the van home. Maggie and John investigate the school, finding a crazed teacher who starts telling them about the history of Freddy Krueger, mentioning that Freddy once had a child that was taken from him. Maggie finds a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about missing and murdered children and matches the clipping John had to one in the book, proving that John had been there before.
The three stowaways try and drive back to the shelter, but end up lost and driving in circles no matter which way they turn. Giving up as it's getting dark, they find an abandoned neighboorhood and break into one of the houses, which turns out to be 1428 Elm Street, Nancy Thompson's house from the first film. Carlos goes upstairs to get some sleep while the others explore the house. Freddy attacks Carlos, first appearing as Carlos' mother wielding a cotton swab, then giving Carlos an evil hearing aide and torturing him with loud noises that eventually makes Carlos' head explode.
Ronin Fox Trax-Freddy's Dead The Final Nightmare Preview-0
Carlos has apparently vanished, and Tracy gets worried when she can't find him. Spencer is getting high on the couch and proves no help, so Tracy leaves him behind to keep looking. Freddy targets Spencer, pulling him into a television with a psychodelic light show.
Maggie and John find an orphanage and talk with the caretaker there, who still believes that the orphanage is full of invisible children. She seems to recognize both Maggie and John as her former orphans. They find a crayon drawing signed by K. Krueger, and John starts to believe that he is Freddy's son.
As they leave the orphanage, Tracy finds them and fills them in on what is going wrong in the Elm Street house. The three of them run to the house to find that Spencer is acting crazy. Freddy has him trapped in a nightmare where he is in a video game controlled by Freddy. He fights a cartoon of a tennis pro that in no way resembles his father, but Spencer calls Dad. John and Tracy both enter the dream world to try and save Spencer by unplugging Freddy's joystick, this stragegy fails because Freddy turns his claw into a power glove. As Freddy forces Spencer to fall off a cliff into a sea of not-his-fathers the real Spencer falls down a flight of stairs and into a pit that was probably supposed to look like the helping hands pit from Labyrinth but they didn't have the budget to animate the hands. Freddy absorbs Spencer's soul or something.
Ronin Fox Trax-Freddy's Dead The Final Nightmare Redband Preview
John is still stuck in the dream while Tracy is able to escape. Together they get John's sleeping body into the van and start driving away. In the nightmare, John goes through a few versions of the falling nightmare again until he ends up gliding down to the ground with a parachute. Freddy confronts him in the sky, telling him that John isn't his son, and that he just used John to bring him his daughter. Freddy cuts the straps of John's parachute, sending him falling onto a bed of spikes. In the real world, John is pulled violently out of the van and falls as well. As he bleeds to death he tells Maggie that "it isn't a boy."
Back at the shelter, no one seems to remember Carlos, Spencer or John except for Maggie, Tracy and Doc. Doc theorizes that he remembers because he can control his dreams. Maggie looks into her own past and finds out that she was adopted. Already suspecting that she was Freddy's daughter she has a nightmare where she remembers being a little girl finding her father's secret basement torture/murder room and witnessing her mother's murder. Freddy confronts her directly. He tells Maggie that the people of Springwood took her away from him, and as his revenge he took all their children away. Now with his revenge complete, he wants to use Maggie (a.k.a. Katherine Krueger) to break into the outside world and continue killing children.
Tracy has a nightmare of her father. As her father attempt to sexually assault her, Tracy brutally beats him to the ground until he is replaced by Freddy. Tracy escapes the dream by burning her arms on the stove. Maggie hears her scream and together they go to find Doc. Doc has his own encounter with Freddy, beating Freddy down with a bat to accomplish nothing. Freddy mentions that he can't be killed thanks to "the dream people" who made him what he is. Doc wakes up when an alarm goes off, but not before ripping a piece of Freddy's sweater off and taking it into the real world. Maggie and Tracy find Doc and together they start to form a plan.
They plan for Maggie to enter the dream world and pull Freddy out so they can kill him in the real world. Doc gives Maggie a pair of 3-D glasses because...look we needed a cue okay?
In the dream world Maggie finds herself entering Freddy's memories. She sees Freddy as a young child in school being ostracised by the kids for being weird and creepy, then as a teenager being abused by his adoptive father. Finally she sees the moments leading up to Freddy's death as the parents of Springwood were burning the building he was hiding in while 3 floting dream demons promise him supernatural powers. Freddy and Maggie face eachother again and Maggie pulls him into the real world.
Freddy looks normal and unburned at first, and appeals for forgiveness, but it turns out to be a ruse. Freddy and Maggie fight in a fenced off section of the basement while Doc and Tracy try to break in through the locked door. Using confiscated weapons that Tracy slides under the fence, Maggie is able to pin Freddy against the wall, attack him with his own glove, and finally shove a stick of dynamite into his chest before running for cover. As Freddy explodes, the dream demons are seen flying away. Maggie smiles like only the daughter of a serial killer can after taking a life and declares that "Freddy's Dead."
[Spoilers End]
Cast and Crew[]
- Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger
- Lisa Zane as Maggie Burroughs/Katherine Krueger
- Shon Greenblatt as John Doe
- Lezlie Deane as Tracy
- Breckin Meyer as Spencer
- Ricky Dean Logan as Carlos
- Yaphet Kotto as Doc
- Elinor Donahue as Orphanage Woman
- Chason Schirmer as Young Freddy
- Tobe Sexton as Teenage Freddy
- Cassandra Rachel Freil as Young Maggie/Katherine
- Lindsey Fields as Loretta Krueger
- Johnny Depp as Guy On TV (Credited as Oprah Noodlemantra)
- Tom Arnold as Childless Man
- Roseanne Barr as Ethel
- Alice Cooper as Mr. Underwood (uncredited)
Quotes[]
Notes[]
- This film flatly contradicts A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 about the location of the fictional town of Springwood. Nightmare 2 established the town in Indiana, according to the school busses; while Freddy's Dead places it in Ohio, according to a map and opening subtitles.
- While they serve no actual purpose in the plot, the 3-D glasses that Maggie uses were a cue to audiences to put on their own 3-D glasses for the climax of the film. Most home video versions of the film removed the 3-D effect, rendering them completely pointless.
- In 2014, James Cruise of Ronin Fox Trax named this riff as one of his "picks" in his interview with RiffWiki Interviews.