1988 was a banger year for horror, but just as with Highlander, there can be only one; and that year belonged to Freddy. Point-blank.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 4: The Dream Master holds a very dear and nostalgic place in my dark heart. I was merely six-years-old when Dream Master made its theatrical run in August 1988, but I was also a blossoming horror nerd, contrary to my peers who were playing with Barbie while I had my poseable mini Freddy figure who I would throw in the passenger seat of my best friend’s barbie’s corvette.

Freddy was totally Kenough.

I didn’t get to see Dream Master at the movies, mostly due to my age, but my first viewing was rather at a sleepover the following year at my older cousin’s house as a double feature with Halloween IV. I was invited purely out of family politics, as my cousin was three years my senior and definitely didn’t want to deal with her “bratty little cousin”. Too fucking bad, tho. I was crashing the party so I could watch some cool movies with the older kids and show them I could hang. I had already seen Dream Warriors and Freddy’s Revenge at home, (believe it or not, I hadn’t seen the original until after this shortly after this viewing of Part 4), so watching it for the first time with kids close to my age and also horror fiends, was something really special. Might as well note, given our age, we all felt super awkward when, you know, this scene happened as we were all flat-chested adolescents.

Also, this is the first time I even heard the term wet dream. Thanks Freddy for the sexual education!

In 1988, Freddy took on an entire generation of youth and persuaded them to bend to his will. Hell, I was obviously certainly one of them. Wes Craven’s creation and the character that Robert Englund made infamous was climbing the ranks years prior, rising as a superstar within the first three films, and the fourth film was no exception. As a matter of fact, the promotions done for the film, along with the movie itself catapulted Freddy into superstardom outside the horror genre, breaking that wall into modern pop-culture phenomena where we would see a guy whose main purpose is to kill kids, have his face on bubble gum sold at candy stores.

NOW, THAT IS SOME SERIOUS STAR POWER.

While Freddy-Mania as we Fred-Heads like to put it, ran wild well before Dream Master, it certainly hit its stride and its absolute peak in 1988. Freddy was EVERYWHERE. From hosting his own hour-long MTV special (of which you can in its entirety here), several music videos, Halloween costumes, late-night guest appearances, toys, merch, that god-awful yet fan-fucking-tastic Nintendo game, and even a board game ensured that even the pearl-clutchiest of prudes knew who Freddy was. Especially, us, the kids.

Also, you had the cool parents if this was sitting in your game closet.

Now, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 had some serious pressure having to follow up the thought-provoking and scary as hell Nightmare 3. Renny Harlin, the 28-year-old Finnish director coming off his spirited horror flick Prison the year prior, had been banging on New Line’s door for some time to get it on the Freddy madness and was given his chance with Dream Master. Brian Helgeland, who helped Robert Englund write his directorial debut 976-EVIL the same year, took a first-time stab at penning the script. Worth noting that Helgeland would also obtain an Oscar for L.A. CONFIDENTIAL less than a decade later, so that’s just some trivia for you if you ever needed to make a Freddy and Russell Crowe connection.

Dream Warriors is unofficially by fans, clamored to be the best in the series apart from the 1984, original, but I can argue that Dream Master is just as good, and in some ways, even better than its predecessor- depending on what type of movie you’re into as Warriors and Master can seem like a far leap from each other even as sister films with the tone, atmosphere, and even Freddy feeling more fun this time around. Maybe it’s just me, but the more serious intention of the movies went right out the window when a dog pissed out flames to resurrect Freddy’s dried-out bitch bones and cook him to a more suitable temperature of extra-crispy.

And, you know what? THAT IS TOTALLY OK. Dream Master is fun as hell and all the dream sequences are winners in their own right. From Freddy pulling Joey into his own waterbed, mocking him for his over-ravenous sexual appetite, to Debbie being turned into a cockroach, the creativity keeps us on edge and doesn’t get boring even after the 300th time watching it.

And then, there’s Alice.

Alice, played by Lisa Wilcox, is much like Rachel Carruthers in Halloween IV, (who by the way was up for the role for Kristin Parker in Dream Master, but took the role as Rachel instead)! She’s the second-coming of a final girl in a beloved slasher franchise where she not only lives up to her predecessor Nancy, but gives us a fresh and imperfect character that female horror fans can relate with. Alice has problems. She’s shy. She has internal trauma unrelated to the fact there’s a nightmare demon trying to murder her and all her friends. She’s just simply trying to navigate her life while struggling with her own self-worth. While this sort of theme in horror heroes suffering from PTSD has become rather typical in modern horror, in the 80s, it really wasn’t common at all. And this is where Dream Master and Dream Warriors really pull itself together as true sister films when they broke down that fourth wall, diving into unresolved trauma. Warriors dealt with the stigma of mental illness, and Dream Master followed us down that path of the aftermath while touching on unresolved wounds from the past. It was quite groundbreaking for a slasher film, and you have to respect that.

Alice Johnson’s journey towards her end-game battle with Freddy is unique among her ’80s horror movie peers. In many of these films, the “Final Girl” concludes her screen time with some sense of strength and badassery for overpowering her antagonist – be it a supernatural foe or a more mundane one. However, the NOES franchise has always paid special attention in giving their heroines an extraordinarily powerful presence from start to finish – something which I, as a female, have always admired. Sure, they’re goddamn scared of getting killed in their sleep because, come on, who wouldn’t? But, in the famous words of SCREAM’s Sidney Prescott, they certainly never came across as some, “big-breasted girl that can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.”  

Nancy had a strong will, Jesse had the power of love, and Kristin had dream power. Alice, while not at first possessed all these traits, eventually brought Freddy to his knees (or rather, torso) in the finale. And while the battle was glorious, it was the road that led to it that left my adolescent self inspired to be a role model rather than a victim. And for that, she, to me, is the ultimate final girl in the NOES franchise.

A Nightmare On Elm Street 4 opened up to rave reviews from fans, not so much from critics so fuck ’em, amassing nearly $50 million at the U.S. box-office alone, and was also the highest-grossing horror film in all of 1988 (considering what a grand year ’88 was for horror, that’s pretty damn amazing!) It was such a success for New Line that the TV series Freddy’s Nightmares was green-lit as a result; which also originally premiered in October of 1988. Maybe not to the same sort of rave reviews from fans, as I guess people wanted more Freddy rather than him as a host, but some of those episodes are still well worth a watch; especially the Tobe Hooper-directed pilot episode. Regardless, the combination of all these massive achievements in only a year, undeniably make Freddy the KING of 1988 HORROR.

That being said, I can’t think of a better way to close this piece out than dropping this bomb right here. Here’s to 35 years of being petrified of dying in my sleep from asthma!