At this point in the series it seems clear that the movies realize that they are no longer horror films but gory comedies, since they have long since lost what little power they ever might have had to be scary. The alleged Final Nightmare starts off with a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche which carries an unusual amount of dramatic intensity for a Nightmare on Elm Street movie since it fits so well with the series' running theme, and is then followed by a sophomoric quote from Freddy at his classiest, 'Welcome to Prime Time, B**ch.' This is followed by a parody of The Wizard of Oz in which we see Freddy flying on a broom and yelling, 'I'll get you my pretty! And your little SOUL too!! HAW HAW HAW!!' And thus is the tone set for the rest of the movie.
Instead of taking place at the setting of a mental hospital, this one takes place at a zero security shelter for disturbed kids. And I say 'zero security' very literally. Police find junkies on the streets and send them to this place rather than deal with the paperwork involved in putting kids in juvenile hall, and yet detention at the facility is literally based on encouraging them not to leave. It's like attendance is based on the honor system. At one point, one of the counselors (and the main character in the story), takes John Doe, their newest guest, on a trip back to his home town to confront the demons that are messing up his cognitive function. On the way there they find three kids stowing away in the company car (which is a decrepit old white van covered in obscene graffiti), planning to escape. Rather than return them to the facility, she has them drop her and John Doe off at their destination and promise to DRIVE THEMSELVES BACK IMMEDIATELY!! What kind of a detention center is this anyway? In case you were wondering, no thought was wasted on how she and John Doe were meant to get back themselves.
That being said, the rest of the movie really isn't that bad, as long as you keep it in context of such scenes as that described above. The movie takes place 10 years after part 5 left off, and our John Doe is a mystery character who suffers from amnesia and is not all that anxious to have it cured. The basic premise is that Freddy has a kid running around somewhere who he intends to use to bring him fresh victims, giving him more time to concentrate on expanding his territory ('There's an Elm Street in every town!').
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. One poor kid gets his ear cut off, then Freddy gives it back to him, the kid picks it up and says, 'Yes!!' and then puts it on the other side of his head (the side which still has an ear attached to it), and Freddy proceeds to make loud noises until the kid's head explodes. What the hell was that?
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.
The film originally featured a thrilling 3-D conclusion which, to the best of my knowledge, has been scrapped by the DVD production, I imagine because of the necessity for 3-D glasses. Still, we get a look inside Freddy's brain as well as a host of other scenes (including Freddy's alleged death), which surely must have been a blast to see in 3-D. Sadly, the rest of the movie probably couldn't even have been supported on this gimmick alone, because it certainly doesn't have a lot else going for it.
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