A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master is a 1988 American slasher film and the fourth film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. The film was directed by Renny Harlin, stars Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox and Danny Hassel.
The film is about Freddy Krueger, who returns once again to terrorize the dreams of the remaining Dream Warriors, as well as those of a young woman who may know the way to defeat him for good.
After its releasing, it grossed over $49.3 million at domestic box office, making it the highest grossing horror film of year 1988, and also the most successful Nightmare on Elm Street film until Freddy vs. Jason. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics.
Plot[]
Kristen, Joey, and Kincaid, have been released from Westin Hills and are now living normal lives and attending high school. Kristen has managed to make some new friends - Alice Johnson, a young, bright girl who is a frequent daydreamer; Sheila, a brainy, quiet girl with asthma; and Debbie, a tough girl who hates bugs. She has also found herself a boyfriend, Rick, who happens to be Alice's brother.
Kristen begins to have bad dreams and feels as though Freddy has once again come back from the dead. During one of her nightmares, she pulls Kincaid and Joey into her dream. In school the next day, Kincaid and Joey confront Kristen about pulling them into the dream.
As it turns out, Freddy is indeed back. Kincaid wakes up one night, only to find himself locked in the trunk of an old junked car. When he opens the hood, he realizes that he is in a salvage yard - the same one that Freddy's body was buried in. Kincaid spies his dog, Jason, digging and urinating in the ground nearby. The ground begins to shake and the plot where Freddy lies begins to sink deeper into the ground and open up. Inside the grave, the bones begin to grow flesh. As soon as Freddy is resurrected, a pile of junked cars comes crashing down on him. Freddy quickly recoups and kills Kincaid. A little later, as Joey is watching television, he begins to feel something moving beneath his waterbed. When he pulls back the sheets he finds a naked woman swimming in his bed. Before he can react, Freddy bursts through and kills him.
The

Freddy taunting Kristen in A Nightmare On Elm Street 4.
following day at school, Kristen is concerned when her friends fail to show up for class. At home that night, her mother gives her a sedative to help her sleep. When Kristen falls asleep this time, on Alice's advice, she tries to convert nightmares into pleasant dreams, to no avail. Even in her good dreams, Freddy appears and ruins everything. Kristen eventually finds herself in Freddy's boiler room. It is explained that Kristen is the last child from Elm Street, and Freddy needs her help to get more children. When Freddy is about to kill her, she screams for Alice. Alice appears suddenly in the boiler room just as Krueger kills Kristen. Before Kristen dies, she sends her power, the power to pull people into her dreams, to Alice. Before the power can reach her, it passes through Freddy first, taking a part of him with it.
As Alice tries to understand what has happened, and who exactly Freddy is, her friends begin to die. First, Sheila and Rick are killed. While taking a test, Alice accidentally pulls Sheila into a dream where Freddy is waiting; the same thing happens to Rick later. After his death, Alice teams up with Dan Jordan, who was one of Rick's closest friends. Together with Dan, Alice tries to get to Debbie, their last surviving friend, before Freddy finds her. Unbeknown to the two teens, Freddy is able to control their movements. Trapping Alice and Dan, Freddy is able to reach Debbie and kill her (by transforming her into a giant cockroach and trapping her inside a roach motel) before Alice and Dan intervene.
Following a car accident, where Dan is injured and rushed to the hospital, Alice returns home to prepare for one final battle with Freddy. Alice goes to sleep to help Dan before Freddy can kill him. As Alice and Dan search for Freddy, the doctors wake Dan and he is pulled from the dreamworld. Alice, facing Freddy alone, attempts to use all of her abilities against him. Nothing seems to work. It isn't until she is reminded of the final verse of a children's rhyme about the "Dream Master" that she is finally able to defeat Freddy, by making him see the evil that is inside. Alice releases the tortured souls that Freddy imprisoned. Krueger's clothes fall lifelessly to the floor. The film ends with Dan and Alice at a fountain some time later. She tosses a coin in and makes a wish. As she and Dan depart, she decides to keep the wish to herself as Freddy's image appears in the ripples left in the fountain from the tossed coin.
List of Deaths[]
List of deaths in the film, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.
Name | Cause of Death | Killer | On Screen | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Docter Neil Gordon | Unknown | Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger | No | No Dream World |
Roland Kincaid | Stabbed in stomach, stabbed through abdomen/belly three more times/belly impaled with bladed glove, gutted, blood-loss | Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger | Yes | Dream World, last word being "I'll see you in hell...";Freddy killed him to get revenge on his parents for killing him |
Joey Crusel | Pulled into waterbed, stabbed in torso with bladed glove, drowned | Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger | Yes | Dream World;Freddy killed him to get revenge on his parents for killing him |
Kristen Parker | Thrown into lit furnace, burned to death | Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger | Yes | Dream World, last Elm Street Child;Freddy killed her to get revenge on her parents for killing him |
Sheila Kopecky | Kissed by Freddy, sucked dry of all body internal organs | Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger | Yes | Dream World |
Rick Johnson | Hit in face/chest/stomach several times, bladed glove launched into fore-chest | Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger | Yes | Dream World, tried to fight back with Dream Warrior power but failed |
Debbie Stevens | Elbows broken, arms fell off, transformed into a cockroach, crushed to pieces inside a roach motel | Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger | Yes | Dream World |
Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger | Killed | Kristen Parker Debbie Stevens Rick Johnson Sheila Kopecky Joey Crusel Roland Kincaid Phillip Anderson Jennifer Caulfield Taryn White Will Stanton Donald Thompson Nancy Thompson Coach Schneider Ron Grady Party Guests Kerry Hellman Tina Grey Rod Lane Glen Lantz Marge Thompson And Alice Johnson | Yes |
Cast[]
- Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger and nurse
- Lisa Wilcox as Alice Johnson
- Danny Hassel as Dan Jordan
- Tuesday Knight as Kristen Parker
- Ken Sagoes as Roland Kincaid
- Rodney Eastman as Joey Crusel
- Andras Jones as Rick Johnson
- Brooke Theiss as Debbie Stevens
- Toy Newkirk as Sheila Kopecky
- Nicholas Mele as Mr. Dennis Johnson
- Brooke Bundy as Elaine Parker
- Linnea Quigley as soul from Freddy's chest
Videos[]
External links[]
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) at the Internet Movie Database
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) at AllMovie
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) at Rotten Tomatoes
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master at Wikipedia
- A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master Official Website
![]() |
This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988). The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Horror Film Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
A Nightmare on Elm Street | Pages in this category are related to the A Nightmare on Elm Street series. | ![]() |
Films • Characters • Cast • Images • Locations |