Why I Love Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

Why I love Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

1) Freddy's Dead was the very first horror film I ever rented as a child. I ran up and down the rental shelves, looking for the least-intense movie I could find. Freddy's Dead had a bright cover, a fanciful description, and promised a final showdown between good and evil. 

2) Having been my first introduction to the Freddy Krueger mythos, the movie felt like a fairy tale. I had no idea why the town of Springwood was so strange, nor why all the kids were missing. 

3) Most people hate it when Freddy got funny, but part of the appeal of Freddy's Dead was the fact that it was an evil version of a Looney Tunes cartoon. The bus, the chalkboard, the spiked bed, the video game, all of which were, heh heh, executed with such gleeful aplomb.

4) I liked that the kids were from the halfway home. They were angry, edgy badasses. They were interesting! And one of them knew karate!

5) Roseanne and Tom! "I want my children back!" "You know they bring him!"

6) Yaphet Kotto makes a great wise man. Plus, the movie gave me my first hint on the futility of institutional efforts. The program that he runs seems desperately strapped for resources and he seems to it together with compassion tempered by a no-nonsense attitude. 

7) The cheesy 3D special effects. Totally gimmicky for it's time, totally amazing.

8) The final fight ain't no joke. NoES heroines are always tough cookies, and the brawl at the end between Freddy and his daughter is brutal and exciting. Plus there are ninja stars. 

9) The first time I heard "In A Gadda Da Vida" by Iron Butterfly was during the Spence scene. It blew my fragile 11-year old mind. That, combined with the video game scene (I'm a child of Nintendo) made a horror scene that spoke to my sensibilities. 

Conclusion: Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare is like a childhood storybook for me. It's full of bright colors, grand characters, and an undeniable streak of darkness. It's a good story and a fun movie. I recognize that it also represents the nadir of Freddy Krueger as a horror figure, but it was the best introduction I could have asked for to the wonders of the horror genre.