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First off, I love the entire series.
I think Nightmare 3: Dream Warriors is arguably the best sequel overall...but what makes it wilt a little in the presence of Nightmare 4: Dream Master is Chuck Russell's journeyman directorial style. The movie almost looks like a flatly-lit TV movie at times (especially in the hospital, junkyard, and "Freddy worm" scenes).
Dream Master took evertyhing just a little bit over the top, and went almost baroque (although they did stop short of part 5's excess in this regard), and features the only dream sequences to rival those of the first movie in terms of inventiveness, creep factor, and sheer weirdness in my opinion. It features my 2nd favorite character death in the series (Debbie turning into a roach), and what I think is the best ending of the entire series, as far as "killing the beast" setpieces go. And all this from Renny Harlin. I would take the piss out of him a little at this point, but I liked Die Hard 2. Sue me.
I think Dream Warriors' stronger script levels the field quite a bit, as well as the fact that Freddy was still the "evil dirty bad guy" at this point (part 4 definitely started the "Freddy as hero" tack that would play out through Freddy's Dead...although one could argue that the seeds were planted in part 3). There are really no silly scenes (like Rick karate fighting an invisible Freddy, for instance)...on the contrary...I mean, Freddy puppeting that guy via his veins is still pretty brutal. I think Chuck did an acceptable job, but I often find myself wondering what would have happened if they had got some crazy art guy like Richard Stanley or Vincent Ward to helm it. That would have been a skull-splitting experience.
I also wonder what it would have been like if New Line had let Peter Jackson do his version of Freddy's Dead. That, I would KILL to see.
And now, my Nightmare nerdiness is complete.
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