History YMMV / ANightmareOnElmStreet4TheDreamMaster

* FranchiseOriginalSin: This was the point where Freddy's motive was [[MotiveDecay no longer]] to get RevengeByProxy on [[SinsOfOurFathers the parents who murdered him]], but just killing for the sake of it now that he'd already finished that job, leaving the plot unmoored and little more than an excuse to get to the kills and dream sequences. This would be the undoing of the next two films, which had to come up with new motives for Freddy to keep killing that merely fed into existing problems concerning his increasingly convoluted backstory.

* ContestedSequel: Over whether it marks the last of [[GoldenAge the good movies]] or the first of [[DorkAge the bad movies]]. Some consider it a worthy follow-up to ''Dream Warriors'' with a strong, compelling lead character in Alice, while others consider it an absurd, shallow SFX spectacle that pointless [[HappyEndingOverride overrode the previous film's ending]] and officially turned Freddy into a self-parody.
* EnsembleDarkhorse:

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Freddy is resurrected when Kincaid's dog pisses fire on his grave. It might be considered a joke since the dog's name is [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]].

*** 27 years with no official release, Tuesday released an EP with 7 different versions of it at fan demand.

* TearJerker:
** Alice imagining [[spoiler:her brother Rick]] popping out of the coffin at his funeral and telling her he escaped Freddy. It's definitely ''not'' PlayedForLaughs and is a somber moment in a movie that can get otherwise very goofy. For anyone who's ever been to the funeral of a loved one, it definitely hits home as a form of wish fulfillment.
--->'''[[spoiler:Rick]]:''' Hey… what’s with the tears? I wouldn’t leave you. C’mon, don’t cry.
** Kristen lets out a heart-tugging BigNo when she sees the empty classroom seats of the last of her TrueCompanions from the previous movie amid her (correct) fear that Freddy is killing again.
** Debbie's stunned, crushed reaction to [[spoiler:Shiela's]] death is pretty sobering and believable.
---> '''Debbie:''' What 17-year-old has [[spoiler:fatal asthma]]?
*** Alice breaking down after the sinking realization that she pulled [[spoiler:Sheila]] into her dream makes it even worse.
---->'''Alice:''' It was Freddy.\\
'''Debbie:''' ''Enough with that crap!''\\
'''Alice:''' I ''saw'' it! It was my dream! ''I pulled [[spoiler:Shelia]] in!'' (''realization sinks in'') Oh, God… I pulled [[spoiler:Shelia]] in, like Kristen did with me…\\
'''Rick:''' (''tries to comfort Alice'') C’mon…\\
'''Alice:''' (''pulls away from him'') No, don't! [[ItsAllMyFault I]] ''[[ItsAllMyFault gave]]'' [[spoiler:[[ItsAllMyFault Shelia]]]] [[ItsAllMyFault to him!]] And now ''[[spoiler:she]]'s dead!'' (''breaks down sobbing and runs off'')

** Alice imagining [[spoiler: her brother Rick]] popping out of the coffin at his funeral and telling her he escaped Freddy. It's definitely ''not'' PlayedForLaughs and is a somber moment in a movie that can get otherwise very goofy. For anyone who's ever been to the funeral of a loved one, it definitely hits home as a form of wish fulfillment.

--> '''Debbie:''' What 17-year-old has [[spoiler:fatal asthma]]?

* TearJerker: Alice imagining [[spoiler: her brother Rick]] popping out of the coffin at his funeral and telling her he escaped Freddy. It's definitely ''not'' PlayedForLaughs and is a somber moment in a movie that can get otherwise very goofy. For anyone who's ever been to the funeral of a loved one, it definitely hits home as a form of wish fulfillment.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Dr. Neil Gordon, one of the few survivors of the third movie, is never mentioned in this chapter. You would imagine that Kristen would warn Alice of his existence so she could look for him and ask for his help against Freddy. Or that Freddy would want to take revenge on him, considering that he was primarily responsible for his defeat in the previous movie. But he never appears again in the franchise and his fate is not revealed.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: As argued by [[http://www.1000misspenthours.com/reviews/reviewsn-z/nightmareonelmstreet4thedreammaster.htm 1000 Misspent Hours]]:
-->The idea that Krueger is somehow limited to preying on the children of his killers is an interesting one, and provides a plausible impetus for him to try to exploit Kristen’s power. After all, if Krueger can exist only in the dreams of what Nancy Thompson once called “the Elm Street kids,” then he himself will cease to be if ever he completes his revenge. We might envision a scenario in which Freddy is initially okay with the idea that the powers of cosmic darkness have granted him such a limited exemption from death, but gradually realizes that he’s not ready to die again as he closes in on the last of his intended victims. Seeking a way to preserve himself, he could then imprison Kristen in her subconscious — like he did with Joey in ''Dream Warriors'' — keeping her alive but comatose and relying on her panicked efforts to get help to give him access to dreams he never could have entered by himself. Krueger’s rebirth could be explained by a forthright admission that his mother had it wrong — something much more powerful than Freddy himself wants him to finish the job and fulfill his end of a bargain ceding his own soul to Hell. Unfortunately, I’m at just as big a loss as the filmmakers when it comes to devising a sensible way to bring Alice into her role as the Dream Master, and any story predicated on Krueger’s inability to prey on anyone outside of a small, narrowly defined group also flies directly in the face of ''Freddy’s Revenge''; if Krueger could enter Jesse’s dreams when the boy had only just moved to Springwood, why shouldn’t he be able to do the same to any of the natives? But that aside, there is much to be said for the premise, and that goes double for the notion that Freddy would have to share the power he gains from his victims with the person whose dreams he uses as a conduit for stealing their souls. I also like the idea, referred to quite openly throughout the film, that Alice specifically is destined to become the Dream Master (a quibble: she really ought to be the Dream ''Mistress'') precisely because of her helplessness and timidity in the real world — like Alice says herself, dreams are all she’s got. The trouble is that it’s all handled in ways that make very little sense. To start with the biggie, no explanation is ever given for the two crucial events of the story: Krueger’s rise from the dead and Kristen’s transfer of her psychic powers to Alice. Matters are not helped, either, by the lesser instances of lazy writing that are scattered all through the film. For example, in a couple of cases it isn’t even clear that Freddy’s victims are supposed to be sleeping at the time, and when Krueger comes for Dan, although he is explicitly described as being asleep, the outcome of the attack would be flatly impossible unless he were really awake!

* ContestedSequel: Over whether it marks the last of [[GoldenAge the good movies]] or the first of [[DorkAge the bad movies]]. Some consider it a worthy follow-up to ''Dream Warriors'' with a strong, compelling lead character in Alice, while others consider it an absurd, shallow SFX spectacle that pointless [[HappyEndingOverride overrode the previous film's ending]] and turned Freddy into a self-parody.

* ContestedSequel: Over whether it marks the last of [[GoldenAge the good movies]] or the first of [[DorkAge the bad movies]]. Some consider it a worthy follow-up to ''Dream Warriors'' with a strong, compelling lead character in Alice, while others consider it an absurd, shallow SFX spectacle that turned Freddy into a self-parody.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:

** It's agreed that even if ''Dream Master'' wasn't the best sequel, it did have the best soundtrack, regarding both the background music and insert songs.
*** Speaking of background music, the downright ''epic'' [[http://youtu.be/9UjNxFF9e9s score]] during Alice's LockAndLoadMontage, an instrumental version of "Don't Be Afraid of Your Dreams" that hasn't been officially released. "Fuckin' A", ''indeed''.

* HolyShitQuotient: The zoom out revealing Kincaid isn't just in a junkyard, he's on an entire planet covered in a labyrinth made of scrapped cars.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Dr. Neil Gordon, one of the few survivors of the third movie, is never mentioned in this chapter. You would imagine that Kristen could warn Alice of his existence so she could look for him and ask for his help against Freddy. Or that Freddy would want to take revenge on him, considering that he was primarily responsible for his defeat in the previous movie. But he never appears again in the franchise and his fate is not revealed.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Dr. Neil Gordon, one of the few survivors of the third movie, is never mentioned in this chapter. You could imagine that Kristen could warn Alice of his existence so she could look for him and ask for his help against Freddy. Or that Freddy would want to take revenge on him, considering that he was primarily responsible for his defeat in the previous movie. But he never appears again in the franchise and his fate is not revealed.

* FridgeHorror: Freddy needed Alice to pull in new victims. It would seem as if Freddy was holding either the IdiotBall or VillainBall for most of the movie by the way he was antagonizing Alice and seemingly intending to kill her. Of course, there are a lot of things Freddy could do to Alice that wouldn't necessarily kill her, but could keep her in a constant dream state with all the victims he could ever want at his disposal. Say, maybe a nicked brain stem or a concussion which could leave Alice brain dead...

* FridgeBrilliance: The 'dog peeing fire on Freddy's grave to resurrect him' is less of a BigLippedAlligatorMoment when you remember ''how'' Freddy was defeated in the last film: last rites being performed on his remains. He probably used Kincaid's dog to desecrate his grave.

* ContestedSequel: Over whether it marks the end of the good movies or the start of the bad movies. Some consider it a worthy follow-up to Dream Warriors with a strong, compelling lead character in Alice, while others consider it an absurd, shallow SFX spectacle that turned Freddy into a self-parody.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: As analysed [[http://www.1000misspenthours.com/reviews/reviewsn-z/nightmareonelmstreet4thedreammaster.htm here]], the premise of Freddy exploiting Kristen's power to delay his death further and bring him more victims had a lot of potential that wasn't lived up to.

* SoOkayItsAverage: Compared to the rest of the series. It's not as highly regarded as the first film, ''Dream Warriors'' or ''New Nightmare'', but definitely not hated anywhere near as much as ''Freddy's Revenge'', ''Dream Child'' or ''Freddy's Dead''.

*** Speaking of background music, the downright ''epic'' [[http://youtu.be/9UjNxFF9e9s score]] during Alice's LockAndLoadMontage. "Fuckin' A", ''indeed''.

** Speaking of background music, the downright ''epic'' [[http://youtu.be/9UjNxFF9e9s score]] during Alice's LockAndLoadMontage. "Fuckin' A", ''indeed''.

* MoralEventHorizon: While Freddy was a ''horrible'' excuse for a human being before this, this is the movie that shows just how depraved he he: upon running out of the victims his DealWithTheDevil lets him at, rather than be content with his revenge, Freddy chooses to do everything he can to reach out and get ''more'' people to sadistically murder.