10 Bad Movies That Killed Great Horror Franchises

While the Elm Street franchise had a bit of a wobble with 1988's A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, the following year's Elm Street 5: The Dream Child put the franchise in a place it could not return from.

To be truthful, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge nearly put an end to the franchise before it could properly get going, but thankfully the series was course-corrected with Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. That threequel introduced the notion of a group of Elm Street kids with abilities that meant they could battle Freddy Krueger in their dreams.

That idea would follow through to The Dream Master, though there was a notable dip in quality with this film. Still, The Dream Master looks like a masterpiece when compared to The Dream Child.

At the time of its release, The Dream Child was the poorest performing Elm Street film in terms of box office, whilst also being the franchise entry with the biggest budget; never a great combination. While the SFX impressed, the plot was a convoluted mess as Freddy used the dreams of an unborn baby to cause chaos, most of the performances were dreadful, and ever director Stephen Hopkins labelled the finished movie a "total embarrassment".

So poorly received was The Dream Child, it put New Line Cinema in a position where they decided the only way forward was to finally kill off Krueger and the entire series with 1991 follow-up Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.

Granted, the visage of Freddy was brought back for Wes Craven's New Nightmare, before a full-blown return in Freddy vs. Jason, but the intent really was for The Final Nightmare to be, well, the final Nightmare on Elm Street.