8 Most Criminally Unloved Slasher Movie Sequels

After the kick-ass power of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, the fourth instalment to the Nightmare franchise had a pretty tough gig to follow. Whilst the offices of New Line Cinema toyed with their options of where to take Freddy on his next outing, in walked a confident and ambitious up and coming director Renny Harlin. According to Harlin himself, he visited the office five times in the hope of inspiring them with his ideas, so despite having their reputations at stake, New Line finally shook his hand and made a deal.

With the magnitude of the franchise’s commercial audience expanding far beyond expectations, the motto for Harlin was, of course, bigger is better. However, despite there being a $5 million budget and a promising script including the return of Dream Warriors’s fan favourites Kristen, Kincaid, and Joey, there was one major issue at hand - Patricia Arquette who originally played Kristen turned the reprisal down. This alone, was unfortunately the film’s major downfall, which as a result meant a competent but far less charming Tuesday Knight took over as Kristen and the returning trio met their demise far too soon in the film’s first half. It all felt rather wasteful.

But that’s not to say Dream Master doesn’t have some of the franchise’s greatest moments. It’s a big, bold and blockbusting slasher with Harlin taking on the story with a ballsy go-big-or-go-home attitude. With his untameable ambition, he took over the audience’s love of Freddy Krueger with vigorous energy and made this fourth screenplay more adventurous than ever. The set pieces of the dream sequences are elaborate and exciting, and he imagined up some of Krueger’s best death scenes that we've ever seen - the iconic cockroach transformation still to this day looks superbly impressive.

Let’s also not forget that Harlin took the reins just at the right moment of peak Freddy popularity in 1988, and as a result, Dream Master still stands as the highest-grossing Nightmare sequel - raking in a whopping $49.4 million. At the time, it was a hugely impactful addition to the franchise, but nowadays it sadly stands as the sequel that doesn’t get the credit it deserves for being Freddy’s biggest and most daring cinematic venture.