YMMV / Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

• Awesome Music:"I'm Awake Now" by Goo Goo Dolls. This amazing song deserved a better movie.
  • The film's overall score by Australian composer Brian May (of Mad Max and Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior fame, rather than Queen fame).
• Broken Base: the presence of the "Dream Demons" was welcomed by some fans as it retroactively explained how Freddy went from being an ordinary serial killer to having supernatural powers, others disliked it for ruining the mystery surrounding him.
• Cry for the Devil: This film really delves into the tragic childhood Freddy had, being abandoned by his mother, bullied at school, and abused by his foster father. That said, it also reinforces how much of a monster he became, and his daughter refuses to feel sorry for him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Tracy and Carlos are amongst the characters that fans like the most out of the movie for their sympathetic backstories (Tracy was sexually assaulted by her father and Carlos was physically abused by his mother, implied to have made him deaf in the first place) and for being more lively and interesting than John and Maggie. Some even wished that, despite being Freddy’s daughter, Maggie should’ve been killed off and Tracy become the Final Girl.
  • Out of the celebrity cameos, Alice Cooper as Freddy’s dad is the most beloved of them all, partially because of his Large Ham performance, and because he actually fit in with the Elm Street movies more than Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some fans debate this movie's placement in regards to Freddy vs. Jason. Others are quite content to pretend it never happened and skip right to FvJ.
• Ham and Cheese: You can tell Robert Englund is having a ball as Freddy in this movie.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Freddy kills a gamer by controlling him with the Power Glove and forcing him into a pit. When The Angry Video Game Nerd plays A Nightmare on Elm Street NES game, at the end of the video he gets in a fight with Freddy... and kills him using the Power Glove.
• Memetic Mutation: "Hey! You forgot the power glove!" is probably the most quoted line from the whole series.
• Narm: Pretty much the entire movie. The scene of the deeply traumatized Springwood adults enjoying the town fair sans children — with one lone old man puttering a bumper car around in circles — is hilarious.
• Nightmare Retardant: The concept of Springwood adults losing their sanity after Freddy murdered every child in town should be tragic and frightening. Unfortunately, the filmmakers decided to illustrate this madness with scenes such as one lone old man puttering a bumper car around in circles, a teacher who teaches world history with Freddy in the major events, and the cameos from Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold, of all people. Somehow no one realized that this is more comical than sad.
• Questionable Casting: Seriously, what are Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr (who were married at the time) doing in this film? ^note According to the Never Sleep Again documentary, they were fans of the series and wanted to be in at least one of them.
• Retroactive Recognition: Breckin Meyer as Spencer.
• Sequelitis: Often regarded as the worst entry in the series, with the possible exception of the remake.
• So Bad, It's Good: Some fans find the film as such. It's trying to be an Elm Street film and some of the comedic deaths are still in line with Freddy's personality. Most even think that makes Freddy scarier because of unpredictability and how he can catch his victims off guard since, when it comes down to it, it's all just a game to him.
• Special Effect Failure: The special effects in general aren't up to the quality seen in the previous three entries, though this can be explained by the fact that the film-makers were consciously going for a Lighter and Softer feel, rather than the dark, gory style of most of the previous entries. The 3D effects added to Freddy's death (both of them), on the other hand, are inexcusably bad.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Many fans think the film could have benefited if John Doe had been Jacob, the son of Alice.
  • Alice, the protagonist of parts 4 and 5. She does not return in this film and her fate is not even mentioned, despite how powerful and personal a threat she became to Freddy and being his Good Counterpart who fought and defeated him twice in a row. Many fans think the film would have improved a lot if she had been involved in some way in the plot, and in Freddy's final defeat.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • A story about Freddy finishing off Springwood and moving on to another town could have been epic. The film even sets itself up like they’re finally going to take the nightmares out of the titular Elm Street with John Doe going to the foster facility in another city. Immediately after meeting Maggie she brings John (and the other stowaway kids in the van) back to Elm Street to jog his memory. In the end, it's all just glossed over in favor of a nonsensical plot about Freddy's daughter — and if that wasn't bad enough, we never find out where John really came from in the first place.
  • Much more could have been done with the concept of the Dream Demons. Them and Freddy facing off against Alice, the Dream Master, once and for all could have made an epic showdown and great finale to the series.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Watching Carlos begging and pleading not to be rendered deaf in his nightmare and saying he’s been a good boy. It’s hard not to feel bad for the poor hearing-impaired kid.
  • The death of John Doe. After seeing him be so optimistic and sure of his survival, and how he bonds with Maggie and Spencer, it can be pretty hard to see his life come to such an undignified end.

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