A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

We celebrate our 500th episode by diving into 1988’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and why it feels like the “MTV Nightmare”—fast, colorful, wildly visual, and packed with some of the series’ most inventive kills.

We talk Renny Harlin, writer’s-strike, collaborative production, how the film cemented Freddy’s mainstream, quippier icon status, and why it became a massive independent hit despite critics like Roger Ebert.

We break down the thin-but-fun vignette structure, the recasting of Kristen (and our near-miss getting Harlin on the show), Alice’s “power” progression, and standout sequences like Joey’s waterbed “wet dream,” Sheila’s classroom death, Rick’s dojo showdown, the surreal movie-theater nightmare, and Debbie’s unforgettable roach-motel kill. We also reflect on franchise highs/lows, Freddy’s future.

Thanks for sticking with us all these years!

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A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

Episode 500, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to the 500th episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Holy crap, bro. 500. Can you believe it?

Craig: No. It, it, it doesn’t seem possible. There’s, there’s not 500 episodes of anything.

Todd: Really. Honestly, I’ve looked out there. I’ve tried to figure this out, and to the best of my knowledge, to the best of my knowledge, we are the longest-running horror podcast out there.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: I would challenge our listeners to prove me wrong, and I hope you do. You know, prove me wrong. If, if I’m not right, I’m not right. But even those podcasts out there that have m- maybe more than 500 episodes, they just, you know, record a little more frequently than we do. And I have yet to find one that goes back to 2015, I believe.

Craig: That’s crazy.

Todd: Yeah, I believe it was September or August of 2015 when we started this whole mess, and, uh, we have been doing it nonstop almost every week. We’ve missed a few weeks here and there over the five year, you know, 10 years. Cut us some slack. But, uh, o- overall, mathematically, we have made it to 500 in, uh, over 10 years, and I feel like, uh, that’s an accomplishment.

We’ve been podcasting longer than podcasting was cool.

Craig: Yeah.

Todd: And that’s probably the only thing I’ve been doing, you know, ahead of the curve.

Everything else is far behind. Yeah.

Craig: That’s funny. Yeah, I don’t know. 500 feels impossible. I bet I couldn’t name 50 movies that we’ve done. I know. I’m not sure I could name 50 movies, period, off the top of my head.

Todd: You’re starting to sound like your mom.

Craig: I know. Well, and people, people ask me about movies we’ve done, and I’m like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Todd: I know. Now it’s getting to the point where we’ll, like, suggest movies to each other and we’ll be like, “Have we done that one? Let’s go back and check.” I have to actually go to the website and do a search to see if we’ve talked about a particular movie. Yeah. That’s how crazy… But also, maybe we’re just getting old and our brains are fried.

Craig: Well, I think it’s both, but it’s, it’s been fun and it’s exciting. I mean, 500 does feel like a pretty big milestone. I have a feeling…

Todd: Have you ever done 500 of anything, Craig?

Craig: No. I don’t think I have. This may be, uh… This, this may be our biggest milestone. I, I don’t know. Uh, I don’t know if I’ve got another 12 years in me.

Or 10 years or however long it’s been.

Todd: I hope you do. I really do. I, you know-

Craig: Well, I hope so in general, but I don’t know about, I don’t know about the… I hope I’ve got at least 10 years in me in, in general. Just podcast, I don’t know. We’ll, we’ll see. We’ll see. You never know.

Todd: Yeah, you’re wearing a little thin on me, you know.

Plus- Yeah … I mean, there, uh, there aren’t that many horror movies, are there? Are there that many horror movies? We do scrape the bottom of the barrel occasionally.

Craig: Well, it feels like we are sometimes, but, but the good news is, you know, I don’t wanna exaggerate, but it feels like horror is really kinda back in a big way.

Like, it’s- Hmm … really popular, and there’s really good stuff- Yeah … coming out. Not… You know, all over the place. We talk about it all the time how just because we’re- We do … so saturated, yeah, with, you know, streaming and everything, there are so many outlets, which is, is good. It gives outlets for creative people who may not have as much money as big studio projects or whatever.

But also we’re seeing, you know, some of those smaller filmmakers becoming recognized and then making their way into the theaters Yeah So I think, I think even though sometimes it feels like we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel a little bit, I think there’s a lot of really good stuff coming out.

You’re just gonna have a harder time finding obscure ’70s and ’80s stuff, ’cause they’re not making more of those.

Todd: I don’t know. I, I, I feel like there are not enough weeks in the year for all the obscure things that are in my list. You have no idea. You have no idea what I have waiting to throw at you.

Clip: Yeah.

Todd: So I have to hold back, ’cause I don’t wanna, you know, make you mad at me for so lo- You know, we wanna keep this going a little while longer. I don’t wanna piss you off too much. So I try to temper my… You know, I try to throw a newer one in there, something a little more mainstream, something a little less weird.

But I’ve got a long-ass list of weird shit that we may never, ever get to. I think about this a lot, and actually, you know, when you said horror’s coming back into fashion, I think we’ve both talked about this, how horror never really leaves-

Craig: No …

Todd: fashion, does it? It’s, it seems to be the one, one of the few evergreen genres out there.

Pro- Romance is probably another one. But, like, especially horror, it comes and goes from the m- what you might quote, unquote call “the mainstream,” but I feel like that’s more a function of the media than anything else. I think s- the audience for horror is pretty solid, and it has remained pretty solid. But it’s only every, I don’t know, 5, 10 years that the mainstream media latches onto a particular movie that does particularly well, and then, you know, there are 20 other movies just like it that come out, ’cause that’s…

Well, that’s not just how horror goes, that’s how movies go in general.

Craig: Right.

Todd: And so then it feels like they’re, “Oh, there’s a resurgence in horror. There’s a new trend.” And all of us horror fans are just sitting here smugly nodding our heads going, “Yeah, I mean, this is, this is our lives.” “This is our day-to-day.”

And, and it is for so many people. You know, it’s been known for quite some time that if you wanna make money, if you’re gonna bet on a genre, go for horror, and you’re probably gonna make some money even if your movie is, is subpar or, or minimal or whatever. You got a good story to tell, horror fans are very forgiving.

Yeah. And that’s what I like about it. And I’ll tell you right now, on our 500th episode, I’m making a prediction. I don’t think it’s particularly groundbreaking, but something came to me as we’re watching some of these older movies that we just love, sometimes just by the pure scrappiness of them, right?

Clip: Uh-huh.

Todd: Like, we’ve seen so many movies on this podcast where we’re like, “The movie objectively is dumb.”

Clip: Right.

Todd: Or, “It’s objectively kinda bad, and we shouldn’t objectively enjoy watching it.” Except you can see that some people got together and they made a thing using the resources that they had- Their heart was in it.

A- a- and, and there’s something charming and fun about watching that.

Clip: Mm-hmm.

Todd: And …