Very much cut from the same cloth as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and ANOES 4, the fifth entry of the series continues its descent into self-parody. In a new, Rosemary's Baby-like twist, Robert Englund's Freddy decides he wants a child. To this end, he begins to revisit ANOES 4 heroine Lisa Wilcox. Naturally, a band of intrepid teens tries to stand in his way before getting dispatched, one by one, in dream sequences. Where the no-less-brainless Nightmare on Elm Street 4 got by on the strength of these dream sequences, ANOES 5 suffers from them. The production design has never seemed uglier, and Freddy never more of a clown. A scene of the fearsome killer riding a skateboard and offering bloody puns on skating lingo probably marks the series' nadir, and a protracted climax ends an already weak entry on a sour note.
