Love/Hate: Pokemon Sword & Shield

Over a year ago I wrote the first of what would become my Love/Hate series, a retrospective of the pros and cons of each generation of Pokemon. Since then, we've obviously gotten the start of another whole generation of Pokemon with Sword and Shield and, having completed the main story and gotten some time to mull over my feelings on the game I feel like it's time for a Love/Hate update. That said, this is of course only my opinion and there's the potential for it to change over time (opinions on the Pokemon themselves in particular are likely to soften as more time passes). So, with that in mind, let's get this started!

Love

• Raids - Easily my most-anticipated feature from the previews was raid battles, which pit four players against an extra-powerful Dynamax Pokemon. I'm happy to say that these are about as fun as I had hoped, requiring some additional strategies to get through successfully. That said, for four- or five-star raids you're definitely going to need 2 or 3 human companions because the default NPC trainers are terrible.
• Dynamax Makes Gym Battles Climactic - Restricting Dynamax to raid battles and gyms was a truly inspired move. By the time you get to a gym, you're already pumped up by the music and the roar of the crowd as you march out onto the turf and then send out your first Pokemon. Then, when the battle is drawing to a close, you finally get your chance to bring out your Dynamax Pokemon and things get even bigger and more exciting. I have to admit, with these rare intervals, Dynamax is a really cool feature and the flashy moves make for a suitably epic climax to each challenge, almost like a reward in itself.
• Some Great Characters - I was actually pretty surprised how well fleshed out many of the characters were in Sword and Shield. Hop starts out as your standard friendly rival, but he actually learns to not just define himself in the shadow of his superstar brother or feel like he's hurting the family legacy. Meanwhile, Marnie is carrying the hope and dreams of her town on her shoulders as she battles through the Gym Challenge. Bede goes from arrogant prick, to desperate to prove himself worthy, to humble over the course of the story. It's also pretty exciting to see Sonia earn the mantle of Pokemon Professor for her efforts in studying the Darkest Day. All-in-all, these characters are great and are going to be remembered for years to come.
• Quality of Life Improvements - As always, Sword and Shield have brought some much-needed refinements to the formula which just make playing the game more enjoyable. These include Surprise Trades which go on in the background while you play, nature-changing mints, XP candies for quick and easy level-ups, access to PC boxes at any time, name raters and lotto-ID in every Pokemon Center (halle-freaking-lujah!) and the introduction of TRs to replace move tutors. It's a lot of little things, but add them all up and it makes the experience of actually playing the game far more enjoyable.
• Spoiled For Choice - While much has been made of the restricted Pokedex in these games, you are absolutely spoiled for choice at the start of the game. Most Pokemon games will very slowly dole out the available Pokemon, often repeating the same ones over and over from route to route. Sword and Shield say "screw that!" and give you two packed routes and then throw you into the Wild Area in the first couple hours, absolutely spoiling you with choices for a solid team. While I did eventually settle into a composed team by the second or third gym, the amount of choice you get off the bat was impressive and helps ease the sting of the restricted Pokedex in the first few hours.
• Customization - Due to an increased emphasis on multiplayer options, Game Freak have really upped the number of customization options available to the player. Almost everyone I've encountered playing the game has customized their character beyond the default outfits (which is almost too bad because even the default outfits are really cool). Even better, the Card Maker allows you to design your own player trading card, which has no real purpose other than to be cool... and I love it. It's such a small, pointless feature but probably my favourite thing in the whole game.
• Some Really Cool Pokemon Designs - As always, there are some really great Pokemon introduced this generation. Corviknight, in particular, is probably the coolest "starter bird" Pokemon of all time, while Yamper and Wooloo make your heart melt as much as any Eevee could, and the Galarian forms are all quite interesting and distinct. There are some wildly different Pokemon in this game and several of these experiments pay off in interesting ways.

Mixed

• Graphics - Much has been made about the graphics in this game and, while I'm nowhere near as critical about them as some, I understand the criticism. Personally, I like the game's aesthetic and think that it looks very pretty in places like Wedgehurst, Galar Mine, Slumbering Weald and Ballonlea. That said, the game has an embarrassing amount of pop-in, with characters just disappearing into thin air if you move more than a couple dozen meters away. Worse, the frame rate drops in the Wild Area are really bad a times, especially when playing online (and, considering that this is basically how you're supposed to be playing in the Wild Area, this is a big problem). The game doesn't even look particularly taxing for a Switch game so this lack of optimization is frustrating.
• The Wild Area - A lot of people love the much-hyped Wild Area, but I'm pretty mixed on it personally. On the one hand, it's certainly cool being able to explore the world, but the design is very limited. Each area is basically just three patches of grass spawning the same three or four Pokemon over and over again. The world would feel more lively if there were way more Pokemon in each area instead of just having to see the same three again and again - it's pretty bad when traditional routes feel way more lively and diversified than your open world. World traversal is also a pain in the ass because you can't climb over even tiny hills. Oh, and the dynamic weather sounds great, until you get stuck encountering Pokemon over and over again in snow or sandstorms, trying to figure out where you're trying to go. Look, I think the Wild Area's a decent trial run of this concept of an open world Pokemon game and I do think that this is where the series is going to be going in the future, but it's going to need to feel way more open and lively if it's going to be better than traditional routes.
• Camping - Much was made of camping in this game, but there's very little going on with it. I mean, it's pretty cool seeing your Pokemon (or an online player's) walking around the camp, but it gets boring pretty quickly. You can also play with your Pokemon, but there's only two toys available and they also get very boring quickly. Then the only thing left to do is make a curry, of which there are a 151 different varieties! There are probably some players who are going to have fun filling out their "curry dex", but it's a pretty lengthy mini-game which involves a ton of resource gathering with little reward... basically, for all the effort you go through, your Pokemon just get some XP, happiness and get healed. It can be handy when you're out in the Wild Area and need to heal, but just using a healing item is far faster and less of a pain in the ass.
• In-Game Events - Holy crap, Game Freak are actually using online functionality to add things to their game and keep players engaged? So far they have been having special events which make certain Gigantamax Pokemon appear more frequently in raids and have even released new Gigantamax Pokemon into the game (apparently there are 30+ unavailable Pokemon in the game's code which are going to be released in future). That said, there Pokemon are such a pain to obtain. First off, you have to find the Pokemon to begin with. Second, these tend to be five-star raids and therefore require at least a couple online partners to succeed, which can be enough of a pain in the ass to wrangle. Then you still have to win the raid and you only get one chance to catch the Pokemon. What if it breaks out? Too bad, you have to go through the whole process all over again of finding the Pokemon in a raid, wrangling your partners, winning the raid, etc... Just trying to get a Gigantamax Snorlax recently took me hours of unsuccessful attempts.

Hate

• Weak Story - As good as some of the characters in Sword and Shield are, the story surrounding them might just be the weakest in the entire main series.
• For the story itself, you get endorsed by the Champion and go complete all the gyms. Every once in a while something unusual happens, but for nearly the entire game the Champion tells you to forget about it while he goes to deal with it instead. The "evil team", Team Yell, aren't even all that much to talk about either, they temporarily block your path and fizzle out quickly. The villain is potentially interesting, but he gets very little development and makes maligned villains of games past like Lysandre look positively inspired by comparison. Eternatus is also very poorly explained as a villainous Pokemon.
• Worst of all though is the post-game, which involves you running around Galar to each of the gyms and fighting a bunch of repetitive, weak raid battles... but you don't even get a chance to catch the Pokemon you fight. Oh, and you also have to fight a pair of chodes, Sordward and Shielbert, who might be my least-favourite characters in the entire series. They suck and this whole post-game is just a pain in the ass that I only plowed through in order to catch the box art legendary.
• It's also worth noting that several characters are totally underserved by the story. Professor Magnolia, for example, shows up maybe twice in the entire game and ends up getting completely overshadowed by Sonia by the mid-point of the game.
• Feature Removal - Look, I know much has been made of this already, but it's really difficult to ignore the fact that over 500 Pokemon are missing from this game. On top of that, the removal of Megas and Z-moves sucks. I'm still exploring what the region has to offer, but the longer I play, the more this exclusion is going to sting because it cuts down on the variety Pokemon has always offered.
• Dynamax and Gigantamax - Like I said earlier, I actually like Dynamaxing as a mechanic in gym battles, but allowing it by default in online battles isn't very fun. It encourages stall in order to get through the three turns, while also being broken for certain Pokemon because of the additional effects of attacks (being able to set weather or terrain AND cause damage is so much more deadly than the more powerful base damage of one-use Z-moves). Gigantamax, on the other hand, is kind of a pointless addition considering the additional work it caused. The only difference is that the Pokemon gets a new look for three turns and can use a G-Max move if they have the right type of attack. Funnily enough, these G-Max moves tend to be less useful than the default Max Moves they replace... so can I just have my Megas and Z-moves back? Please?
• Online Features - Online stability has never been a sure thing with Game Freak, but I had hoped that they'd be able to get with the times on Switch. Unfortunately, the online functionality in Sword and Shield is not great at all. Not only does being online in the Wild Area make your frame rate tank, but it also can cause connected players to float in the air or go into impossible places. Navigating the online menus is a waiting game, as you can wait for a minute or two for it to refresh and show you a bunch of useless notifications. Trying to connect to raids is also a total crapshoot, if any even show up in your feed (this is a particular sore point for me because raids have been my go-to entertainment thus far). Oh, and to make matters even worse, basic stuff like the VS Recorder and the freaking GTS have been removed! I know some people have said "oh, well just use Discord if you want to get a specific Pokemon", but no, screw that. I should be able to just search the Pokemon I want or deposit to get what I want. Removing this key feature is just a kick in the nuts for a collecting game like this, especially when you have pointless shit like Gigantamax and camping which were clearly taking up a lot of resources to implement.
• Catching/Level Cap - Game Freak put themselves into a weird situation by allowing you to encounter extremely-high level Pokemon in the early game if you wander around the Wild Area. Their solution to this potentially game breaking problem? Just outright forbid you from catching Pokemon of certain levels until you have a gym badge allowing you to do so. This is a baffling decision. For one thing, it discourages exploration - after all, why go off the beaten path to look for new Pokemon if the game isn't going to even let you catch it? In the early to mid-game I was just blitzing through the Wild Area to get the gym badges so I could be allowed to catch Pokemon. Even stranger, your team's level cap outpaces the catching level cap very early, so you can be rocking a team of Pokemon at level 40 and still not be allowed to catch Pokemon of a lower level than them. It's such a dumb decision and I don't think that this was the right way to handle it.
• Game Just Feels Half-Baked - The sum of a lot of these issues is that the game just feels half-baked and incomplete, likely due to the strict annual release schedule of these games. Missing features and unsatisfying story might not even be an issue if Game Freak had some more time on their hands, or if they'd be willing to outsource some of their work. Game Freak and The Pokemon Company really need to take a 2-3 year break to give us a game with some serious, uncompromised passion behind it, although given the success they have regardless I can't see this happening...
• Some of the New Pokemon... - Good God. I was really liking every Pokemon that was officially revealed prior to release, but having played the game in full there are some seriously butt-ugly Pokemon hiding in this roster.
• I feel like Eiscue deserves a special mention here. It's a penguin with a gigantic ice block on its head and then when the ice block breaks, it's got this stupid, derpy, sad face underneath... what the actual hell. It's so stupid and derpy that I can actually see myself turning around and maybe liking it someday, but right now I'm deciding whether or not this Pokemon is worse than Barbaracle.
• The four fossil Pokemon are also so bad looking. I find the idea of having two Pokemon fused together to be an interesting one, but then you remember that Kyurem Black and White exist and that these Pokemon look arguably worse. Having genetic abominations that look like they wish they were dead is funny in a Judge Dredd comic, not in Pokemon. These things are seriously the most casually unethical development in a series which has long lampshaded the fact that it's all about cockfighting.
• It's also worth mentioning that the final evolutions of the starter Pokemon are pretty much universally acknowledged to be the worst ever. They're all incredibly disappointing or off-putting, which is particularly unfortunate since their first evolutions are actually probably the best since at least Gen 2.

Best Pokemon of Gen 8: Corviknight, Wooloo, Eldegoss, Thievul, Yamper, Frosmoth, Flapple, Dragapult, Zacian, Zamazenta, Galarian Weezing
Shittiest Pokemon of Gen 8: Chewtle, Sandaconda, G-Max Copperajah, Impidimp's entire evolution line, Pincurchin (guaranteed to be a future "most forgotten Pokemon"), Eiscue, Dracozolt, Arctovish

10 Worst Movies of the 2010s

As you can probably tell if you've frequented this blog, you'll know that I have a thing for bad movies. There's a special sort of film-going experience that you can only get from a crap-tacular film, be that stunned disbelief or pure rage. Then there's the true bottom of the barrel. Most of the films on this list are so bad that I would never want to subject myself to them again, and even several years removed from watching them they still leave an awful taste in my mouth. So let's go down memory lane and exhume some of the worst movies of the entire decade and show off their rotting putridity for all to see?

Honourable Mentions

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (February 27, 2010)
You would be remiss to mention bad movies of the 2010s and leave out Birdemic, a rip-off of The Birds that's so legendarily incompetent that it became a meme. Director James Nguyen really wanted to make a positive film about environmentalism and pacifism, all wrapped up in an epic love story, but good God he failed spectacularly. For the most part, the film is just boring, but then suddenly the clip art GIF-quality birds attack and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I swear to God I laughed for at least a minute straight when they started dive bombing and literally exploding. Even with everything else wrong with this film, that alone made it at least hilarious and so-bad-it's-good enough that it's more enjoyable than any of the movies that made this list. Still, for the sheer ineptitude on display, this film deserves at least a mention on this list.

Dogman (November 6, 2012)
I've always been highly intrigued by the legend of the Michigan Dogman, so when I found out that someone made a movie about this creature I was excited to see what they would come up with. I even saw a Blu-ray copy of the film on sale and even though it was going for freaking $35 I was tempted. However, I ultimately decided that I'd better find out if it was good or not before dropping that much on it... and thank God I did, because I dodged a freaking bullet. Dogman is clearly a no-budget film and what we do get on screen is just boring. I can't really remember much more about it than being extremely disappointed that nothing happens, so I can't really justify putting it on the list proper (and like hell I'm rewatching it).

The Predator (Septemer 14, 2018)
The Predator isn't *quite* bad enough to actually make this list, but it is easily one of my most hated films of the decade. I don't often advocate for films to be written out of continuity, but the Predator franchise is absolutely dead in the water if this film is allowed to dictate the franchise's future. And why did they feel the need to reboot the franchise anyway? Predators was awesome and went over most of the ideas this film tries to pass off as new anyway.

So with those dishonourable mentions out of the way, let's get on to the list...

My 10 Favourite Movies of the 2010s

It's the end of the decade, so you know what that means - big retrospectives of the years that were the 2010s! We've already done a list of my favourite albums of the 2010s and today we're moving onto my favourite movies of the decade. It was so hard narrowing this down to only 10 films (plus a couple honourable mentions) - at the outset, I had over 70 films listed that I had to whittle down until only 10 remained. As before, this is purely my opinion, although I'm much more confident that these picks should be less niche than my favourite albums are. So with that in mind, let's get on to the list.

Honourable Mentions

The Witch (February 19, 2015)
While it wasn't quite good enough to make my top 10, The Witch is one of those films which sticks with you and just gets better every time you see it. The film is rich with themes of family and religious devotion which give you many different ways to interpret it. There's also a slavish attention to detail as director Robert Eggers tries to make the film as authentic as possible to the time period. For that matter, the film is basically a straight adaptation of the sorts of stories Puritans would have been telling each other in the 1600s, to the point where I consider this movie equal parts a Christian movie and a Satanist movie, depending on how you read it. This can make the movie a bit dense, particularly if you're not into Puritan history or constant discussion about religion, and the scares are few and far between, but if you aren't turned off by these then The Witch is a truly engrossing, unforgettable experience.

Berserk: The Golden Age Arc (February 4, 2012 - February 1, 2013)
Okay, this one might be slightly cheating since it's a trilogy of animated films, but it's my list so here it is. Berserk is one of those stories which has been indirectly influencing me for years, through all of its many imitators. The Golden Age Arc is what got me into the franchise and makes for a great introduction to the story (and, in some ways, streamlines the manga for the better). Part 1, The Egg of the King, isn't great, with rough CGI, some strange choices in direction and a plot which is clearly just set-up for the next 2 films. However, Part 2 (The Battle for Doldrey) and Part 3 (The Advent) are both top-notch. The Battle for Doldrey is one of those rare battle sequences which manages to be both cinematic and clever, since the heroes actually win the day through fairly sound tactics, while giving us some fantastic character growth in the process. The Advent is the crown jewel of this trilogy though - if you're like me and went into this trilogy essentially blind about what was going to happen, it's a shocking, truly horrific turn of events that have been set up since the very first film in the trilogy. All-in-all, The Golden Age Arc is just a solid adaptation of an already-fantastic manga and I heartily recommend it to anyone for the compelling characters, as long as you think you can stomach a very dark fantasy story.

My 10 Favourite Albums of the 2010s

Man, I really left myself a lot of work for the end of this year. Not only did I do my "Best of 2019" albums ranking, but it's also the end of a decade, which means that it's also the time for "Best of the 2010s" lists. We're going to start out today with my favourite albums of the 2010s. Standard caveats apply here - music is not only incredibly subjective, but there is so much of it and my tastes are somewhat niche, so I wouldn't be arrogant enough to declare that these are "the best" albums of the decade. That said, they're all great and have affected me in one way or another, so I would certainly recommend checking them out if you have not!

Honourable Mentions:

Asylum, Disturbed (August 31, 2010)
I waffle between Asylum or Ten Thousand Fists being Disturbed's best album, but it's pretty much unquestioned that this was the last time they were such a self-assured band. Whatever your thoughts about their last couple albums are, the post-Asylum hiatus changed the band significantly and I don't predict that we're going to get another album from Disturbed that I'm going to like nearly as much as Asylum.

Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies, Volbeat (April 5, 2013)
They say there's nothing quite like your first... Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies was the album where I decided to give Volbeat a chance and I fell in love with their style. Seal the Deal & Let's Boogie would also have a pretty good shot at being one of my favourite albums of the decade, but they both fell just short of the top 10. Still, I love the band so much that I had to at least give them an honourable mention.

Freddy vs Jason vs Michael vs Leatherface: The Ultimate Showdown!

We've just gotten through our countdown of the best to worst films in the A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchises, but we're not quite done yet! We may have gotten through the films based on their quality alone, but there are plenty of other things to take into account for these franchises. I've put together a number of categories and am going to compare how each franchise does in each and then I'll add up all the points to determine which slasher franchise wins the ultimate showdown. So, without further adieu, it's time to put our slasher icons head-to-head one last time to see who can come out on top!

Most Iconic Weapon
What is a slasher without an iconic murder weapon? Sure, some have more methods to kill than others, but there are certain slashers who are synonymous with their preferred method of murder. With that in mind, let's take a look at our competitors and see whose weapon of choice is most iconic.

4th place (1 point): Jason Voorhees' Machete
Of all the slashers out there, Jason is by far the most creative and versatile, killing with whatever he can find on hand, from spears, to bows, barrels of toxic waste, open vats of liquid nitrogen and even his own bare hands if needed. However, he is perhaps most synonymous with his machete (best demonstrated by the hilarious "Guys, he just wanted his machete back!" line from Jason X). However, it's not a particularly creative murder weapon and it's not even used by Jason all that much, so it brings up the rear in this competition.

3rd place (2 points): Michael Myers' Chef Knife
Props to Michael Myers for always sticking with such a mundane murder weapon and making it work so well. Plus, he's frequently able to stab people with them so hard that they get pinned to the wall, impressive! A kitchen knife is a little more distinct than a machete too much helps make it stand out as being distinctly "Michael Myers", giving him the edge over Jason in this category.

2nd place (3 points): Leatherface's Chainsaw
One of the originators of the "household tools as murder weapons" trope, Leatherface's chainsaw is so iconic that it's even in the title of his franchise. It's a brutal, unsubtle weapon, but it suits its wielder well. What makes it even more iconic is that Leatherface doesn't even tend to get that many kills with his chainsaw, so it's not like there are particular scenes that people are even associating it with - it's just that associated with Leatherface that they just assume he gets way more chainsaw kills than he actually does.

Winner (4 points): Freddy Krueger's Razor Gloves
It really had to go to Freddy Krueger here, especially since his weapon is the only one that was home-made and therefore not used by anyone else. What's even more impressive is that Freddy kills in all sorts of creative ways due to his dream powers, but the razor glove is still totally iconic as his murder weapon.

Freddy vs Jason vs Michael vs Leatherface: The Ultimate Countdown! (#10-01)

We're finally here! We've whittled down the Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchises to the ten best films. Which one will come out on top? Read on to find out...

10) Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)
After so many awful sequels, it's refreshing that we finally got a worthy successor to the original Halloween. While the other sequels tried to come up with ever more convoluted means to continue the storyline and Michael's killing sprees, H20 takes things back to the most logical jumping-off point and deals with how Laurie's life was impacted by the events of that Halloween night twenty years ago (acting as a sequel to only the first two Halloween films and ignoring the rest). In that time Laurie has faked her own death, moved across the country to California, had a son and is now a teacher at a private school, but she hasn't been able to confront the trauma of what happened 20 years ago. The premise alone puts H20 well ahead of other sequels in this franchise because it actually has some things to say about fear and trauma and how it can ruin not only your life but the lives of those around you if you don't confront it. Luckily for Laurie, Michael Myers manages to figure out where she's living and pencils in an exposure therapy session for that Halloween evening...

H20 has been compared to Scream many times, although I feel like the comparisons make you expect a far more referential film than what we got (it very much lacks the meta elements which basically defined the Scream franchise... although it does have some unexpected meta elements like Janet Leigh acting as Laurie Strode's maternal proxy). I mean, sure, the film very clearly exists in the post-Scream landscape with characters who aren't complete idiots. Just compare H20 to Halloween 6, which had come out only three years earlier - that film felt like a late 80s slasher, with its bloated mythology, idiotic teen cast and over the top gore, reeking of a tired genre content to just coast off of the lowest common denominator. In contrast, H20 is written in a fairly clever and fun manner, ditching a reliance on lazy tropes and with no one being truly stupid. It actually takes its time to establish the characters and setting before setting loose. After a trio of early kills, Michael takes almost an hour to really get into his murder spree, similar to the original film, which gives us time to get to know the victims on the chopping block. That said, this is very much Jamie Lee Curtis' movie, as Laurie Strode is by far the most compelling character (good try though, Josh Hartnett). Seeing her confront her fears and then beat the tar out of Michael Myers is quite entertaining and a satisfying arc for the film.

However, I can't be entirely positive about this film. For one thing, the movie is very heavily relying on your previous knowledge of Michael Myers for his character to be in any way compelling. It's not like the original Halloween where we get to meet Laurie and see Michael stalking her menacingly the entire time, here Laurie gets most of the focus and then Michael just kind of shows up momentarily on occasion. Hell, even when he does show up, he doesn't even kill anyone, despite having two different occasions to do so. I kind of like the restraint, but again if you didn't come in knowing Michael would probably usually kill these people then it just makes him look like less of a threat. I think that they just could have done more to re-establish him in this film, especially considering that it wiped several sequels off the slate. However, the issues with Michael are nothing compared to the ending. Like, I'd knock a whole point off this movie's score for the crappy ending. There's a certain satisfaction to having Laurie kill off Michael Myers definitively, but even if you didn't know about the pre-planned retcon this ending was preparing for the next film in the franchise, it's still insane. So Laurie kidnaps Michael in an ambulance at gun point, drives like a maniac, runs him over, rolls down a cliff side (and gets herself ejected from the ambulance in the process, unscathed), pins Michael to a tree and then chops his head off! Like... just let her kill him in the school! Dammit, LL Cool J! Ugh, I just hated how ridiculous that ending got, it felt like an escalation that went way too far, and knowing that it was to bake in a potential sequel in incredibly convoluted fashion just makes it worse.

Those gripes aside though, H20 was really enjoyable... and thank God because the Halloween franchise was a real slog to get through for this count-down. It's really no wonder that they went back to H20's ideas for another go-around in 2018. Oh, speaking of which...

Freddy vs Jason vs Michael vs Leatherface: The Ultimate Countdown! (#20-11)

We're getting close now! After whittling our way through a bunch of truly crappy slasher films, we're finally into the top 20, where I actually start enjoying some of these films! What a nice change of pace! With that said, let's get back to the countdown, starting with #20...

20) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
In a lot of ways, The Dream Master is like a rehash of Dream Warriors, but to a much lesser effect. It makes the questionable decision of killing off all of the surviving dream warriors in the first act, replacing them all with a new protagonist, Alice, who inherits Kris' powers... somehow. Somehow's probably a good description for The Dream Master, because the film just doesn't bother to make any sense. Freddy's powers expand to whatever's most convenient for the writers at the time, such as how he gets around being buried and consecrated by being resurrected... in a dream. Shouldn't he have not even been able to affect dreams if he was gone anyway? Who cares! And don't even get me started on the ridiculous way that Freddy is defeated, I'm not sure I could even explain what the hell that was all about if you held a gun to my head. Freddy himself is starting to turn into more and more of a toothless cartoon here, with the particular lowlight of having him use his razor glove as a shark fin and then putting on a pair of sunglasses on the beach. However, The Dream Master is a pretty fun film overall with some of the best kills in the franchise. Debbie's kill in particular is incredible and shows off this film's fantastic special effects as she's turned into a bug. It's certainly a huge step down for the Elm Street franchise after so many good films, but at least The Dream Master is entertaining enough that it's watchable.