Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, Freddy has a message!
Episode 2.9 “Monkey Dreams”
(Dir by Robert Englund, originally aired on December 3rd, 1989)
At a college science lab, Joe (Joseph Cali) tries to communicate with aliens. Next door, Jeannie (Sharon Mahoney) tries to teach her monkey to speak. When Joe starts getting strange messages on his computer, he thinks that it’s an alien code. Then it turns out that it’s actually just the monkey trying to type out its name on its own computer. Joe is then murdered by his bookie.
Meanwhile, Dr. Lynch (Sherman Howard) is using the monkey for some experiments to see how much pain a living creature can take. Dr. Lynch seems to change his mind when he hears the monkey speak. But it turns out that we were just seeing the monkey’s dream.
“Think about it!” Freddy tells us.
Freddy Krueger, animal rights activist? I guess it makes sense when you consider that Robert Englund directed this episode. The episode’s message was heartfelt but it seemed a bit out-of-place on a show about a undead child molester. Whatever message you want to deliver, Freddy Krueger probably isn’t the best one to do it.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
Leave the pets alone.
Episode 2.8 “Bloodlines”
(Dir by James Quinn, originally aired on November 26th, 1989)
Woody Burton (Marc Alaimo) breaks out of prison and heads home to try to retrieve some money he stole. The house is occupied by his bitter son, Jack (Chris Nash) and his delusional wife, Joyce (Sheree North). Woody tries to bury his son alive but fortunately, Jack has his gun with him and shoots his father dead.
The episode then jumps forward in time. Jack is now married to Maggie (Ruth de Sosa). Maggie and Jack have “adopted” a daughter named Patty (Irina Cashen). Because Jack had a criminal record, they couldn’t legally adopt so Jack paid a baby broker. Now, Maggie worries that Patty might be possessed by the devil. About 10 minutes into the second story, the family’s cat was killed for a cheap shock and I stopped watching.
From what I saw, this was a pretty crappy episode. The first half was thoroughly unpleasant and didn’t even have any supernatural elements. The second half was a dull Omen rip-off that killed a defenseless house pet.
Yes, I stopped watching when the cat died. I had seen enough.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
Mimes are evil!
Episode 2.7 “Silence Is Golden”
(Dir by Charles Braverman, originally aired on November 19th, 1989)
“Here’s what on my mind tonight!” Freddy Krueger tells us as this episode starts.
Our first story is about radio DJ Rick Rake (Jeff Yagher), who has a mullet, a leather jacket, and a bad attitude. “I say what I think and I think what I say,” Rick says. When he’s visiting the park with his wife, Sheila (Sherry Hursey), a listener attempts to pick a fight with Rick. Rick throws a punch and accidentally hits a mime (Abie Selznick).
Eh, who cares? We all hate mimes, right?
Unfortunately, The mime carries a silent grudge and soon, Rick is haunted by visions of the mime everywhere. When Sheila is sucked into the ground and buried alive, the police say it was a sinkhole but Rick knows that it was the mime. Rick goes on the radio and announces that all mimes should be hunted down and killed. Rick sees the mime in the studio and, going after him, ends up taking a literal rake to the throat. Rick survives but he can no longer speak …. JUST LIKE A MIME!
In the second story, we discover that the mime is named Kip and he’s also a professional burglar. He steals to keep his girlfriend (Kim Morgan Greene) happy but he’s haunted by nightmares involving mistakes and death. When he learns that the last two people he robbed have turned up dead, Kip worries that he’s being set up. And, of course, he is.
At the end of the episode, Freddy reminds us that he’s dead so he can never be a mime or a DJ. Sorry, Freddy. You kind of brought it on yourself, though.
The first story actually worked fairly well, just because mimes are creepy. The second story was basically a noir with nightmares. I think it might have worked a bit better if Kip had just been an ordinary guy as opposed to a mime. The show never really explained if he was the same mime who killed Sheila and silenced Rick or was he just another mime in Springwood.
How many mimes are there in that town? No wonder Freddy went crazy.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, a lottery ticket leads to misery.
Episode 2.6 “Lucky Stiff”
(Dir by William Malone, originally aired on November 12th, 1989)
After the lottery-obsessed Lenny Nordhoff (David L. Lander) has a heart attack and dies, his widow, Greta (Mary Crosby), marries her brutish boyfriend, Hank (Richard Eden). Haunted by nightmares of Lenny holding out his bloody heart and accusing her of having broken it, Greta is not happy with her new marriage. When she and Hank realize that Lenny was buried with a winning lottery ticket, they break into the mausoleum, open his coffin, and retrieve the ticket. Then, Greta pushes Hank into the coffin and seals him up.
Months later, Greta is wealthy but now she’s haunted by visions of Hank and threatening phone calls. Eventually, she is confronted by a gravedigger (Tracey Walter), who blackmails her into marrying him.
This episode’s only memorable moment was an outdoor scene that was apparently filmed on a windy day, resulting in Mary Crosby having to awkwardly reach down to keep her dress from blowing up. (I supposed it says something about the show’s budget and production schedule that, rather than reshoot this scene, they just went with it.) Crosby didn’t do a bad job in this episode. She had the right neurotic femme fatale look.
Otherwise, this episode was pretty forgettable. The first story featured Greta having nightmares about a dead man and marrying a loser. The second story featured Great having nightmares about a dead man and marrying a loser. Even Freddy, in his reduced host role, looked pretty bored with the whole thing.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, it’s Halloween in Springwood!
Episode 2.4 “Photo Finish”
(Dir by Tom DeSimone, originally aired on October 29th, 1989)
This episode starts with Freddy welcoming us to a special Halloween episode of Freddy’s Nightmares. Because it is the season, Freddy actually plays a role in both of this week’s stories and it must be said that they are both rather gruesome, even by the standards of this show.
In the first story, photographer Stoney Adler (Patty McCormack) is commissioned to take some photos for a Halloween spread that will appear in Kink Magazine. Stoney is amazed at how good her models are at pretending to be scared. That’s because they’re all actually terrified because they keep seeing Freddy. Stoney isn’t aware of Freddy’s presence, at least not until Freddy drives a stake through the heart of one of her models. Stoney tries to avoid doing any more horror shoots but she takes on one final assignment. Freddy appears and asks Stoney, “Do you want me to make (the model) scream?” Stoney says yes. Freddy plucks out Stoney’s eyes. That certainly does lead to some screaming.
The second story feature three FBI men trying to figure out why a suburban father shot his wife and daughter the night before Halloween and then apparently slit his own throat. One of the agents — a profiler who owes more than a little to William Petersen’s performance in Manhunter — figures out that Freddy possessed the father. Freddy, however, then possesses another one of the FBI agents and the tragedy plays out a second time. The profiler ends up with his throat slashed, slowly dying while the camera lingers on him. There’s no way this episode didn’t inspire a few nightmares.
This was a good episode. It was scary, it was gory, and it was definitely designed to offend people who weren’t into horror. This episode was exactly what you would want Halloween with Freddy Krueger to be. The second season continues to be a hundred times better than the first.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, more and more people are coming to Springwood.
Episode 2.3 “Welcome to Springwood”
(Dir by Ken Wiederhorn, originally aired on October 22nd, 1989)
Roxanne (Leah Ayres) and her husband, Doug (Michael Horton). have just moved to a new house in Springwood, Ohio. Doug, a lawyer, has to go to his office and he leaves Roxanne, who is recovering from a mental breakdown, alone with the boxes that the moves have already brought into the house. He tells her not to worry about opening them and promises her that they’ll unpack when he gets home.
Roxanne, however, opens the boxes. And she finds things that clearly don’t belong to her. She calls Doug at work. Doug says that there must have been a mix-up with the moving company and that he’ll call and make sure that their stuff gets delivered as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, at the house, Roxanne starts to see people who may or may not be there….
As surprised as I am to say this, the first segment of this episode of Freddy’s Nightmares was an enjoyably macabre story. Yes, the final twist is one that you’ll see coming but director Ken Wiederhorn does a great job creating and maintaining atmosphere and Ayres, Horton, and Todd Allen all give strong performances.
The second story isn’t close to be anywhere as interesting. Emily Jamison (Dey Young) has moved into a new home and she finds a hidden stack of letters that were written years before. The letters detail a doomed romance and Emily soon starts to see ghosts. The story isn’t terrible but it’s a bit bland.
Still, this was another good episode of Freddy’s Nightmares. So far, at least, the show appears to have found its footing during its second season. It’ll be interesting to see if that continues next week.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, two more people fall victim to Springwood, Ohio.
Episode 2.2 “Heartbreak Hotel”
(Dir by William Malone, originally aired on October 15th, 1989)
“Learn to use the proper pronouns …. OR DIE!” Freddy shouts at us this week and he has a point.
When tabloid reporter Roger Dittano (John Stinson) is sent to Springwood to write a story about an Elvis sighting at a local hotel, he discovers that everything he writes comes true. He writes about a woman having a demon child and, a few minutes later, a pregnant maid goes into labor and gives birth to a deformed stillborn baby. Roger writes about a man being electrocuted in a bathtub and, shortly afterwards, he’s nearly electrocuted while taking a bath.
When Roger discovers that a newspaper publisher (played by Stacy Keach, Sr., father of the better-known Stacy Keach) is staying at the hotel, he comes up with the following story. “Newspaper publisher leaves empire to reporter after he drinks poison.” Hey, Roger — who drank the poison!? The reporter or the newspaper publisher? As you can guess, Roger’s vague wording leading to him drinking arsenic and dying as the publisher laughs and says, “Oh, and I’m leaving my empire to you!”
That was actually a pretty clever story. For once, the show actually did the work to set up the twist. Roger spends the entire episode being told that he’s a sloppy writer. In the end, that sloppiness kills him.
The second story also has a twist but it’s nowhere near as interesting. An amnesiac named Jerry (Richard Cox) wakes up in a hospital after a car accident. A woman (Anne Lockhart) claims to be the Jerry’s wife. A teenage girl (Tammy Ames) claims to be Jerry’s daughter. Jerry goes home with both of them and is soon haunted by nightmares in which he sees himself killing a man. You can probably guess that Jerry is not married and he does not have a daughter. This story had a lot of noir atmosphere — right down to a saxophone wailing away on the soundtrack — but it was also pretty predictable.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, we begin the second season! Welcome back to Springwood!
Season 2.1 “Dream Come True”
(Dir by George Kaczender, originally aired on October 8th, 1989)
The second season of Freddy’s Nightmares features Freddy getting involved in the action.
The first story features Freddy haunting the nightmares of teenager Randy Jennings (David Kaufman), who has only recently moved to Springwood with his mother, Cathy (Linda Miller). Randy is having nightmares about Freddy so his mother buys tickets to attend a talk show hosted by Stan Brooks (Jay Thomas). Stan’s guest is therapist Dr. Brandon Kefler (Scott Marlowe), who has written a book about nightmares. Cathy begs Brandon to see Randy and, after being pressured by Stan, Brandon agrees. Stan arranges for cameraman Garry Heath (Gerard Prendergrast) to film the session.
At the Jennings home, Brandon talks to Randy about his nightmares. Brandon’s therapy seems to work as, afterwards, Randy is able to sleep peacefully and without having any nightmares. However, it turns out that Freddy just jumped from Randy’s mind to Brandon’s! (Hey, didn’t almost the same thing happen in a movie, something about an exorcism….) Soon, Brandon is the one who is having nightmares and being driven mad by visions….
As for the second story, it deals with Garry the cameraman and his belief that Freddy Kruger is real. One reason why Garry believes that Freddy is real is because Freddy keeps showing up in footage that he’s filmed. Unfortunately, no one else can see Freddy, certainly not Garry’s boss (Charles Cyphers). Even more unfortunately, the body of Garry’s girlfriend is found in a dumpster and the police aren’t buying Garry’s story that Freddy did it….
This episode actually wasn’t that bad, especially compared to some of the episodes that aired during the show’s first season. Perhaps it’s because this episode was the first of the season and the production budget hadn’t gone dry yet but Dream Come True actually features some adequate production values. The house looks like a real house. The television studio looks like a place where something would actually be filmed. The abandoned warehouse with Garry tries to confront Freddy is actually an atmospheric location and the episode even manages to generate a little suspense, even if neither plot is particularly original. Both Scott Marlowe and Gerard Pendergrast give decent performances in their stories and, as always, Robert Englund is a properly evil Freddy.
(That said, the show did manage to misspell Charles Cyphers’s name in the opening credits, despite the fact that he was this episode’s big guest star. I did a double take when I saw “Charles Syphers,” on my screen. Seriously, the man was Sherriff Brackett!)
Despite getting Charles Cypher’s name wrong, this was still a good start to the final season. It’ll be interesting to see if the remaining episodes live up to it.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week’s episode is actually decent.
Episode 1.18 “The Art of Death”
(Dir by Ken Wiederhorn, originally aired on March 12th, 1989)
Jack (Carey Scott) is a talented artist and college student who has a crush on Joan (Laura Schaefer). When Joan’s jock boyfriend humiliates Jack, Jack suddenly finds himself approached by The Phantom (Judd Omen), a masked figure who claims that he can kill Jack’s enemies if Jack draws a picture of him doing it. After the jock is killed in a treadmill accident, Joan sees the picture that Jack drew and decides she doesn’t want anything to do with Jack. The Phantom suggests drawing a picture of him surprising Joan in the shower. Jack refuses, just to discover that the picture has already been drawn and the Phantom is now holding Joan prisoner in a boiler room. Jack draws a picture of the Phantom being sucked down a hole. The Phantom vanishes but …. oh no, now Jack’s wearing the mask! Jack was the Phantom all along!
As for the second story, Joan struggles to recover from the trauma. In typical Freddy’s Nightmares fashion, she has a series of hallucinations that lead to her killing her psychiatrist.
This episode actually worked! The first story was genuinely creepy. The second story was predictable but it featured a good performance from Laura Schaefer and the action moved at a decent pace. I’m going to give the majority of the credit to director Ken Wiederhorn, who previously directed one of my favorite zombie films, 1977’s Shock Waves.
This is my final Freddy’s Nightmares review for 2025. Retro Television Review is taking a break for the holidays, so I can focus on Awards Season and Christmas movies! Freddy’s Nightmares will return on January 9th.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, dreams continue to come true in Springwood, Ohio. Freddy continues to show up in very short host segments because I guess he doesn’t have anything better to do. And I continue to find ways to pad out my reviews for a show that there’s really not much to be said about. It happens. Some shows are interesting and take chances and other shows just recycle the same thing over and over again. Anyway, let’s get to it….
Episode 1.17 “Love Stinks”
(Dir by John Lafia, originally aired on February 26th, 1989)
Adam (John Washington) is a high school jock who has a chance to join the White Sox and who has a girlfriend named Laura (Tamara Glyn). When his parents go out of town, Adam throws a house party. The party goes wrong when he finds himself unable to say the words “I love you,” to Laura. Laura leaves him and Adam has a one-night stand with Loni (Susanna Savee). Soon, Adam finds himself drifting in-and-out of a dream state. He sees Laura chopping him up with meat cleaver. He sees his parents come home and he notices that his father is missing a finger. Loni ruins his interview with the baseball scout. It’s all because Adam can’t say “I love you,” but suddenly, Adam wakes up in bed and hears the party still going on downstairs and realizes it was all a dream. He runs downstairs and grabs Laura and says, “I love you!” Except, Laura now looks like Loni. And when his parents show up and say they brought someone to meet him, it turns out to be Loni except Loni now looks like Laura.
Meanwhile, Adam’s slacker friend Max (Georg Olden) gets a job at Mr. Cheesy Pizza. He’s working for his hated uncle, Ralph (Jeffery Combs). When Max’s girlfriend disappears, Max is horrified to discover that she’s become a part of the special sauce that Ralph uses to make the pizza’s so memorable. Don’t worry, it’s all just a dream. Except, in the waking world, the pizza oven explodes and kills Ralph. Max apparently decides to take a lesson from his dream and makes tasty use of Ralph’s remains.
By the admittedly low standards of Freddy’s Nightmares, this episode wasn’t that bad. Though the first story was incoherent, it still captured the feeling of being scared of commitment. The second story was predictable but at least it featured Jeffrey Combs doing his sociopathic nerd thing. This episode held my interest. That said, almost every episode pretty much has the exact same “It was just a dream” plot twist. At this point, it’s no longer a shock when someone suddenly opens their eyes and breathes a sigh of relief. Even Freddy seems kind of bored with it all.
Through the Shattered Lens 