FINAL EXIT (1991)

With the Nightmare on Elm Street series, the modern horror movie entered the MTV era. After Wes Craven's original, unsettling A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), the razor-gloved exploits of child killer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) became an excuse for creating fragmentary pop dreamscapes. The sequels, which were essentially feature-length horror videos, didn't necessarily make sense, but they were fun to watch. By all rights, Freddy's Dead should have been the lollapalooza of them all. Instead, it's disappointingly ho-hum, without the spec- tacular-and often very funny-special effects that have become the hallmark of this series. Freddy, of course, has been killed and resurrected several times in previous films. And so his ''demise'' (Really! We mean it! This is the last time!) has no kick at all. The joke is on the filmmakers: By taking the finality out of death, they've already robbed the horror genre of its giddy sting. C-

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