Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Warner Brothers has released the 1991 franchise film 'Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare' to the UHD format. New specifications include 2160p/HDR video and Dolby Atmos audio. Warner Brothers also offers the anaglyph 3-D version of the film on the same disc. At time of writing, this release is exclusive to a franchise UHD boxed set; there is no standalone release. See below for reviews of the new video and audio presentations and a listing of included supplemental materials.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc.

Once again I find myself resoundingly pleased with Warner Brothers' work on a A Nightmare on Elm Street film. This 2160p/HDR UHD release of Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare delivers another satisfyingly sharp and filmic image. Grain retention is beautiful. It's subtle and fine and shows the natural film elements in good working order with no obvious signs of unwarranted scrubbing or smoothing. The result is near picture-perfect content, capturing facial definition and period clothes with striking naturalism, presenting pores, lines, stitches, and the like with all the clarity one could want. Location details are excellent in complexity and clarity as well. No matter the light source or light conditions, the image excels in natural film-like glory.

The HDR color grading is likewise fantastic. Colors are bold and satisfying, delivering healthy vitality, impressive punch, striking vividness, and great accuracy throughout. Of course, the brightly lit scene fare best. Some warmer and lower light shots (look at the 14:50 mark) can veer slightly pasty, but overall the palette is beautifully balanced and satisfying. Whites are crisp and bright, blacks are nicely deep (though at times could stand to be a shade or two darker), and skin tones look healthy and lifelike.

As with other films in the franchise on UHD, I saw not a single print blemish or encode issue to report.

There is also a 3-D presentation of the film on the same disc. I really like that Warner Brothers went old school anaglyph 3-D for this release because, well, that's the original format. The paper glasses really add a certain retro charm to the experience that active 3-D glasses cannot match (add that the active 3-D format is all but dead anyway, and the choice to go anaglyph seems even more obvious). However, one area where Warner Brothers went wrong is in the inclusion of a single pair of 3-D glasses. Want to watch with a friend or spouse? Sorry! With a small group of 3-4? No way! You'll have to buy some more (fortunately you can buy 50 of them on Amazon for about $10).

For those who are not aware, the entire movie is not in 3-D. In fact, the 3-D effect does not begin until the 1:10:50 mark, and audiences are "cued" to put the glasses on when Maggie puts on her own pair of 3-D glasses to enter inside Freddys head (her glasses magically disappear; yours won't!). The 3-D effects are good. There is a very obvious sense of space and depth to the scenes moving through Freddy's mind, first traveling through the synapses (or whatever they are) and finally landing in more tangible spaces where the sense of depth and dimension, shape and volume, and the like really impresses. Viewers will feel like they're inside the location, which moves around from school rooms to back yards and boiler rooms and places with different textures and details to explore. The 2160p resolution holds here, but the image isn't quite as sharp, and there is definitely a good bit of the "ghosting" effect, especially around Maggie, but not always. For the most part, the depth is great, and the image holds together, but a few times there is quite a bit of image separation going on around her.

The 3-D image loses a ton of color information and accuracy compared to the normal 2-D elements. It has a heavy red push and looks very flat and devoid of much but the very basics of the color spectrum, if even that. But the tradeoff, I feel, is well worth it. Overall, I really like how the film implements the 3-D content. I'm not one who enjoys wearing 3-D glasses for 90 minutes (I don't wear glasses in real life so I'm not used to it) but the short burst of 3-D, at the climax, worked logically (well, with as much "logic" as one can get in a Nightmare on Elm Street movie) into the plot, and making really good and fun use while it's there, makes this one of my favorite 3-D experiences.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The new Dolby Atmos soundtrack compares favorably with the others in the series. While it is not dramatically reworked to include tons of discrete overhead content, the overhead channels (as well as the aded surround back channels) do help to offer more spacious detail and location immersion, but this track is not really about nuance. It hits hard, with well defined if not yet still slightly crude detail to crashes, smashes, screams, and the like. Score is full bodied with seamless spacing along the front and plenty of balanced wrap into the other channels, not to mention a solid low end support element. Dialogue is clear and centered for the duration.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This UHD release Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare contains the same extras that accompanied the original Blu-ray, minus the Theatrical Trailer. Please click here for coverage of these bonus features:

• 86'D
• Hellraiser
• Rachel's Dream
• 3D Demise

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Freddy's dead...or is he? There's another movie in the set, so...who knows. We'll leave that question for another day. But he's alive and well on this UHD that delivers superb 4K video and HDR color application, not to mention a final few minutes in (mostly) glorious anaglyph 3-D. Sure, the 3-D has some issues, but it's really effective and plays well into the movie. Well done, and recommended.