I don't usually have a problem when a movie essentially borrows, emulates or even if it's a shameless cash-grab... if it weren't for those things, we wouldn't have as many good movies out there as we have. So why do I bring this up? In essence, this is somewhat a rip-off of the Freddy Krueger concept. A bad guy dies by fire and comes back looking like an overcooked pot roast to terrorize a group of young folk in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. Well, hey... didn't this happen already in A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors from the year before?

So while it doesn't bother me how much it borrows or copies from other films, one can't but help compare it to the movies of which bears those similarities. Bad Dreams is in line with the latter Nightmare sequels, it has a few decent scenes but is nothing overly memorable. Richard Lynch does have a certain unsettling vibe to him but that was mostly from when his character is still completely human. Aside from a few quick cuts of him popping up as a dead burnt guy, I didn't really find his character all that enthralling as a whole.

I wanted to like Bad Dreams more than I actually did. I think that fans of late 80's horror will tolerate it enough but Freddy Krueger doesn't have to worry about his spotlight being taken away by this flick.