I've never seen the movie, but I did see that Simpsons parody on Treehouse of Horror and this whole game seemed like it wasn't staying very true to the source material. Did the kids fall into a lot of pits in the movie and get chased by Frankenstein?

What's it all about? You have an all-red outfit (like on Power Rangers where they would always wear their specific color all the time) and the ability to punch. This gives you and you alone the power to wander around this horrible, horrible street that the city council has neglected for years, leading to truly problematic bat and Frankenstein infestations, and kill the dream manifestation of a dead child murderer. I'm sure if I saw the movie, I'd have a better handle of what the hell was going on. Red suffers from narcolepsy, and is constantly on the verge of falling asleep, unless he can find boom boxes or coffee. But when he inevitably does fall asleep, he enters his OWN NIGHTMARE! His nightmares consist of pretty much exactly what he saw when he was awake, except bats are now funny-looking ghosts and spiders have faces. I mean, they're still trying to attack and kill him just like the bats and spiders before, but now it's just slightly sillier.

Anyways, these pesky rodents have scattered all of Freddy's femurs (he had many, many femurs, apparently) around the houses, and you must catch 'em all if you hope to fight Freddy's hopping tongues and save Elm Street! Personally, I don't think Elm Street really looks like it's worth saving. It has a totally unrelated Frankenstein problem, not to mention the giant blades that shoot out of the ground for no reason, and the fact that the bats are consciously trying to kill you and you specifically.

You can play with up to four people in this game, but the review is going to be going under the assumption that you're playing alone, because I cannot imagine anyone in the right mind who would subject three friends to playing this game too. Also, it's doubtful that anyone who would enjoy playing this game even has three friends to play with.

Maybe this game is supposed to be a post-ironic meta-joke or something. Pardon my Gene Shalit-ness, but this game is a "nightmare." My theory for this game is that if you took equal semen samples from Castlevania 2, Half-Life, Vector Man, and Predator, then poured them all into Bea Arthur's fertile ovaries, this game would pop out 9 months later.

Enemies: Bats, Frankensteins, snakes, spiders, silly ghosts, goatmen, spiders with faces...oh my! The most interesting part of the "enemies" in the game (other than, obviously, none relate to the movie in any way, shape, or form at all) is that young Red's reality is just as horrifying, if not more horrifying, than his nightmares. In his day-to-day life he is beset by hordes of bats actively trying to kill him, but in his nightmares he is chased by silly looking "ghosts" that look like bats with sheets over them. And when Red gets killed, he floats away to Heaven, only to be instantly reincarnated. The "turning into an angel" and floating away seems a little whimsical for a game based on a gory horror film, but then again punching bats in the face and having them turn into dust or all of Freddy's bones being exactly the same don't seem very hardcore either.

Weapons: Your fist. Unless you get one of the power-ups, which allows you to do anything from kick to throw things, neither of which are any more effective than punching.

Levels: Several very boring houses. Elm Street Elementary. The cemetery. The junk yard. They're all pretty much the standard for a poorly made, late-80s NES platformer, where you jump, frequently fall into pits because the jumping is kinda screwy, and get really frustrated by the goddamn bats that are attacking you constantly.

Bosses: At the end of each level, you fight some form of Freddy, who has apparently had sex with Vector Man and has a bunch of balls trailing whatever part of him you happen to be fighting at the time. Remember Vector Man? Me neither. Anyways, if you love tedious boss battles, then you'll love when Freddy sends tongues hopping at you or swarms of cute little ghosts, because I was so frustrated that I looked up Game Genie codes after an hour or so of playing. Remember Game Genie? Yes, you do. We all do.

Moment of Nostalgia-Destroying Glory: I was in the Nightmare World and knives were shooting at me from a wall for some reason, even though there was no noticeable Knife Cannon or anything of the sort. Then I got a boombox and went back into the real world. All of the enemies changed from their Nightmare personas to their Real World personas. But the knives stayed knives. This kid has the tamest nightmares I've ever seen.

Final Score: 1 out of 8 Pixels