Definitely heading into the realm of Freddy as broad trash-talking weirdo which does mute some of the scariness but the premise of preying on personal anxieties/histories/fears through dream imagery is still incredibly strong and this still manages to take Craven's surreal exploration of adolescence's first exposure to the dark, rotting underbelly, the sickness lurking just beneath the surface of the American suburb and lean into the subtext about abuse and mental health in very effective ways. Not to mention Chuck Russell's impulse towards playfully absurd images and tangible, textured body horror made him about as perfect of a choice for this group-therapy-through-horror-fantasy-setpieces material as there likely was.