From Sept. 18-Oct. 16, we’re looking back at the nine films of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise. Next up is the fifth film, “A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child” (1989):

Wilcox emerges as scream queen

Alice (Lisa Wilcox), Freddy’s main nemesis in the middle portion of the saga, switches from redhead to blonde for “A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child.” And as Wilcox more befits the archetype, she comes closer to being a strong scream queen.

Granted, Wilcox is not nearly as good of an actress as her later dead-ringer Laura Harris (“The Faculty,” “Dead Like Me”). But she’s better here than in “Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master” (1988), where Alice is introduced.

Director Stephen Hopkins (“Predator 2”) and screenwriter Leslie Bohem consciously adjust from the mistakes of the boring fourth entry. Even if Wilcox isn’t delivering Oscar-level acting, it’s refreshing to follow a core protagonist and to get a reprieve from Freddy’s (Robert Englund) scenery chewing and one-liners.

Granted, he still loves to taunt his targets – he punctuates lines with “bitch” more than Jesse from “Breaking Bad” – but this film is much less of a comedy than the previous one. Freddy romps around the screen less, and while that doesn’t necessarily make the movie scarier, it does make it weightier.

Exploring abortion

“Dream Child” explores actual issues, namely abortion. It does it in a heavy-handed way, but at least it’s a little something for us to latch onto. When the parents of Alice’s late boyfriend Dan (Danny Hassel, also back from part four) threaten to take Alice to court to gain custody of her unborn child, she stands up to them and asserts that it’s her child and her decision.

It’s like a brief “After School Special” scene amid a slasher flick, as is friend Yvonne’s (Kelly Joe Minter) assertive statement that unborn babies dream. Still, with dream imagery that includes a birth canal, “Dream Child” does tap into uncertainties a first-time expectant mother might have.

As is usually the case in this series, the special effects team is the all-stars among the crew. Here we get a creepy Freddy baby as the story of his birth via Amanda (Beatrice Boepple) and an asylum’s worth of rapists is mined for further grossness and horror. The final sequence goes all-out with M.C. Escher stairways as Freddy and Alice fight over Alice’s future son Jacob (Whit Hertford).

And what’s more Eighties than special effects in the style of a-ha’s “Take on Me” video? While it’s a safe bet that modern viewers would rather have Mark’s (Joel Seely) superhero comic collection than a DVD of “Dream Child,” it’s neat to see Mark pulled into the pages of Freddy’s comic. And the ensuing superpowered fight has conceptual appeal, even if the execution is flat.

Darker but nicer

Despite being a darker film than “Dream Master,” “Dream Child” is also a nicer film. Alice and Dan have a healthy romance going, Mark likes the unattainable Greta (Erika Anderson) but she’s not mean to him, and Alice’s dad (Nicholas Mele) is making progress in overcoming alcohol addiction. His status as an ally is particularly refreshing compared to Greta’s nightmare mom, who aggressively grooms her daughter to be a fashion model.

Alice’s best bud Yvonne unfortunately fills the role of the person who refuses to believe in this Freddy stuff until it slaps her in the face. But she is notable for being a rare black horror character who survives to the end, and she is a diver on the school team, busting another stereotype.

Compared to the previous entry, there’s a little more heart to this one, a little more likability and a little more message, plus it’s a smorgasbord for special effects historians. Hopkins and Bohem aren’t just cranking out a sequel; they are trying to make it good.

They don’t quite succeed – Wilcox doesn’t have enough star wattage and a viewer is likely to be a step ahead of the narrative — but at least “Dream Child” doesn’t lull a viewer into their own dreamland the way “Dream Master” does.

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