Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, 1991

Of course I had to watch Freddy’s Dead. It’s the first and only installment directed by a woman in what is one of the most imaginative horror franchises. This film was Rachel Talalay’s directorial debut, but she worked behind the scenes on several of the other Nightmare on Elm Street films. Talalay was in an unfortunately unique situation, and it wasn’t easy going. In the New York Times article, Are Women Directors an Endangered Species?, Talalay explains how she encountered various forms of discrimination. This is one of the more strange and comedic films of the series, with random celebrity cameos (like Roseanne, ew!) and Freddy finding his daughter who conveniently works as a youth counselor. Many fans of the franchise often put Freddy’s Dead at the bottom of their list of Elm Street films. However, it was groundbreaking. As Bloody Disgusting’s article about Freddy’s Dead notes, “Rachel Talalay is to date still the only woman to helm any film in any major slasher movie franchise, which reminds that we’ve still got a long way to go.”