2- It's a Miserable Life

John Cameron Mitchell, who grew up to write, direct, and star in HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, gives a lousy performance in this lousy episode about a teen working the graveyard shift at a fast-food restaurant who is robbed at gunpoint. Then he gets shot. Or does he?

This should have been the pilot for FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES. It follows the formula of almost every episode that follows: stealing the premise of "An Occurence At Owl Creek Bridge" (which was also stolen by JACOB'S LADDER, THE SIXTH SENSE, THE OTHERS, and plenty of others). The main character has a near-death experience then has a series of nightmares and hallucinations that make them confront their lives and actions but it turns out they were dead all along.

The second half of the show is about his girlfriend being taken to the psych ward and having another bunch of nightmares and hallucinations about her family and blah blah blah. The reason this and every show in this series has a complete break at the midpoint for a new story is because the hour-long shows were designed to be sold into syndication as 2 half-hour shows each. But not one episode was ever rerun even once. Oops.

Freddy appears once at the beginning and once at the end of each segment. This is status quo for his involvement with the show. Like a Ghoulie rising from a toilet, he rises from a vat of boiling french fry oil for his first appearance. That's pretty cool, at least.

This is a notable failure for director Tom McLoughlin, who made the fairly fun FRIDAY THE 13TH VI: JASON LIVES, which beat SCREAM to the punch with its slasher spoofery and satire by over a decade.