As we continue to celebrate Women of Horror this month, I wanted to take this chance to recognize one of my favorites. As everyone knows by now, I am a huge Nightmare fan. For some reason Dream Master has always been my favorite of the sequels and generally the first I go to watch.
Mostly I want to talk about her and the character she portrays in the two Nightmare films, Alice Johnson.
Lisa doesn’t have too many horror credits to her filmography. But she does have around 50 credit to her filmography. Oh, did mention she teamed with Tuesday Knight, who played Kristen in Dream Master, on a footwear jewelry retailer company called ToeBrights. So, not only a talented actress, she has an eye for fashion.
I am going to keep this personal because from the age of 8 years old, I have had a huge crush on Lisa. I am sure there is a big part of the character she plays or is it? Lisa, even when she was dressed down and I was in love. I Dream Master they tried hard to make her look, well frumpy I guess. They made her look like someone who is kind of a nerd, but it was all to show the growth of the character within the arc. In all the Nightmare films, Alice has the biggest arc, played by Lisa perfectly. Like I said, she comes in as a nerdy type girl, who becomes the Dream Master after taking on the strength and powers of her friends who died at the hands of Freddy.
Alice the Dream Master, maybe the strongest of Freddy’s would victims. Alice was able to outlast Freddy in two movies, which no one else was able to do. Nancy, played by Heather Langenkamp didn’t make it through two movies. I always wanted to see Nancy and Alice work together in the same movie to take on Freddy. But, Nancy dies in the Dream Warriors, but paving the way for Lisa to come in and become the Dream Master.
Of course Lisa did get to play Alice again in the Dream Child. This time Freddy was getting to her friends through the dreams of her unborn child. I think between the two roles as Alice, because she was still very strong over all in both films, Dream Child may have been a little tougher. In Dream Master, she pretty much kept everything with Freddy within a small group of people and came off less crazy. But in Dream Child, she came off as a nut ball, especially to her friend Yvonne and Dan’s parents. Dan Jordan, played by Danny Hassel. Everything came to the surface, her Doctor knew, friends and family. It was more intense and Lisa played the part well, while making Alice an even stronger character within the franchise. Which to me, shows how strong of an actress Lisa really is.
I was very sad not to see her come back and play Alice again in A Nightmare on Elm Street part 6. The route they went was not great. I think Lisa is possible the third most important person in the series, with Robert Englund and Heather Langenkamp. To me, she is just as important as Freddy and Nancy.
Sure she has had many parts over the years, showing up in things like Star Trek, MacGyver and she was a regular on the short lives, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure TV series. But she will always be remembered for her amazing role as Alice Johnson in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: the Dream Master and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: the Dream Child.
In my research, I found a site that has Lisa listed as the #1 “Hottie” of the Elm Street series.
Lisa Wilcox you are at the top of my list of horror icons I want to meet.
