He Comes For You in Your Nightmares – Final Girl – Frightmare on Maple Lane Review

Nightmare on Elm Street was one of the few horror movies I could really stomach as a teenager (I’m not really a fan of horror movies, especially with jump scares and the like).

There was just something about Freddy Krueger that was cool, plus I liked the actor who played him (Robert Englund) because he was the nice alien in the “V” TV movies and series.

Freddy is such an obvious horror trope that you knew the Final Girl franchise would emulate the movie and character pretty early.

Sure enough, it’s a Series 1 feature film!

Frightmare on Maple Lane is a hilarious (well, to me anyway) pun on the title.

Designed by A.J. Porfirio with art by Roland MacDonald, this Final Girl feature film was published in 2021.

Let’s talk about Maple Lane first since it is such an interesting location with somewhat limiting mechanics (though still pretty cool).

Maple Lane is only my third location played, but I do like how things get changed up somewhat to vary the playing experience.

It’s just a small neighbourhood of houses with two streets crossing in front of them.

The board is divided into quadrants bisected by the two streets with a nice juicy intersection in the middle for victims to congregate in (one of the Setup cards, Block Party, actually starts with 6 victims there).

Each house is a search location for items, but you can only successfully search the house once and then you have to put a red X on it.

You’re also searching by quadrant, not the specific space.

There are four stacks of three items, one stack per quadrant. Each quadrant has three houses.

Ergo, you can find three items in each quadrant.

This makes searching a lot harder, as you have to move between each successful search, rather than mining a search location for all of its cards (which I was never able to do anyway, but it is possible!).

Not only that, but if there are victims in a house, you can’t just rush in.

Maple Lane comes with a “Convince” action card, which you have to play in order to enter said house.

This can suck if your movement card gave you two movement and you were one space away, as you have to stop and do this instead, possibly wasting even more time.

On the good side, though, if you have Horror down to the point where you can roll three dice, it is possible that not only do you get to enter the house, but you get the top item too. With no search!

Some items and events actually help you Convince, by letting you roll an extra die or, like the Bible in the item picture above, which adds two dice.

Another aspect of this location is that many of the event and Terror cards make it so there will be a ton of victims out there.

I’ve had upwards of 20 at one time, though they could start dying faster.

You may end up seeing a lot of events too, considering how many of the Terror cards give you one.

Or even two!

I do quite enjoy Maple Lane just because of the uniqueness of the location and how the spaces work.

As well as how the victims can come out.

I enjoy more victims.

You do have to look a bit close to see where the exits to the houses are and in dimmer light they’re not always the easiest to see.

I can also understand how, after playing more and different locations, the Convince and “one successful search per house” mechanics might get annoying.

For my third one, though, they were quite refreshing.

The location also has some interesting items.

I loved the Megaphone, for example, because it actually was instrumental in having a game where only one victim died due to Dr. Fright (I don’t know how well it would work with different killers, though).

That’s because it forces the killer one space towards you even as it lets you move a victim away from him.

There are plenty of weapons around (why does Little Jimmy have a nice composite bow lying around anyway?) but also some unique items like the Odds & Ends.

This lets you booby trap up to three houses, causing damage to the killer.

This could be huge!

Not for me in my plays with Dr. Fright, though, as he didn’t move much.

But when a killer moves, this could be a godsend.

Maple Lane is definitely a location worth checking out.

How about Dr. Fright as a killer?

The unique thing about Dr. Fright is that he can’t hurt you when you’re awake (and you can’t hurt him either), though there are plenty of ways he can put you to sleep (or you can voluntarily go to sleep by doing a Rest action).

He can kill victims, though!

However, one of the issues with him is that he doesn’t move much.

His Killer action is just to stab somebody in his space (until you get to the finale, anyway).

Some of his 16 Terror cards do have him move, and of course some of the location cards will too, but overall it’s not a lot, unless you’re really unlucky.

If he’s not killing victims, then his bloodlust doesn’t go up and his movement rate doesn’t go up.

If you’re keeping victims away from him, he’s not killing them, which means he doesn’t move much, lather, rinse and repeat.

In my first and third games with him, his bloodlust didn’t even get up to the point where his Dark Power was revealed (and in the first game I forgot that when the finale hits, the Dark Power is revealed if it wasn’t already…oops).

As I said, you can’t hurt him when you’re awake, but there are plenty of cards that will put you to sleep.

Then he can hit you but he’s open to attack as well.

You can still move around the board when you’re asleep, which means you can just charge his space if you want to.

Just make sure you always have a Guard or Retaliate card available to also make sure you don’t fail those rolls.

Being asleep makes you resolve the “Boiler Room” once per Killer Phase (though you can also do it as many times as you want in your Action phase).

There’s a stack of four Boiler Room cards.

For each resolution, you pull the bottom card either to the right or left, or up or down, revealing two of the four quadrants on the card.

If Dr. Fright’s visible, he attacks! That’s when you can Retaliate/Guard.

If he’s not, then you’re done (unless you want or have to keep resolving).

Once the fourth Boiler Room card is revealed, then you’re awake again, unless you’re facing the Minor Dark Power that keeps you asleep.

Dr. Fright does have some interesting Terror cards.

A couple of them are like Better Stay Up Late, where it deprives you of an action dice until the next Action phase, or something like that.

The minor dark powers are pretty hellish, except that if you have a good weapon or something, Endless Sleep is actually good, because it puts you into a position to start whaling on him.

My favourite is the “OMG…He’s Slicing Off His Own Fingers!” card.

Though you’d better have a Crucifix or something that you can discard to avoid Horror loss, because this one’s a doozy.

His dark powers and finales are actually quite good.

This especially includes Everyone Must Die, where Dr. Fright is removed from the board, but you can attack him from anywhere if you’re asleep.

It’s quite brutal, because each Killer Phase, you kill two victims outright, increasing bloodlust. If they’re all dead, you take 4 hits!

This would be even worse if you’re not playing Maple Lane where it seems everybody lives.

My third game, I got this finale card but because I had almost 20 victims on the board (only 3 had died at that point), I had some rounds to Retaliate/Guard.

I killed him with four victims left.

Even his Dark Powers can work against him.

The Frightmare is Inevitable makes it so he can attack you when you’re awake.

But you can attack him too!

He has a bunch of health, so I would advise getting a weapon, but successful Retaliate actions do 2 damage just by themselves.

Stock up on that (and Guard when Retaliate is unavailable) to make sure you get through it.

Dr. Fright is an cool killer to play against, but in a way he’s almost too easy unless things just go sideways on the Terror cards or you have terrible dice rolls.

I beat him handily the first two times (though granted I didn’t reveal his Dark Power in the first game) and the third one I won because of all the victims out there.

Which does tell me that if you’re playing Dr. Fright on some other location where victims don’t multiply like rabbits, he may be much harsher.

Also, the Boiler Room mechanic is definitely unique, but so fiddly.

I still liked him, but he’s definitely the least of the three I’ve played so far.

Which brings me to the two Final Girls that this film introduces.

Nancy has very low health but she only requires 5 victims saved in order to reach her ultimate power. That power is kind of cool, as each time you lose normal health, you can turn over an unused Final Health token and swap it with the one you have if you want.

Also, gaining two health or two time is pretty cool, as is moving 2 spaces.

The Planning card can come in handy. Against Dr. Fright, taking the Long Rest card can really help (or even if not facing him, given her low health, you may want to use it to get most of it back).

Sheila is a rock star, though.

Yes, she does require 6 saved victims to unlock her ultimate, but that ultimate lets her gain 2 time when discarding an action card instead of just one.

Also, each additional saved victim decreases Horror by one too!

That can really come in handy.

Reducing Horror, gaining health, and gaining two time are also good saved victim spaces.

Nancy is good, but I really love Sheila.

Overall, the Frightmare on Maple Lane feature film is a solid entry into Final Girl system.

Maple Lane is a great location and Dr. Fright, while perhaps easier than I would like (let’s see him away from Maple Lane eventually), is still a fun killer to face off against.

Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to try and get some sleep before some mad killer invades my dreams.

(This review was written after 3 plays with this set)

Check out all of my Final Girl reviews here! More will be coming.

Final Girl Reviews