The notion behind the 1988 Elvira, Mistress...

The notion behind the 1988 Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (KTLA Sunday at 6 p.m.) seems to have been to introduce TV’s erstwhile horror-picture hostess to the big screen in a movie as rotten as the worst flick she ever introduced on the tube.

The 1988 A Nightmare of Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (KTLA Sunday at 8 p.m.), directed by Renny Harlin, is probably the best of the Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) series, a superior horror picture that balances wit and gore with intelligence and imagination.

Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy star in Batteries Not Included (KTLA Monday at 8 p.m.), a charming 1987 fantasy, as an elderly couple holding out in a derelict stretch of New York’s Lower East Side.

Directed by Rob Reiner from a script by William Goldman, Misery (CBS Tuesday at 9 p.m.) works better than most of the Stephen King adaptations because it’s essentially a two-character psychological scare picture. James Caan plays a Gothic romance writer immobilized by a car accident who is holed up in the Canadian Rockies, attended by a nurse (Oscar-winning Kathy Bates) not at all pleased that he intends to kill off his novel’s heroine.

In a very real sense the 1990 The Two Jakes (KTLA Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 2 a.m.) completes the 1974 “Chinatown,” with Jack Nicholson once again cast as L.A. private eye Jake Gittes, an idealist posing as a cynic. Written by Robert Towne, as was the first film, it was directed by Nicholson, whose Gittes inevitably finds himself caught up in the past when he takes on a case involving adultery and shady dealings. The time is 1948, and the film evokes postwar L.A. as accurately as “Chinatown” evoked the pre-war city. Warning: You do have to have the earlier film fresh in mind to connect with this sequel. The other Jake is a ruthless real-estate speculator, well-played by Harvey Keitel.

The Return of Ironside (NBC Friday at 9 p.m.), which aired in May, reunites the late Raymond Burr and the rest of the cast of the old NBC series in an investigation of the murder of the Denver police chief.

In his taxing, fascinating 1988 The Thin Blue Line (KCET Friday at 10 p.m.), filmmaker Errol Morris builds a powerful case against Texas justice, while attempting to bring to the documentary form an ultra-cool neo- film noir look.