A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
Directed by Chuck Russell
After I reviewed part 4, I really had the urge to watch and review part 3, so here we are. Usually highly regarded as the second best of the series, Dream Warriors was a nice quality turn around from Freddy’s Revenge. Which, if you think about it is a little surprising since third installments in a series are usually garbage. Yeah, I’m looking at you Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III!
Nightmare 3 is about a group of troubled teenagers in a psych ward or something like that at least. The teens all share the same nightmares, which we all know involve Freddy Krueger. Heather Langenkamp makes her return to the series as Nancy, and she’s hoping to help the teens battle Freddy and live their lives. It is soon after that the teens realize they all have powers in there dreams: Kristen can bring others into her dreams and she knows gymnastics, Taryn is beautiful…and bad!, Kinkaid has super strength, and the nerdy kid is a Wizard or something lame. With the help of Nancy and their doctor the teens use their dream powers to battle Freddy before he kills them off.
The idea is rather interesting and handled well. The acting is above average but far from amazing. It is fun to look back at this movie because of the casting of Patricia Arquette as Kristen and Lawrence Fishburne as the orderly Max. Two big name actors now, that had their start in a slasher movie. Robert Englund plays Freddy again, and as always, he’s great. This is probably the last movie where Freddy Krueger is played seriously and before he becomes a one liner spitting clown. Patricia Arquette does a really good job as Kristen, she’s obviously shaken mentally and you can feel it in her performance. Heather Langenkamp didn’t improve from the first movie, her acting feels forced at times and her delivery is odd.
The kills are what everyone comes to see wit these movies, and part 3 doesn’t disappoint. Phillip gets his tenons ripped out and walked down the hall like a puppet. He walks up to a ledge and falls to his death. Jennifer falls asleep watching tv, the tv turns into Freddy. Freddy grabs Jennifer and says “welcome to prime-time BITCH” and slams her face first into the tv screen. Joey is captured and now Nancy, Kristen, Kincaid, Taryn, and Will have to try and save him. Taryn is killed when Freddy injects her with some kind of poison. Will is stabbed in the chest with Freddy’s glove. All the while the doctor and Nancy’s dad are trying to burry Freddy’s bones. His bones come to life like a Ray Harryhausen stop motion effect, which is really cool. Nancy’s dad dies by being thrown onto a spike. Lastly Nancy dies after being stabbed in the stomach. Kincaid, Joey, and Kristen all survive.
The atmosphere is pretty cool, especially in the dream sequences. When Joey is captured, he appears to be in a hellish place, red everywhere fire everywhere. It’s pretty cool. Freddy takes a few forms in this movie. He’s a giant snake when Kristen first pulls Nancy into her dream. He’s a puppet when he first attacks Phillip. Then Freddy takes the form of the super hot nurse and seduces Joey. This is a trend that carries on as the series progresses.
This is probably my second favorite of the series, the first one will forever be my favorite. Dream Warriors brought in an interesting concept and executed it rather well. The acting is above average and the special effects are great for their time. It was nice seeing John Saxon and Heather Langenkamp back in their roles and kind of tied the series together. Honestly it probably should have ended here, even though I like the other movies, the quality drops quickly, especially after part 4. I have to mention the soundrack to this, because it has not one but TWO Dokken songs. “Into the Fire” and the titular “Dream Warriors”. I mean are you really even Rockin if you’re not Rockin’ with Dokken? The VHS I used to own had the music video for Dream Warriors at the end of it, which is awesome, youtube it. I mean who doesn’t want to see George Lynch blow through a wall and play a guitar solo while Freddy Krueger attacks people? I love Dream Warriors and I would give it an A-. The original I give an A and this falls short a little to that.
