A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors

Rating

Director

Chuck Russell

Screenplay

Wes Craven, Frank Darabont, Chuck Russell, Bruce Wagner

Length

96 min.

Starring

Heather Langenkamp, Craig Wasson, Patricia Arquette, Robert Englund, Ken Sagoes, Rodney Eastman, Jennifer Rubin, Bradley Gregg, Ira Heiden, Larry Fishburne, Penelope Sudrow, John Saxon, Priscilla Pointer, Clayton Landey, Brooke Bundy, Nan Martin, Stacey Alden, Dick Cavett, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Paul Kent

MPAA Rating

R

Review

The ability to manipulate your dreams has remained an elusive goal for many who frequently recall their dreams. In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, the series takes a unique twist to become a more stable and rewarding franchise.

Dream Warriors follows the lives of the inmates at a psychiatric hospital where their perpetual nighttime habits have caused their parents alarm and forced them into the institution. Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) is accused of slitting her wrists when she’s found by her mother standing shocked with a razor in hand. Kristen swears it was Freddy that attacked her but evidence suggests otherwise.

She’s joined in the ward by a bevy of other unusual persons. Roland Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) has anger management issues, Joey (Rodney Eastman) is mute, Taryn (Jennifer Rubin) is a recovering drug addict, Phillip (Bradley Gregg) sleepwalks, Will (Ira Heiden) is confined to a wheelchair and Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow) burns herself with cigarettes to keep awake.

With such distinctive personalities, it’s imperative you have a younger doctor available to relate better to the kids. Craig Wasson fits the bill playing Dr. Neil Gordon, a deeply conflicted physician who dislikes the way Dr. Simms (Priscilla Pointer) often handles patients. Enter Nancy Thompson.

Heather Langenkamp reprises her role from the original film. Now fully grown and recently graduated with a degree in psychology, Nancy is able to relate to the children in a way that no one else could. She’s lived their nightmares. However, as the patients begin dying one by one, it’s clear that she can’t sit idly by and watch.

In their dreams, each of the kids has a special dream power. They’ve all managed to adapt personas that help them cope with the terrors and joys of the dream world. Unfortunately, Kristen has not yet developed her dream power, which is to bring others into her dreams. Through this interesting device, Nancy is pulled in and together they work to defeat Freddy Krueger once again.

The first film paid individual attention to the characters when they were killed, although they weren’t necessarily murdered in character-derived manners as they are in this film, they aren’t relegated to also-killed status as in the second film.

The series finally finds its own footing apart form the original by tailor making deaths to the individual characters. Jennifer is smashed through a TV screen not long after announcing she wanted to be an actress; Phillip has his arteries turned into puppet strings like the marionettes he makes in his waking time; and Taryn is killed when Freddy turns his fingers into syringes and pumps her full of drugs. Each one proves that Freddy is as creative as our own nightmares can be.

Although most of the performances aren’t much better than the previous series entries, a few exceptions can be found. Arquette delivers the series only stand out performance. She screams a few times too often, but it was evident from this film that she’d soon do great work on the screen. Eastman is also above average, though his ability to avoid dialogue does help him in that regard. Pointer shows that her past acting credentials weren’t a complete waste, and Wasson and returning patriarch John Saxon (reprising his role from the original as well) are each capable in their limited capacities.

With the return of Nancy, the series established a thread that would connect the subsequent three features, pushing one or more characters from one film to the next all the way to the end.

Unfortunately, another trend gained steam in Dream Warriors. Krueger became a cut-up serial killer delivering one-liners with delicious relish. They aren’t always good and many that would follow in later films would be groan-worthy, but for once a horror killer would have more than just a kill kill kill mentality. He became a villain who took great pleasure in each death and that in itself was supremely unique and made for some intense and amusing moments.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is the best of the sequels just because of its limited reliance on snazzy settings and lame retorts to sell itself. It did set up the regrettable precedent of laughs before frights.

Review Written

September 5, 2007