HALLOWEEN 2K18: A Review of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors"

Imagine being on set and accidentally sticking yourself with one of those things.

Don't even get me started at how wild this movie gets. It's easily the best since the original and with good reason. A Nightmare on Elm Street introduced us to Freddy Krueger, child murderer and dream stalker. He was cynical but at least witty. Same with A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. Freddy was tormenting the children of Springwood and not really being all that goofy. That was about to change. The escalation of Freddy's maniacal comedy one-liners had begun, and this was the movie that kicked his goofy nature into high gear. Welcome to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. It's wild, it's fun, it's badass and it's total 1980s slasher mayhem. Let's dig right in.

Patricia Arquette being asked back to Nightmare 4

Sometime after the events of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) dreams herself into an abandoned house on Elm Street, where she is chased by serial killer Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). She wakes up and goes to the bathroom, where she is attacked by Freddy again, who slices her wrist with a straight razor. Believing her to be suicidal, her mother Elaine (Brooke Bundy) has her sent to Westin Hospital, run by Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson), where she fights against the orderlies who try to sedate her, afraid of falling asleep. She is eventually calmed by intern therapist Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) who recites part of Freddy's nursery rhyme and earns her trust. I can't even rip on anything here. The story so far has set a pretty steady pace and it's drawing me in. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find something though.

Both women seem to be in a state of "What the fuck
am I doing here?"

Nancy is introduced to the rest of the patients, and just like the killing gallery of Friday the 13th movies, they all have a specific gimmick, hobby or behavior that is later exploited against them.: Phillip (Bradley Gregg), a habitual sleepwalker; Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), a tough kid from the streets who is prone to violence; Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow), a hopeful television actress; Will (Ira Heiden), who is confined to a wheelchair after a suicide attempt; Taryn  (Jennifer Rubin), a former drug addict; and Joey (Rodney Eastman), who is too traumatized to speak. Later, Kristen is attacked by Freddy again...why he's singling just her out I don't seem to have a clue yet. Only this time, things take a turn for the nurse. Literally! Kristen unwittingly pulls Nancy into her dream with her, allowing them both to escape. Kristen reveals she has had the ability to pull people into her dreams since she was a little girl, which is... an odd ability to have. How would you like to be Elaine and just coming in to tuck your daughter in and kiss her goodnight, then she pulls you into the middle of a fucking World War II reenactment? Hey, girls have dreamed about weirder things. Over the next two nights, Freddy throws Phillip off a roof in what looks like a sleepwalking suicide attempt and kills Jennifer by smashing her head into a television... and yes, this is the scene everyone knows. Freddy's head springs out of the top of the TV and screams "WELCOME TO PRIME TIME, BITCH!" before slamming her head into the screen. Classic every time I see it.

This is one weird publicity photo.
Slightly erotic, even.

In their next group session, Nancy reveals to the remaining patients that they are the last surviving children of the people who banded together and burned Krueger to death many years ago. So now we know why Freddy's targeting Kristen. That still doesn't explain what Freddy was doing attacking Jesse in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. Nancy and Neil encourage them to try group hypnosis so that they can experience a shared dream and discover their dream powers. Not like they can just wait for Kristen to fall asleep and then have her pull them all in. Whatever. In the dream, Joey wanders off and is captured by Freddy, leaving him comatose in the real world; Nancy and Neil are relieved of duty. Neil is told by a nun, Sister Mary Helena, that Freddy is the son of a young nun who was accidentally locked in a room with hundreds of mental patients who raped her continually, and that the only way to stop him is to lay his bones to rest. Wow, a dark backstory. He and Nancy go to her father, Donald Thompson (John Saxson, who I guess ran out of money) to discover where the bones are hidden, but he is uncooperative. You'd think after experiencing Krueger once already, Donald would be more inclined to participate. Not so. Nancy rushes back to the hospital after she hears Kristen is going to be sedated, while Neil eventually convinces Donald to help them.

Had to make sure I got the shot of Freddy in his derpiest
face and TV antenna bunny ears. Almost kills the scariness.

Nancy and the others again engage in group hypnosis so they can reunite with Kristen, but are all separated by Freddy. Taryn and Will are killed by Freddy while Kristen, Nancy, and Kincaid find one another. The trio rescue Joey but are unable to defeat Freddy, who has become too powerful because of all the souls he has consumed. So... Freddy's a soul eater now, too. I know he gains power with the more people who believe in him, but now I guess souls have something to do with it too. However, Freddy senses that his remains have been found and possesses his own skeleton in the real world, killing Donald and incapacitating Neil. Congrats, John Saxson. You're officially out of any future sequels. Smart move. Freddy returns to attack the others, but Joey uses his dream power voice to send him away. Donald appears to Nancy to tell her that he is "crossing over", but he is revealed to be Freddy in disguise, who stabs and kills Nancy...an unexpected move to say the least. Also, congrats Heather Langenkamp! You're officially out of any future sequels--well you get the idea. As Freddy is about to kill Kristen, Nancy rises up out of the blue and stabs Freddy with his own glove while Neil awakens and consecrates the bones, finally destroying him. At Nancy's funeral, Neil sees Mary Helena again and tries to follow her; after he loses sight of her he finds a tombstone, revealing her to be Amanda Krueger, Freddy's mother. So... was she a hallucination? A ghost? Were they dreaming the whole time? Who knows! The movie's over.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors is epic and badass 80s cheese. It's the quintessential sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street, the spiritual successor. So much so that I'm just going to pretend I didn't nearly sedate myself trying to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. Kristen's a fun new lead character, her rag-tag team of loonies make quite a killing gallery, and Robert Englund gives one of his best performances as Freddy. Since this is when A Nightmare on Elm Street movies were going to start getting silly, it's good to really do yourself a favor and enjoy this one.  Freddy really did his best and countered the greatness of Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. He even countered with a hit metal song of his own. Jason Lives had "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" by Alice Cooper and this one battled back with "Dream Warriors" by Dokken. Both kick-ass songs. Now it was time for both killers to once again return to their corners and come out swinging in 1988... only neither man would really deliver something memorable...