This is the movie that killed Fred Krueger. I’m not talking about the ending, and this is not a spoiler. Wes Craven’s original film was legitimately scary. It painted a story of a town with a terrible secret, and a dream demon stalking teenagers in their sleep. The dream sequences, while threatened by limited practical effects, worked. The characters were likable, and Fred Krueger was monstrous and demonic. He relished in terrorizing kids before the kill; he was in fact a nightmare. Robert Englund brought him to vivid life. The film’s real closing (in Nancy’s—Heather Langenkamp’s—bedroom) was perfect… before the studio tacked on a sequel-thirsty ending that erased the logic the rest of the film had set up.
What worked about that film, and even carried over to the troubled but still okay “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge,” was the way it detailed the victims’ response to the nightmares. You felt them. The victims were alone in their struggle. Heather’s Nancy, and Mark Patton’s Jesse (“Part 2”) became more and more afraid of their dreams, and lost the ability to tell the difference between illusion and reality as sleep deprivation and delirium kicked in. All along the proceedings, Krueger’s sharp knives scratched on metal like the sound of impending doom.
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“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” however, erases all of that. It drops the creepy, stalking nature of Freddy. It drops the drawn out sequences of dreams and the fatigue and malaise that accompanies extreme sleep deprivation. It’s highlighted by slicker SFX; Freddy can now be seen in broad daylight. His burned visage looks like a mask, not skin. His sweater is a trademark now, no longer tattered and ill-fitting. And Freddy’s knife scrapes accompany nothing—there’s no metal to be scratched on; Director Chuck Russell uses it as a calling card, trying to remind viewers of the terror of “Part 1” and the efforts of “Part 2”—it does not work.
But most egregious, and why this film fails, is the decision to turn Freddy into a comedian. His one-liners from the previous installments (the sardonic “This is God” from “Part 1” and “You’ve got the body, and I’ve got the brains” from “Part 2”) still smacked of horror. Both films displayed massive displays of Krueger’s gross visage, and mocked his victims’ terror. But here, he’s funny—or at least the writers want him to be (Wes Craven, Frank Darabont, Chuck Russell, and Bruce Wagner are credited). He’s also a giant misogynist. His kills are the product of too much imagination. He stabs a few people. Others he kills with more gusto: he uses one boy’s veins and arteries to carry him like a marionette before throwing him to his death, and another he kills by smashing into a television headfirst, taunting the movie star-aspiring girl, “Welcome to Prime Time bitch!”
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There was a tremendous amount of on-set issues and controversy regarding “Part 2,” and therefore many “ANOES” fans consider “Nightmare 3” their favorite. But honestly, it’s riddled with issues. There are some positives: the film’s opening, featuring a young Patricia Arquette, sets the right tone. She’s building a replica of Nancy’s house from the first installment out of popsicle sticks, swigging Diet Coke to wash down straight coffee grounds. She’s rushed to a psychiatric hospital (Westin Hills; fans of “Freddy vs. Jason” will take interest) after her mother finds her cut and bleeding with a razor blade in hand. We, the audience, knows Freddy slashed her. It’s unclear why the razor blade is in her hands. The Westin Hills setting is also kind of creepy. A young orderly (Laurence Fishburne) cares about the patients. And the patients themselves are—despite comments from critics at the time—are relatable and likable.
But then the film starts to crumble. The writers take a concept that is better left in the dark and give it all the light it wants. The biggest problem is for a horror film, “Dream Warriors” is not scary. At all. There’s no set up to the kills it does have, and no set up to the fact that the kids themselves are even dreaming. “A Nightmare on Elm Street” set up rules that its film—and Krueger—followed. However here, it feels like Russell felt that Krueger’s inclusion alone gave necessity to this film. Here the camera focuses on a patient, who is then quickly attacked by Krueger, and we’re forced to endure some manner of comic joke or glib remark. It takes what little fright remains and sabotages it.
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“Dream Warriors” also sidelines Heather Langenkamp with a hard-to-believe story about her being a grad student. She is hired as *staff*(?) at Westin Hills due to her dream experience. The film then nosedives into sequences of the teen patients discussing their shared dream boogyman (Krueger), and the head nurse and—at first—head psychiatrist Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson) disbelieving them. The nurse and Dr. Gordon also refer to suicide as “cowardice” and the teens that do die as “too weak to survive,” in a move I found distasteful in mental health commentary, even for a film from 1987.
‘Dream Warriors’ Wants Us to Root For Freddy… I Think
Then there’s the fact the writers—via Krueger—basically mock the various patients’ mental or physical health disabilities. Krueger taunts a boy who can’t walk about his wheelchair, a drug addict about her addiction, etc. And when there’s not a notable disability, Krueger will brag about the souls of the kids he’s killed making him stronger, or call many of the girl characters a “bitch.”
The film’s ending is even more of a calamity. “Elm Street” veteran John Saxon (Nancy’s father) is basically shoe-horned into the plot. He’s attacked by Krueger, who can seemingly jump in and out of dreams and reality according to his whim—even though that goes against the very logic the series has established thus far. The characters from “Part 1” get nothing that answers for a rewarding ending. The series itself just hobbles forward from this point on Freddy’s jokes, jump roping girls, and little else.
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“Dream Warriors” is a let-down. It takes the creepy concept perfected in the series opener and at least tastefully explored in “Freddy’s Revenge” and goes back to the drawing board. Its acting (save Langenkamp, whose lines seem forced) is suitable, but the writing and set pieces feel rushed, and even Krueger feels like he’s phoning it in. The film ends in an obvious sequel tease that isn’t even remotely interesting. Its credits, playing Dokken’s “Dream Warriors” is its high-point. It doesn’t say much about the series’ future, which clearly wants Krueger—a maniacal evil child killer—to be a rock star comedian. He no longer has victims but punchlines, and all the while, thinking of the great series opener, I couldn’t help shaking my head and just asking, why?
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” is available to watch on most streaming platforms.
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