A Nightmare onElm Street Part 3 : Dream Warriors

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 : Dream Warriors title

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 : Dream Warriors The third "Elm Street" feature film saw the return of its original creator Wes Craven, albeit in a production and script writing capacity, and also the return of original members Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon and of course Robert Englund.

Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) is another Elm Street teenager who has been suffering from bad dreams. So bad in fact, she has been sent to a special therapist unit, where she meets up several other former Elm Street residents who are experiencing the same problems.

It turns out that Freddy (Robert Englund) has returned to kill off the last of the Elm Street kids and so has set about bumping them off in their dreams, whilst they are all conveniently residing in the same mental health unit.

Their group counsellor Dr. Gordan (Craig Wasson) at first believes that the mysterious deaths are bizarre suicides and doesn't entertain any Freddy Kruger nonsense. That is until he meets the new intern, who is none other than Nancy Thompson from the first film (with Heather Langenkamp reprising her earlier role).

After having a run-in with Kruger himself, they decide to try and stop Freddy once and for all. Nancy attempts to encourage the kids to use their dream powers to battle Freddy at his own game (with limited success) but Dr Gordan thinks he's found a more practical solution.

After a chance encounter with a mysterious nun named Sister Mary Helena (Nan Martin), who appears to know a lot more than she's letting on, she informs him that the only way to stop Freddy for good is to bury his body in holy ground. And so aided by Nancy's father, Sheriff Thompson (John Saxon) they try to recover Freddy's remains and bury them properly, before Freddy can finish burying all the Elm Street kids.

Directed by Chuck Russell, this is a lot better than part 2 but is still fairly average in the general horror movie stakes. There is quite an interesting scene where Freddy's skeleton comes to life and attacks Nancy's father and Dr Gordan, but the effect is spoiled by the tacky stop-motion animation effects, that look very dated by today's standards.

Overall Marks : 5/10.

Other Information.

Craig Wasson, who plays Dr Neil Gordan also starred in the 1984 thriller "Body Double". The scene where he is thrown into the grave and partially buried by Freddy's skeleton was a tribute to the scene in that film where he also got partially buried by the films murderer.
The films budget was $4 million.
The line "Welcome to Prime Time Bitch" was ad-libbed by Robert Englund, originally he was just supposed to say "This is it, your big break on TV".
A young Lawrence Fishburn, from "The Matrix", has a minor role as one of the hospital porters.
Patricia Arquette, who is the sister of Roasanne, David and Alexis Arquette, is probably best known for her role in the Tarentino pic, "True Romance"
The movie Jennifer is watching on TV before she gets killed was "Critters"
In the original release of the film, the song being played on the radio during the beginning when Kristen cranks up the volume was Warren Zevon's "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead". In the re-mastered 7-pack DVD box sets this song has been replaced with Dokken's "Into The Fire", which was the one always listed in the credits. Dokken also recorded the main title song "Dream Warriors", the music video of which also featured Freddy Kruger.
The movie on the TV that Jennifer watches before she dies is the 1986 horror/comedy "Critters".
Zsa Zsa Gabor makes a cameo appearance. She appears on the TV in one of the girls dreams.
In the US TV version of the film, when the nurse takes her uniform off she is wearing a bra, whereas in the original version she is topless.
Some of the gorier scenes were trimmed at the insistence of the US ratings board in order to get an "R" rating, these have not been re-instated in any release to date.