Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, A

Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, A

Released: 1987

MPAA Rating: R

Genre: Slasher

Nuts and Bolts: Freddy Krueger is hunting the patients of Westin Psychiatric Hospital. But they are not alone. Learning to tap into their own innate super powers, these beleaguered teens become the Dream Warriors. Has Freddy finally met his match? All this and the RETURN of Nancy Thompson!

Summary: Teenager Kristin Parker (Patricia Arquette) is terrified of falling asleep. When she DOES sleep, she dreams of strange dilapidated houses and little girls on tricycles that lead her to the nightmare realms of Freddy Krueger. In order to stay awake, Kristin imbibes heavy doses of Maxwell House coffee and Diet Coke. But even that’s not enough to keep her safe from Freddy. In dreamtime, Freddy attacks her in the bathroom slicing her wrists. Kristin’s mother Elaine finds her and thinks that Kristin tried to commit suicide.

Kristin is taken to the Westin Psychiatric Hospital where she is placed in a program that specializes in sleep disorders. When the orderly Max (Lawrence Fishburne) tries to sedate her, Kristin goes completely ape-shit and attacks Max as well as doctors Elizabeth Simms and Neil Gordon. Kristin’s psychotic behavior is only alleviated when Westin’s newest intern, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) enters the room and calms her down.

Later on, Nancy talks with Doctor Gordon. She expresses her desires to work with a group of troubled teens under Gordon’s watchful eye. Gordon takes an instant shine to Nancy but he is troubled when he discovers that she is taking Hypnocil, an experimental drug that induces dream depravation.

Gordon introduces Nancy to the rest of the group. Here we meet the ultra-violent Roland Kincaid, the mute Joey Crusel, the crippled Will Stanton, the junkie Taryn White, the wisecracking sleepwalker Phillip Anderson and the wannabe actress Jennifer Caulfield. Each one introduces themselves during group session. Nancy is impressed by the kids and regards each one of them as being a survivor in their own right.

Later that night, the sedated Kristin falls asleep and enters the ephemeral locale of the old Thompson house. Freddy bursts through from the floor as a hideous giant serpent and begins to eat her (and not in the good way!). Terrified, Kristin screams out to Nancy, the only person whom she trusts. Surprisingly enough, Kristin’s cries bear fruit as she manages to pull Nancy Thompson into her nightmare. Nancy leaps upon the Freddy-snake with a piece of broken glass and it is only then that the two old adversaries recognize one another. Both Kristin and Nancy wake up and Nancy notices a cut on her left hand from the broken glass shard. Nancy later interviews Kristin and learns that she has the fantastic ability to pull others into her dreams. Nancy recognizes that each dreamer has a special dream-power unique to his or her personality.

That night, Freddy chooses his next victim. He visits the room of puppeteer Phillip Anderson and makes long vertical gouges across his arms and legs while Phillip lies helpless in bed. In a gruesome display of power Freddy pulls the veins from Phillip’s arms and legs and begins manipulating him like a marionette. He walks Phillip down the hall and towards one of the hospital towers. Since Phillip is known to be a chronic sleepwalker, no one takes notice as he shambles down the hall.

In a separate wing of the hospital, Joey and Will go the window in their room where they can see Phillip teetering on the ledge of the tower. They try to get someone to help Phillip but there is no time. Freddy cuts the puppet strings (veins) and Phillip falls to his death. The staffs of Westin regard Phillip’s death as an accident but Phillip’s friends no better. He was murdered.

At the next group session, Nancy reveals what she knows about Freddy Krueger. The kids are astonished to discover that they all dream about the exact same man. (A detail the late Phillip had commented on during their last session.) Doctor Gordon is skeptical and believes the kids to be the victims of group hypnosis.

The next piggy on the list is wannabe actress Jennifer Caulfield. She stays up in the lounge watching television burning cigarettes into her wrist to keep her from falling asleep. But she eventually dozes off and Freddy comes for her. In a rather humorous segment, Freddy emerges from the wall mounted television set and uses robotic arms to lift Jennifer up smashing her face into the picture tube. Jennifer is killed instantly, her body hanging from the remains of the suspended TV.

A few days later, Doctor Gordon takes the kids to attend Jennifer’s funeral. While everyone is in mourning, Gordon finds a nun wandering the cemetery. The nun is Sister Mary Helena and she warns Gordon that he must find faith in order to defeat the evil that is upon them. Nancy arrives to speak with Gordon and Sister Mary Helena disappears.

At Nancy’s urging and without the consent of Doctor Simms, Gordon has the kids partake in group hypnosis. From there, each of the patients discovers that they can harness particular dream ability unique to them. In the dream realm, Kristin is an athlete, Kincaid has super strength, Will is a wizard and Taryn is a biker bitch. Joey meanwhile wanders off to go sew his wild oats. He meets up with a well-endowed nurse who proceeds to take her clothes off. While Joey is lying on the bed, the nurse shoots disembodied tongues from her mouth tying him to the bedposts. The nurse turns into Freddy and continues to torture the poor mute Joey. Meanwhile in the real world, the other patients wake up but Joey lapses into catatonia.

The hospital staff is enraged by this lapse in protocol and both Neil Gordon and Nancy are fired. As Gordon is packing up his stuff, he notices the shape of Sister Mary Helena appearing in the window of a closed down wing of the hospital. Gordon investigates and finds the nun wandering about the ruins. She explains to him the origin of the dream demon.

Apparently, some time in the 1940s there was a nurse named Amanda Krueger who administered aid to the most depraved and insane of all of Westin’s patients. During the holidays, she was inadvertently locked within the psycho ward and was victimized by the raving lunatics. She was raped repeatedly and the incident left her with child. That child was Freddy. Sister Mary Helena described him as the “Bastard son of a thousand maniacs.” She tells Gordon that the only way to stop him is to find his remains and bury him in hallowed ground.

Gordon tells Nancy of this encounter and Nancy beseeches her father Donald for the location of Freddy’s remains. Apparently Lieutenant Thompson was the one who actually hid Freddy’s body away all those years ago. After making a pit stop at a church to procure some holy water and crosses, Thompson and Gordon go to an old junkyard to disinter Freddy’s bones while Nancy returns to the hospital.

Nancy learns that Kristin has been sedated and put in the quiet room. This will leave her defenseless against Freddy. Nancy hypnotizes the group into the dream dimension in order to save Kristin. They break her out of the quiet room and proceed to find Joey who is still in a coma tied over a hell pit. Freddy attacks them en masse and the battle is on.

Meanwhile, Thompson and Gordon find Freddy’s bones stuffed inside the back of an old Cadillac. They begin to dig a pit so that Freddy can be laid to rest.

Back in the dream world, the kids are split up and must rely on their dream powers to save them. Freddy approaches Taryn in a seedy alleyway. She holds her own pretty well and manages to stab Freddy in the side with her switchblade. But Freddy turns his fingers into hypodermic needles and plunges them into Taryn’s arms. (Remember, Taryn is a former junkie). Taryn overdoses on whatever drug Freddy administrates and quickly dies. Next on the list is Will Stanton. Will is not only capable of walking, but he can cast magic spells just like the characters from his favorite roll playing games. He sends a ball of shimmering energy towards Freddy, but the killer barely pauses before ramming his claws into Will’s chest. Nancy and the others rescue Joey and Joey discovers his dream power. Speaking for the first time, Joey learns that his own voice can cause massive destruction. At this point, Freddy seems to become aware that someone is tampering with his mortal remains and leaves the dream world to confront the new menace.

Back at the junkyard, Freddy’s spirit inhabits his own skeleton and he fights against Thompson and Gordon. Thompson is killed but Gordon manages to evade Freddy’s attack with minimum damage.

After killing Thompson, Freddy returns to the dream world to confront the patients again. He skewers Nancy with his claws and turns to take out Kincaid, Joey and Kristin. But Nancy is still alive. She leaps upon Freddy’s back forcing his claws to pierce his own stomach. At this point, Gordon revives and is able to keep Freddy’s bones in hallowed ground. He sprinkles the bones with holy water and brands it with the cross.

Freddy feels these effects in the dream world and before long his spirit disappears into nothingness. Nancy dies soon after and the kids are left to mourn her passing.

A few days later, Doctor Gordon visits the cemetery again. But this time it is Nancy’s funeral that he is attending. As he turns away he sees Sister Mary Helena. He goes over to thank her for her advice, but as he does so, he sees her body literally disappear in front of a gravestone. Doctor Gordon learns that Sister Mary Helena was actually the ghost of Amanda Krueger.

Acting/Dialogue: Excellent material all around! These kids are probably some of the most talented actors I have seen in a horror film to date. Each one is realistic and believable, bringing a very distinct personality to their respective characters. Patricia Arquette really makes you believe that she is truly terrified as Doctor Simms threatens to sedate her. Heather Langenkamp starts off kind of dodgy but you soon realize that this is deliberate. Heather’s seemingly listless behavior at the beginning of the film is revealed to be the effects of the drug Hypnocil. Then of course there’s the orderly Max played by Lawrence Fishburne. This is one of Fishburne’s earlier films back when he was still calling himself Larry. Larry doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but despite this he succeeds in making Max one of the most likable characters in this whole flick. These guys really do a remarkable job.

Gore: There’s really not that much gore in this film, but when it does appear…it is NASTY to the extreme. Most notably, the death of Phillip where we see him being tugged to and fro by own veins. Yech! We also have some Exorcist style stomach writing as Freddy scribes the words “Come and Get him Bitch!” on Joey’s stomach. Beyond that, the gore is mostly relegated to the typical claw swipes and gut stabs that one typically expects from a Freddy movie.

Guilty Pleasures: Joey’s nurse strips down to her undies much to the delight of teenage males across the globe. A nice looking model/actress, this chick really puts the TIT in titillating!

The Good: The important thing to remember when analyzing a film like this is that this is meant to be more of a dark fantasy than a straight-up slasher flick. There is a very surreal edge to it and the foundations of dream theory are explored in greater detail here. In some ways, I actually find this third installment to be slightly superior to the original film. I think the acting is better and the means by which they do away with Freddy makes a bit more sense than the solution provided by the first film. Everything is paced well and you really feel for the kids who are made to suffer through these emotional traumas.

What I liked most about the characters is that they are well rounded and three-dimensional. No one is simply an archetype. They each have a very distinct persona and their relationship to one another is excellently portrayed as well. You even find yourself rooting for the burly pugilist Kincaid by the time the climax of the film rolls around.

The atmosphere is nice and creepy in this and the Bernstein score helps to accent the film’s more eerie qualities; most notably, the facsimile of Nancy’s house and the young girl (whom I gather is Kristin at age 5) riding about on a tricycle.

Fans of 80s hair-bands might remember a not-quite-popular-enough rock band known as Dokken. Dokken provides a kick ass tune known as Dream Warriors, which is featured on the Nightmare on Elm Street 3 soundtrack. Some versions of the VHS/DVD release include the music video to the song as well. The video is pretty cool and the Dokken boys even place themselves into the film clips as Freddy victims.

The Bad: Freddy isn’t scary! Whereas the previous films kept Freddy close to the shadows, this flick propels him into the spotlight; literally! Before he always looked like a wicked burn victim, but now he just looks like a guy who’s wearing too much latex over his face. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good creep elements to this movie, but almost none of them stem from Freddy himself. There’s another bad wind blowing here when it comes to Freddy as well. And I DON’T mean the by-product of too many beef-n-bean burritos! But this film marks the first of many where Freddy becomes less of a menacing dream demon and more of a wisecracking protégé to Robin Williams.

Freddy’s one-liners are not as in-your-face in this one as they become in later films and some of them are actually kind of funny. Case in point: When Freddy wraps up the mute patient Joey in bonds made of disembodied tongues, he says, “What’s wrong Joey, feeling tongue-tied.” It’s an ironic little tongue-in-cheek jibe that succeeds in evoking a mild chuckle (pun intended). But they really begin to set the stage for what will become a barrage of groaners in later flicks. In truth, they are part of the death of the Freddy mythos in my eyes.

Once again, the producers decide to break their own rules on how Freddy’s powers operate. The first film firmly establishes that Freddy has absolutely no influence on the outside world. He can only affect you in dreamtime. But for some reason, Freddy seems to have an acute awareness for when someone is messing with his shit. As soon as Lt. Thompson and Dr. Gordon disinter his remains, Freddy becomes instantly alerted to the situation. Not only that, but he also has the ability to possess his own skeleton and attack people in the waking world. On top of that, the skeleton is even equipped with Freddy’s trademark knife-glove! How in the fuck did he pull THAT one off? The special effects for the animated skeleton are especially cheesy even by the standards of 1987. It looks like the FX crew stole their ideas straight from the drawing board of Ray Harryhausen. The noticeable difference being that Harryhausen was producing more realistic looking shit back in 1966 when he did One Million Years BC.

And last but not least…they killed off Nancy! Although you feel for the character, I really found it to be a tremendous waste to do away with her. They pretty much established Nancy as being Freddy’s eternal nemesis. She was the first one to ever truly defeat him as a spirit. They could have taken Nancy’s character to new heights in later films. But alas, this was not to be. At least we get to see her again (sort of) in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, where Heather Langenkamp plays the role she was born to play! I mean it. Literally. She plays…Heather Langenkamp.

But don’t let the downside turn you away. Nightmare 3 is a fast-paced action extravaganza that has all the zest of a blood-drenched comic book. In light of great scenery, acting and plot twists, it becomes very easy to overlook the films shortcomings.

Great Lines:

“Freddy’s home.” --Little girl from Kristin’s dream.

“What’s wrong Joey? Feeling tongue tied?” --Freddie taunting Joey after binding him to the bedposts with a set of severed tongues.

“Let’s go kick the mother fucker’s ass all over dreamland.” --Kincaid expressing a desire to combat Freddy Krueger.

“But when you wake up…it’s back in the saddle again.” --Freddy speaking in reference to Will Stanton’s ability to no longer need a wheelchair in the dream world.

“…The bastard son of a hundred maniacs.” --Sister Mary Helena describing Freddy’s conception.

“One, two-Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four-better lock your door. Five, six-grab your crucifix. Seven, eight-better stay up late. Nine, ten-never sleep again.” --Children’s jump-rope song.

Overall Rating: 9 out of 10 severed heads.

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