Review of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) by Chris G — 02 Jun 2010

The tide of 1980â??s horror sequels continues with this third chapter in the series of films that ruined the housing market on Elm Streets throughout the country. This time the film actually doesnâ??t occur on Elm Street (unless you count a few dream sequences in the house from the first two films, though it looks like a victim of the mortgage crisis), but in a psych ward for adolescents. All the kids on the floor are threatened by the same boogeyman with razors on his hand and the fashion sense of a blind man Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), causing a suicide rate only rivaled by Tokyo test takers. One new patient named Kirsten (Patricia Arquette) seems to have the ability to pull people into her dreams as a means of support, a gift that is used by her new doctor Nancy (Heather Langenkamp), our hero princess from the first film.

Dream Warriors develops the original Wes Craven formula a little better than the last film, but this is the film where our nightmare man becomes campier than the first two films. True, the second one sucked but he was still pretty freaky the ten minutes heâ??s actually in the movie. In this one he begins to turn into snakes, televisions, and big breasted nurses and throwing out funny quips like â??Welcome to prime time bitch!â?? when smashing a teens head into a TV or claiming to not believe in fairy tales when squaring off against a nerdy wizard obsessed kid. The fear of the character is washed away in the need to say some zingers.

As in all horror sequels this film was made cheaply by getting some low rent actors, most of whom youâ??ll never hear from again and the legendary John Saxon, reprising his role as Nancyâ??s father. Of course Laurence Fishburn is in this as an orderly, but he can only do so much with what heâ??s given to work with here. The story is ok. Itâ??s much better than the last film, but still doesnâ??t hold a candle to the original film.

This third installment in the red and green money machine is an acceptable sequel in horror cinema. It doesnâ??t live up to the original film, but itâ??s just good enough to keep the nightmare alive.