Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, A (1987)

... aka: Freddy 3 - Les griffes du cauchemar (Freddy 3: The Nightmare Claws)
... aka: Morderisk mareridt 3 (Murderous Nightmare 3)
... aka: Nightmare 3
... aka: Nightmare 3 - Freddy lebt (Nightmare 3: Freddy Lives)
... aka: Nightmare 3 - I guerrieri del sogno (Nightmare 3: Dream Warriors)
... aka: Pesadilla en la calle del infierno 3 (Nightmare on Hell Street 3)
... aka: Terror på Elm Street 3: Freddys återkomst (Terror on Elm Street 3: Freddy's Return)

Directed by:
Chuck Russell

Wes Craven neither intended nor wanted his mainstream breakthrough A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) to become a franchise, but producer Robert Shaye insisted the door be left open for a sequel. That insistence resulted in the original's ending being changed, Craven signing over the rights and some bad blood between the two men. Because of that, Craven had no direct involvement with the first sequel: A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE (1985). I don't know if he was even asked to be a part of it. It's hard to tell exactly why Craven decided to return to the series for Part 3. I suppose he and Shaye mended fences. But for Craven it probably had a lot to do with restoring his name and again establishing himself as a bankable commodity after a few missteps. In the three years since the original, Craven hadn't been involved in anything nearly as successful. In fact, he was relegated mostly to TV, directing episodes of the revived The Twilight Zone series, a Disney special and the poorly rated TV movie Chiller (1985). His one theatrical release was Deadly Friend (1986), a silly film about a killer robot girl which didn't do particularly well, financially or critically. Realigning himself with the Elm Street brand he created was his best bet at this stage in his career.

Instead of directing, Craven wrote the original story (with Bruce Wagner) and co-scripted (along with the director, Wagner and future Oscar-nominated director Frank Darabont), plus served as executive producer. Lots of other big names were brought on board, including Angelo Badalamenti to do the score and a virtual who's who of make-up and effects artists like Kevin Yagher, Mark Shostrom, Greg Cannom, R. Christopher Biggs, Screaming Mad George, Robert Kurtzman, Everett Burrell, John Vulich, Hoyt Yeatman, Peter Chesney and Doug Beswick to provide some brief but cool stop motion fx for several memorable sequences. While the first two films had some great effects here and there, Part 3 was to be a virtual special effects bonanza.

"Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them." - Some guy who's not Edgar Allan Poe that the title card says is Edgar Allan Poe

Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) also loathes them, seeing as they've gotten so bad she's reduced to washing down coffee grounds with her Diet Coke in order to stay awake. And she's about to have a doozy of a nightmare after her self-involved mom Elaine (Brooke Bundy) forces her to turn off the lights and go to bed while she's, uh, entertaining a male guest. As soon as she nods off, Kristen is at the boarded-up former home of the Thompson's, which is now Freddy Krueger's (Robert Englund) playground. Little girls jump rope out front reciting an all-too-familiar rhyme. Red flag? Of course.

But the strange thing about dreams is that you feel like you have some control over them while you're having them yet you never really do. If Kristen did, she certainly wouldn't follow a little girl right into Freddy's house. Inside she encounters a blazing furnace, a room full of hanging corpses, a floor that turns to black sludge and a skeleton girl. Oh yes, and Freddy is also in there chasing her around. When Kristen comes to, or so she thinks, she rushes to the bathroom. Freddy appears in the mirror and her sink knobs turn into his trademark claws. By the time her mom barges in she's greeted to the sight of her daughter with slashed wrists holding a razor blade.

Surviving the ordeal, Kristen is taken to the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, where she finds some kindred spirits. Other kids there are having the same exact issues she is. Sleep deprivation. Freddy dreams. Near-death experiences. And adults / parents / doctors who just don't understand and blame them for self-inflicted wounds and suicide attempts. In fact, Springwood has recently been plagued with teen suicides. Dr. Elizabeth Simms (Priscilla Pointer) thinks the dreams are "bi-products of guilt" and the best compassionate Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson) can come up with to explain what's going on is a shared "group psychosis." But a new intern is hired on as a staff member who may be able to shed some light on what's actually going on. Her name is Nancy Thompson and she's played by one Heather Langenkamp. Perhaps you've heard of her?

Among the traumatized teens / Freddy fodder are Kincaid (Ken Sagoes), whose sarcasm, emotional outbursts and big mouth frequently land him in the "quiet room" and former debater Joey (Rodney Eastman), who's now timid and mute. There's also recovering heroin junkie Taryn (Jennifer Rubin), wheelchair-bound fantasy role-playing nerd Will (Ira Heiden), neurotic aspiring actress Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow), sleepwalking artist Phillip (Bradley Gregg) and, of course, Kristen, who has the special ability to bring others into her dreams. After two of the "last of the Elm Street children" are killed under mysterious circumstances, Nancy convinces Neil and Elizabeth to allow for the usage of an experimental psychoactive drug called "Hypnocil," which is said to help with psychotic disorders by suppressing dreams and thus blocking the occurrence of night terrors.

There's an animated Freddy doll, a giant Freddy snake, an even-bigger Freddy larger than a bell tower, veins ripped out and used as puppet strings, a head slammed into a TV screen, animated junkie tracks, a wheelchair from hell, a talking decapitated head, a battle with an animated skeleton in a junkyard, Freddy killing Zsa Zsa Gabor on Dick Cavett's talk show, people pulled into mirrors, someone getting seduced by a topless nurse and then "tongue-tied" to a bed over hell and a lot of other creative special effects scenes. Enough to overlook some clunky dialogue, a few extremely corny moments ("I am the Wizard Master!") and several awkward performances that, strangely enough, come from two of the better-known cast members? Sure. There are enough cool moments in here to overcome that.

One issue I had that wasn't so easy to overlook was was the unnecessary addition of Freddy background history... as if being a child murderer turned into a supernatural dream slayer with virtually unlimited power wasn't enough already! We now learn that Freddy's mother was a nurse who was accidentally locked up in an insane asylum and impregnated after being gang-raped "hundreds of times" by the patients, thus making Freddy "the bastard son of 100 maniacs." This information is relayed to Dr. Gordon by a ghost nun named Mary Helena (Nan Martin) who shows up from time to time. All of this additional background information, combined with the increase in wisecracks and one-liners, basically destroyed any chance for Freddy to be creepy and mysterious in the future.

Adding a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo to the mix also didn't help the series any as it bled over into most of the sequels from here on out. Dr. Neil, which the script makes sure we know is an atheist, is shown the right way by the nun, who actually says "Sad choice" when Neil claims he puts faith in science. I often wonder if people who write such nonsense dialogue just rely on their faith whenever they're sick or injured and refuse to ever go to a hospital. I also wonder if they even realize one can actually have faith in two different things at once and it's not always an either / or type of situation. Before long Neil is on a ham-fisted "rediscovering my faith" mission which involves him visiting a church and then helping to put Freddy down by dousing his remains with holy water on freshly hallowed ground.

This is also the film that added the angle that Freddy becomes stronger with each kill because he's captured the "souls" of his victims. While that makes for a cool Freddy chest-plate full of screaming faces, it's also the laziest possible way to explain away a character who - as the first two films proved - didn't even really need thoroughly explained in the first place. A big part of me thinks the excessive religiosity was Darabont's contribution to the script as it fits his usual m.o. While these elements fit this particular entry just fine, they'd prove to be detrimental to the series as a whole as many later entries would try to pacify fans with endless one-liners, exposition and religious imagery because they had no clue what else to do.

John Saxon gets to reprise his role from the first film in a couple of scenes, only this time he's a drunk apprehensive about revealing the whereabouts of Freddy's remains. There's also an early appearance from "Larry" / Lawrence Fishburne as an orderly. A brief clip of Donald Pleasence in New Line's first release, ALONE IN THE DARK (1982), is seen on a TV set.

Initial reviews were pretty mixed but no one cared. Dream Warriors became a huge success, debuting at #1 and going on to make nearly 45 million dollars in U.S. theaters alone. That's 20 million more than the original and 15 million more than Part 2. It also became a fan favorite over the years, with many viewers even preferring it to the original. The title theme song "Dream Warriors" by Dokken became a minor hit on the rock charts.

★★★

Nightmare on Elm Street, A (1984)

... aka: Les griffes de la nuit (Claws of the Night)
... aka: Nightmare
... aka: Nightmare - Dal profondo della notte (Nightmare - From the Depths of the Night)
... aka: Nightmare - Mörderische Träume (Nightmare - Murderous Dreams)
... aka: Pesadilla en la calle del infierno (Nightmare on Hell Street)
... aka: Terror på Elm Street (Terror on Elm Street)

Directed by:
Wes Craven

Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss) runs through a dimly-lit school hallway. Something's not quite right as there's also a sheep (?) walking around. The sound of metal scraping against metal is heard. She ventures into a boiler room by a lit furnace and, finally, someone jumps up from behind her and grabs her. She then wakes in bed covered in sweat. Ah. Relax. It's only a nightmare. Well, except for the part about her nightgown being torn right where the dream assailant had grabbed her. That's odd. Her mother, woken by the commotion, recommends she cut her nails. The following day at school, Tina's worn out from lack of sleep. She mentions the terrible recurring dream that's been keeping her up at night to her best friend, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), and Nancy's boyfriend, Glen Lantz ("introducing" Johnny Depp). It turns out Nancy's also been having bad nightmares but can't remember all of the details. We typically don't remember much about our dreams, do we? Glen doesn't seem to want to even discuss it, so we can assume he's been having the same bad dreams, too.

Later that night, Tina invites Nancy over for a sleepover. Her mother has run off to Vegas for the weekend with her boyfriend and Tina's scared to be alone. Glen sneaks over, as does Tina's sort-of boyfriend Rod Lane ("Nick Corri" / Jsu Garcia). The more Tina describes her nightmare, the more Nancy remembers about her own, and the two have been having a very similar dream about the same exact man... A mysterious, scary man cloaked in shadow but wearing a dingy red and green sweater and armed with a glove of razor-sharp fingernails. "More like finger-knives," clarifies Nancy. Before going to bed, Rod makes mention that he too has been having nightmares. That's four for four if you're keeping score.

The sound of rustling outside of Tina's window wakes her up. She finds the window cracked as if someone's thrown rocks at it and then hears someone whispering her name. Going outside to investigate she encounters the nightmare man again, this time his arms outstretched to an inhuman length. He's behind her. Then he's in front of her. He laughs as he cuts off his own fingers. Next thing she knows he's on top of her slicing away. Tina doesn't wake up this time. The struggle with the nightmare man in her nightmare finds her being dragged up the wall to the ceiling and then across the ceiling by an invisible force. She then comes crashing down onto her bed in a shower of blood. Dead.

Witnessing Tina being killed, Rod (who already has a bad reputation around town) panics and flees the scene. A manhunt is issued for his arrest and he's finally located and put behind bars. But Nancy, who's now one of the supernatural psycho's primary targets, knows better. As all of her friends get picked off one-by-one, and with the adults not believing her and instead assuming she's losing her mind, Nancy starts guzzling caffeinated beverages and popping "Stay Awake" pills while devising a survivalist plan to save herself.

There's a good reason I haven't mentioned you-know-who's name yet and that's to give you an idea what audiences back in 1984 must have experienced. Through the first half of the movie, the name is not even uttered. People didn't go to theaters in droves to watch a heavily-promoted "Freddy movie," they went to see the horror film that everyone was talking about. Nowadays, everyone knows Freddy (called just "Fred" here) Krueger (Robert Englund); his face, his sweater, his hat, his sick-o sense of humor and most especially his special homemade glove with a blade extending from each finger. Most people are even familiar with his entire back story. A cruel and sadistic murderer of "over 20 children" during his human existence, Freddy managed to skirt the law due to an improperly filled-out search warrant but then was hunted down and torched by a mob of angry parents. Now a vengeful dream-slayer, he exacts his revenge by terrorizing and murdering the children of his killers in their dreams... and takes great pleasure in doing so! Two of the people who helped put him down were police lieutenant Donald Thompson (John Saxon) and his estranged wife Marge (Ronee Blakley), Nancy's parents.

Putting aside much of the junk that followed, the original Elm Street deserves a lot of credit for not only being a well-crafted horror film but also for effectively punching up the tired post-Halloween slash-n-hack movie formula. The clever premise working inside the anything-goes landscape of dreams affords writer / director Craven (who based this on some odd real-life occurrences he'd read about) and his crew the opportunity to go to weird, disorienting, sometimes even surreal places, yet they never alienate the audience in doing so. As a result, both the slasher faithful and those wanting something a bit more inventive and imaginative can all walk away happy.

Craven's screenplay was completed years before the film started shooting. After it was shopped around and passed over by most of the major studios, New Line Cinema finally decided to bite. For New Line, a company whose place in the entertainment industry was hardly cemented at that point thanks to the less-than-spectacular performance of their debut effort (the slasher ALONE IN THE DARK), this was a make it or break it investment of a couple million dollars. Despite receiving a lukewarm reception from critics of the day, Elm Street not only didn't break the studio, it was such a runaway hit that it practically made the studio. And its increasingly more-lucrative offspring would buoy them over other ups and downs throughout the 80s and beyond.

Enduring weeks of lengthy (three-hour-long) sessions in a makeup chair in order to play Freddy proved very worthwhile for Englund, who'd already spent ten years slogging away in Hollywood without making much of a ripple. After dozens of supporting roles in films and TV shows, Englund finally had a signature role under his belt. The character would make him a household name, ushered him into headlining lead roles and turned him into the most popular horror movie star since Lee, Cushing and Price. Because the more comedic later sequels played up the carnage for laughs, it's sometimes easy to forget just how intimidating, perverse, mysterious and creepy Englund's Freddy is in this original film. The character is never center stage nor overexposed and even when he is on screen he's usually kept in the dark. His infrequent lines are seldom played for cheap laughs either as we would see in the later films.

After this pulled in an impressive 25 million in U.S. box office, a sequel immediately went into production. Though it was financially successful (even more so than the first), A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE (1985) faced backlash for partially ditching the rules set down in the original. Fan favorite A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS (1987) helped develop the Freddy joker persona as most know it today. With each victim he claimed, often in an amusing or absurd way, Freddy was never without a snappy one-liner and the series continued down this path for the rest of its duration. By the time the fourth film was released, Freddy was at the height of his popularity, every genre magazine's cover boy, mass merchandised and the recipient of his own syndicated TV series, Freddy's Nightmares.

The success of this franchise from 1984 to 1988 caused major Freddy fatigue by the end of the decade. None of the subsequent follow-ups: the dreary A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), the awful Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991; released with a 3D "Freddy-Vision" gimmick) and the surprisingly clever but financially disappointing New Nightmare (1994), could match the box office magic of the first four. A break was in order, and a break the series got.

After laying dormant for about a decade, and now with a little help from another genre titan, the series rebounded with the spin-off Freddy vs. Jason (2003), which brought in an impressive 80 million dollars. An obligatory remake directed by Samuel Bayer was released in 2010 but was roundly rejected by most series fans. Not only was it filled with lame attempts at jump scares and God awful CGI effects, but Englund himself was replaced for the first time ever by Jackie Earl Haley and given a new, "more realistic" make-up design.

Producer Robert Shaye's voice can be heard as news and radio announcers. His sister Lin Shaye (who would become a horror icon herself in the decades to come) plays a school teacher in one scene. The cast also includes Joe Unger as a policeman, Charles Fleischer (who went on to voice Roger Rabbit) as a doctor and Craven's former wife Mimi Craven as a nurse. The score is from Charles Bernstein, who also did the music for Craven's Deadly Friend (1986). Craven allowed Bob Shaye and Sean S. Cunningham to direct a couple of individual scenes themselves to save some time.

★★★1/2