Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

[baumer]

Discuss

Edited September 15, 2013 by baumer

[The Stingray]

Imo, the very best Nightmare, featuring one of the coolest kills in the entire horror genre.

Edited September 15, 2013 by The Stingray™

[baumer]

I think sometimes, if you read enough of these reviews you may think that I sound like a record that skips all of the time. You can probably sum up my like and dislike of horror films in the most rudimentary ways of analysis. Early horror movies good, latter horror movies bad. And on the whole that is probably true, although there are exceptions to the rule ( Scream 1996, Blair Witch 1999, Sixth Sense 1999). But films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween and Nightmare On Elm Street are paradigms of what all horror should be. They are the quintessential " boogyman under the bed " stories that we were all afraid of as kids. Like Kevin Spacey says in The Usual Suspects, "spook stories that you use to scare your kids....tell on your dad and Keyser Soze will come and get you." Well that is what me and my friends dreamed about when we were kids. If you did something wrong, it's not God that will punish you, it's Jason, Michael, Leatherface or Freddy. And Freddy was just a little more intransigent than some of the others. It's not that Jason and the rest were pushovers but at least with them, you had a chance when you were on common ground. But how do you beat a dream? How do you destroy what is in your mind? And the answer is that you can't. Wes Craven created a monster that was born from events written about in the L.A. Times and he put his own spin on it. According to Craven, the L.A. Times printed three non followed up articles about Korean or Asian boys dying in their sleep. Many of these boys had complained to their parents that something in their dreams was haunting them and they begged for help, to no avail. So in some strange way, Nightmare On Elm Street has some truth to it. Doesn't that make it all the more surreal? I begin the review with this long-winded tirade because this is what made A Nightmare On Elm Street the film that it was. Nightmare 1 not only makes my list as one of the best horror films ever made but one of the best films ever made period. To watch a film which intrigues you that much is a treat. It is films like this that create movie lovers. 1978, 1980, 1975 and 1984 were important years in my life because that is when the genesis of horror films began for me(Halloween, Friday the 13th, Jaws and Nightmare On Elm Street were the films released those years).

Unfortunately, equally as frustrating as Nightmare One was dazzling is the fact that the rest of the series does not comply one iota to what the original started. I am not quite sure how Robert Shaye slandered this franchise to the point of it becoming nothing more than a circus act, but in his defence, this so-called circus that I so sanctimoniously refer to it as, has generated over a quarter of a billion dollars in grosses and propelled New Line from a small one roomed building into one of the giants of Hollywood. Look no further than the studio behind Lord of the Rings. Who is responsible for it's success? New Line. And who runs New Line? Bob Shaye. And who made Bob Shaye famous? Freddy Krueger.

However, success comes with a price and the Nightmare Series is no exception. Nightmare One was the pinnacle of greatness. Nightmare Two is an abomination and Nightmare Three isn't much better. Let's see if we can begin there.

What is good about Dream Warriors is that it furthers the legend of Freddy Krueger. We find out here that Freddy was fathered by 100 different maniacs who raped Amanda Krueger, his mother, while she was locked mistakenly in the psychiatric ward with the nuts over a weekend. Being a nun, she was forced to have the baby and hence we have this monster that was born, " the bastard son of 100 maniacs. "

Wes Craven wrote the script and there are scenes of brilliance that tease the Nightmare on Elm Street purists. The acting in here is quite good as well with famous names like Laurence Fishburn and Patricia Arquette. But what ultimately stains this movie is the fact that it is just not scary. Not only is it not scary, it is not really that intriguing. And to top it off, it continues the theme of not abiding to the rules that Wes set up in the first film. Here Freddy can still get you while you are awake, he can still hurt you in different forms and he can metamorphisise into things that can get you in ways that he is supposed to be forbidden from doing. And that is what disappointed me with this film and with the later films to come out of this series. Also, if you are going to have different writers for each film, shouldn't they know about the other films that came before them? This is what makes the Nightmare series a sloppy one.

Nightmare On Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors is not the worst of the series ( that in my opinion has to go to number 2 ) but it is certainly not far from that lofty honor. But to be fair, many of the people that I know that like the series say that this is one of the best out of the seven that exist. I disagree and my reason is that if you like horror and not comedy, then you will look on any of the films after the first and before Wes' last, as being blasphemy.

5 out of 10-- It rates a five simply because Craven and Frank Darabont ( of Shawshank fame ) have attempted to write some clever and eerie dialogue and plot twists. Their presence gives it a passing grade....but nothing more.

[ddddeeee]

Some creative fun, nothing more and nothing less. Great to see Heather again.

[The Stingray]

Eh, saw this yesterday and it was nowhere near as good as I remembered it. I guess the original and New Nightmare are the only good ones.