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

*Apologizes made in advance. This blog may contain spoilers. Reader discretion is advised!!* 

"We're the DREAM WARRIORS!!" - Dokken 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) is about a group of kids being treated in Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital. The main protagonist is Kristen (Patricia Arquette) had gotten her wrists slashed by Krueger; which brings her to the psychiatric hospital. In the hospital, there is a special group of kids that are having the same type of nightmares as Kristen.

This movie also brings back a main character from the first film. Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) makes a triumphant return as a doctor with a specialization in dream analysis. They dive deeper into the history of Freddy in this one as well. There is a nurse, Amanda Krueger, who was locked inside the hospital with a 100 maniacs. Obviously they took advantage of her multiple times and she found out she was pregnant with Freddy (whoa, they went dark for this one). So, this makes him more human and the fact that he is not just something made up by these kids. Each patient in this hospital had their own special powers and gifts that makes them into the Dream Warriors (kind of like X-Men). Kirsten has the ability to pull people in there dreams, Kincaid (Ken Sagoes) has super strength, Joey (Rodney Easemen) finds his voice, Will (Ira Heiden) is a wizard master, and Taryn (Jennifer Rubin) is a badass fighter.

With the return of Nancy and the way the cast blends together, which makes me believe it is the reason it's a fan favorite. Also the special effects are really good in this installment. They figured out a way to make Freddy a more sinister villain, by having him attack their weakness. For instance, there is one patient, Philip (Bradley Gregg), who made puppets. So naturally what does Freddy do, turn him into a puppet. The special effects were phenomenal how they slit open his arms and legs to make the blood vessels the strings. They made it look so real with the practical effects. He was the first death of the film and it really grabs the audiences attention.

Another death that really interesting is when Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow) was killed by a TV. Yeah she always wanted to be an actress; which Freddy preys on, so naturally he uses that against her. One night, she watching TV (of all things, she's watching a NEW LINE movie, called Critters; which came out a year before. Good job plugging our own movies, New Line!!), it turns into Freddy and kills her. The special effects are killer. No joke!! They created some form a vacuum for and just edited it in a way so it looked like Freddy's head on top of the TV and the maniacal hands they come out the sides and grab her. It's probably one of my favorite death scenes, because you aren't expecting it at all. It is such a shock. Also it has one of the BEST lines in the whole series. Freddy looks at her and says, "This is it Jennifer, you're big break in TV...Welcome to Primetime, Bitch." It is just an iconic line. Another interesting fact is that the last bit of this line was not scripted. Robert Englund came up with it on the fly. He was stumbling over the original line, so instead he came up with, "Welcome to Primetime, Bitch," which I think is a great line. It sums up everything in that scene.

I could seriously talk about this movie all day; but if I did, I would never get to the Dream Master. It really is a great film. If you haven't seen it, I would recommend it 100%!! I honestly believe this one here could be a stand alone film. Nancy does recount about what happened in the first film, so you could watch it and fully understand what's going on.

One final thing I will say is that this is the FIRST movie to associate with heavy metal music. Dokken was approached by New Line, saying that they had create a song; which had to be called Dream Warriors for this film. They eventually created a killer track that eventually went Platinum and is still one of their most requested songs today. It was also the FIRST music video to be released on the VHS tape for Dream Warriors. Their music video was a bonus at the end of the Dream Warriors VHS. I mean that is a quite the  accomplishment for any amazing band.

Anyway, this is an amazing installment in this series and really worth a viewing. Like I said, I could take about this movie all day, everyday, however we must press on to the next installment. Check out Dream Warriors, as well as the music video by Dokken!!

Onward to The Dream Master!!

Sleep Tight,
A Nightmare on Movie Night