A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) starring Heather Langenkamp, Craig Wasson, Patricia Arquette, Robert Englund, Ken Sagoes, Rodney Eastman, Laurence Fishburne directed by Chuck Russell Movie Review

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)   3/53/53/53/53/5


A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) starring Heather Langenkamp, Craig Wasson, Patricia Arquette, Robert Englund, Ken Sagoes, Rodney Eastman, Laurence Fishburne directed by Chuck Russell Movie Review

Third Time Luck for Freddy

To be honest I thought "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2" sucked, lacking in so many areas and so much it took a lot to watch "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" as I expected more pointless, unimaginative nonsense. But I was surprised as "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3" isn't bad; in fact it's almost on par with the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street" with a reasonable storyline, some okay effects and actual moments of horror. It's still not a great movie, almost a little cheesy in places, but it worked, it entertained and it kept me interested from start to finish.

Having managed to survive the nightmare attacks of Freddy Krueger many years earlier, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) finds herself returning to Springwood and the psychiatric hospital where she starts work as an intern. But despite having controlled her own nightmares, Nancy finds herself having to face Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) once again as she meets a bunch of teenage patients all who are scared of going to sleep as Freddy is now stalking them in their dreams. With the help of Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson - Body Double), Nancy tries to put the stop to Freddy once and for all.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) starring Heather Langenkamp, Craig Wasson, Patricia Arquette, Robert Englund, Ken Sagoes, Rodney Eastman, Laurence Fishburne directed by Chuck Russell Movie Review

So the good thing about "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is that firstly we have Nancy Thompson back and secondly changing location whilst still managing to tie itself back to Elm Street. Just by doing this it stops this third movie from falling into the trap of being too repetitive and static which was a major issue in "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2". And to add to this we have Freddy Krueger returning as his evil self, toying, torturing and terminating teenagers in their sleep.

All of which is good and the storyline which revolves around this group of sleep deprived teenagers in a mental hospital all who are haunted by Freddy works, especially with Nancy returning as an intern. It simply links everything together nicely with Nancy not so much returning to save the day but to be the explanation for all those doubters. I would even go as far as to say its clever or at least a good way of bringing all the pieces together nicely.

And on top of this it has to be said that the horror is much better this time around, Freddy Krueger is once more a scary element, someone who is evil. Coupled with this the special effects are also better, still a little comical and cheesy but also imaginative, allowing them to play on your mind a little.

All of which is good, it makes "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3" a superior sequel than "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2", but it still has one really big issue and that is the group of young teenagers who find themselves being attacked by Freddy. They're a reasonable bunch of diverse characters from timid through to courageous but we don't really get to know them, we struggle to empathise with them. And what this ends up achieving is that when Freddy starts to pick them off in his creative ways you don't really care, you're not hoping that they won't die but almost lusting after how painful and imaginative their death will be.

Acting wise well other than Heather Langenkamp looking frighteningly over made up as the new intern it's all pretty much what you expect, not brilliant just adequate. But what is kind of fun is spotting those young stars who were later become better known and in "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3" you get a young Patricia Arquette as Kristen and yes that is Laurence Fishburne as hospital assistant Max although he is amusingly credited as Larry rather than Laurence.

What this all boils down to is that "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is definitely an improvement on "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2" and is both entertaining and occasionally frightening. It is still cheesy with some moments of pure over the top acting but it works and reminds you of why "A Nightmare on Elm Street" was such a good movie.


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