“Sleep.
Those little slices of Death.
How I loathe them.”
-Edgar Allan Poe
As soon as you see this quote that opens up “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” you know that Wes Craven is back on board. After directing the original, one of the all time horror classics, he bailed out of the sequel which he felt betrayed the logic of Freddy Krueger’s character and how he exists in the realm of dreams. While the second Nightmare had the same dark and edgy look of the first one, it easily paled in comparison. This third entry in the never ending series (Michael Bay just had to remake this one, damn it) ended up defining the look of the rest of the Freddy Krueger’s until “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.” This one brought forth a Freddy that, while still a bit scary, was more of a stand up comic with all these one-liners that flying out of his charred face. This would prove to be both a good and bad thing. For this movie, it makes it all the more fun. But soon, the law of diminishing returns would hit this series hard. But this is definitely one of the best entries in the series and one of the most entertaining.
I saw this one on the big screen for the first time at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Before that, my first exposure was on regular television where they took out all the good parts. This was playing as part of the Mondo Diablo film festival at this theater which was put together by “Juno” writer Diablo Cody. I was curious why she picked this one out of all the others. I’m assuming that when she was a teenager, this was one of the movies that everyone just had to see when it came out. I remember when I first saw the trailer for it when me and my brother finally got our parents to see “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.” This was back when the thought of Freddy was frightening enough to unnerve me. I remember when I picked up a vinyl record of the soundtrack to the original. The images on the back of it made the hairs on my arms stand up straight and tall. Even before I saw the movie, the world of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” scared me. Ironically, all these years later, I now own a copy of that same soundtrack. How things as you get older!
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3” starts off with the character of Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette in her film debut) having the first of many nightmares in the movie. Freddy’s attack on her is made to look like she slit her wrists, and she is thrown into a psychiatric hospital with others suffering the same predicament. Of course, when doctors try to give her a sedative to make her sleep, she naturally freaks out and grabs a knife to fight off those who are trying to help her. This is where she meets up with Nancy Thompson, played once again by Heather Langenkamp. When she appeared onscreen, the small but enthusiastic crowd at the New Beverly applauded. Heather was at the heart of these movies, and seeing her again was proof of that.
We learn that Nancy has since gone to graduate school, and that she has been studying about the nature of dreams. She is assigned to a psychiatric ward where young teenagers have been put after they try to commit suicide. They are being cared by Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson) who cares about them deeply, but does not know how to help him. Nancy sees right away that it has to do with Freddy, and when she shares this information with the kids, they all stand at attention as they are shocked to see that they have all been dreaming about the same person.
I have to say that with a budget of $5 million dollars (it would be more today in adjusted dollars), the effects in this movie are actually pretty impressive. It’s always a gas to see what people can do with very little money. There’s one great effect with Freddy coming about as a marionette, and he immediately returns the favor to its creator by pulling his strings in the form of his veins. Ouch! The sets never do reek of cheapness, and the imagination put behind this movie is also on display as we see the dreams of the different characters and what forms they take. No one person’s dream is the same, except of course for the unwelcome presence of Freddy Krueger.
Bringing back Wes Craven to help write the screenplay for this was a smart move, and he changes the formula to keep it from being another single kid being chased by Freddy. Also, these kids fight back to stay alive and they prepare themselves a little bit quicker than the others did in the previous films. One of the screenwriters on this film is Frank Darabont who later went on to make one of the greatest movies ever, “The Shawshank Redemption.” There is a good amount of work done with the characters here so that they are not your typical one-dimensional horny teenagers that make up your typical “Friday The 13th” movie. No one dies here because they happened to lose their virginity.
The movie also digs deeper into the character of Freddy to make us see how he came to be. Before this film, we knew that he was a child murderer who was brought to court but got off on a technicality, and was later burned by the parents of the town. Craig Wasson plays Dr. Neil Gordon who works with suicidal kids in the psychiatric ward, and he is visited by a mysterious nun who informs him that Freddy’s mother Amanda was accidentally locked in an insane asylum with some of the most unstable people one could ever find on the face of the earth. Amanda was raped over and over, and this led to the conception of Freddy who, as the nun puts it, is:
“The bastard son of a hundred maniacs!”
Shit! That is a cool line! That would also make a great title for a movie!
Unlike a lot of other horror movies I have seen, I cared about the characters here and what happened to them. Most of these slasher movies have these stock characters that you usually hate and root for to die. In all fairness, it makes watching those movies a little more fun to watch in a movie theater. But here, the characters (while dealing with obvious stereotypes) are all interesting in their own way. Some are more geeky than others (don’t get me started on the “Wizard Master”), but they are more real than your average teenager dealing with an unstable case of hormones.
This movie is also proof that wet dreams never end the way we want them to. One of the characters has an understandable crush on one of the nurses in the ward, and at one point is seduced by the nurse. Some people get so lucky, but not this mute kid. What happens to him in this dream gives new meaning to the term “tongue-tied.”
Also in the cast is Laurence Fishburne who did this movie before “Boyz N The Hood.” He plays the male nurse Max who is one of the more down to earth characters that you could ever hope to find in a movie like this. Laurence’s character of Max is also one of the few people who you can ever ask for a favor and ever actually convince of it being a good thing. The great John Saxon also returns as Nancy’s father Lt. Donald Thompson. His character figures prominently in the film’s climax as they find that the way to defeat Freddy is by burying his remains in “consecrated” grounds.
It’s hard to believe that this was Patricia Arquette’s first film as an actor. She has gone on to a successful career and has appeared in great movies like “True Romance” and David Lynch’s “Lost Highway.” All this happened before she went to do “Medium” on NBC. She creates one of the more sympathetic heroines in this kind of movie who has a mother who of course who does not understand what her daughter is actually going through. No one does initially, but if they did, then there wouldn’t be a gosh darn movie!
And of course, you have Robert Englund back as the invincible Freddy Krueger. In many ways, this was really the last “Nightmare” movie where Freddy was a truly threatening presence. Just the thought of him was scary, and you didn’t need to show a lot of him to prove that point. After this movie, he was more of a standup comedian than anything else. For this and the next “Nightmare” movie, it was not that big a deal, but sooner or later, many had to realize that Freddy was no longer terrifying to us as he was in the first movie. We all had to wait till “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” for Freddy to come across as a viciously scary presence once again. Still, Robert embodies this character in a way that no one else ever could. Of course, the original film will soon be remade like all the other classics that Michael Bay can’t leave well enough alone. But the question is, can the filmmakers even dare to hope to find another actor to play Krueger better or as good as Robert Englund? Probably not.
I’m glad that I had the opportunity to check out this particularly “Nightmare” movie at the New Beverly Cinema. Some movies you never get to see on the big screen when they come out, and I was glad that Diablo Cody took the time to add this one to her “Mondo Diablo” film festival. While Freddy ended up having an artistic downslide from here, this Nightmare is still one of the best ones of the series.
***1/2 out of ****
Those little slices of Death.
How I loathe them.”
-Edgar Allan Poe
As soon as you see this quote that opens up “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” you know that Wes Craven is back on board. After directing the original, one of the all time horror classics, he bailed out of the sequel which he felt betrayed the logic of Freddy Krueger’s character and how he exists in the realm of dreams. While the second Nightmare had the same dark and edgy look of the first one, it easily paled in comparison. This third entry in the never ending series (Michael Bay just had to remake this one, damn it) ended up defining the look of the rest of the Freddy Krueger’s until “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.” This one brought forth a Freddy that, while still a bit scary, was more of a stand up comic with all these one-liners that flying out of his charred face. This would prove to be both a good and bad thing. For this movie, it makes it all the more fun. But soon, the law of diminishing returns would hit this series hard. But this is definitely one of the best entries in the series and one of the most entertaining.
I saw this one on the big screen for the first time at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Before that, my first exposure was on regular television where they took out all the good parts. This was playing as part of the Mondo Diablo film festival at this theater which was put together by “Juno” writer Diablo Cody. I was curious why she picked this one out of all the others. I’m assuming that when she was a teenager, this was one of the movies that everyone just had to see when it came out. I remember when I first saw the trailer for it when me and my brother finally got our parents to see “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.” This was back when the thought of Freddy was frightening enough to unnerve me. I remember when I picked up a vinyl record of the soundtrack to the original. The images on the back of it made the hairs on my arms stand up straight and tall. Even before I saw the movie, the world of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” scared me. Ironically, all these years later, I now own a copy of that same soundtrack. How things as you get older!
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3” starts off with the character of Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette in her film debut) having the first of many nightmares in the movie. Freddy’s attack on her is made to look like she slit her wrists, and she is thrown into a psychiatric hospital with others suffering the same predicament. Of course, when doctors try to give her a sedative to make her sleep, she naturally freaks out and grabs a knife to fight off those who are trying to help her. This is where she meets up with Nancy Thompson, played once again by Heather Langenkamp. When she appeared onscreen, the small but enthusiastic crowd at the New Beverly applauded. Heather was at the heart of these movies, and seeing her again was proof of that.
We learn that Nancy has since gone to graduate school, and that she has been studying about the nature of dreams. She is assigned to a psychiatric ward where young teenagers have been put after they try to commit suicide. They are being cared by Dr. Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson) who cares about them deeply, but does not know how to help him. Nancy sees right away that it has to do with Freddy, and when she shares this information with the kids, they all stand at attention as they are shocked to see that they have all been dreaming about the same person.
I have to say that with a budget of $5 million dollars (it would be more today in adjusted dollars), the effects in this movie are actually pretty impressive. It’s always a gas to see what people can do with very little money. There’s one great effect with Freddy coming about as a marionette, and he immediately returns the favor to its creator by pulling his strings in the form of his veins. Ouch! The sets never do reek of cheapness, and the imagination put behind this movie is also on display as we see the dreams of the different characters and what forms they take. No one person’s dream is the same, except of course for the unwelcome presence of Freddy Krueger.
Bringing back Wes Craven to help write the screenplay for this was a smart move, and he changes the formula to keep it from being another single kid being chased by Freddy. Also, these kids fight back to stay alive and they prepare themselves a little bit quicker than the others did in the previous films. One of the screenwriters on this film is Frank Darabont who later went on to make one of the greatest movies ever, “The Shawshank Redemption.” There is a good amount of work done with the characters here so that they are not your typical one-dimensional horny teenagers that make up your typical “Friday The 13th” movie. No one dies here because they happened to lose their virginity.
The movie also digs deeper into the character of Freddy to make us see how he came to be. Before this film, we knew that he was a child murderer who was brought to court but got off on a technicality, and was later burned by the parents of the town. Craig Wasson plays Dr. Neil Gordon who works with suicidal kids in the psychiatric ward, and he is visited by a mysterious nun who informs him that Freddy’s mother Amanda was accidentally locked in an insane asylum with some of the most unstable people one could ever find on the face of the earth. Amanda was raped over and over, and this led to the conception of Freddy who, as the nun puts it, is:
“The bastard son of a hundred maniacs!”
Shit! That is a cool line! That would also make a great title for a movie!
Unlike a lot of other horror movies I have seen, I cared about the characters here and what happened to them. Most of these slasher movies have these stock characters that you usually hate and root for to die. In all fairness, it makes watching those movies a little more fun to watch in a movie theater. But here, the characters (while dealing with obvious stereotypes) are all interesting in their own way. Some are more geeky than others (don’t get me started on the “Wizard Master”), but they are more real than your average teenager dealing with an unstable case of hormones.
This movie is also proof that wet dreams never end the way we want them to. One of the characters has an understandable crush on one of the nurses in the ward, and at one point is seduced by the nurse. Some people get so lucky, but not this mute kid. What happens to him in this dream gives new meaning to the term “tongue-tied.”
Also in the cast is Laurence Fishburne who did this movie before “Boyz N The Hood.” He plays the male nurse Max who is one of the more down to earth characters that you could ever hope to find in a movie like this. Laurence’s character of Max is also one of the few people who you can ever ask for a favor and ever actually convince of it being a good thing. The great John Saxon also returns as Nancy’s father Lt. Donald Thompson. His character figures prominently in the film’s climax as they find that the way to defeat Freddy is by burying his remains in “consecrated” grounds.
It’s hard to believe that this was Patricia Arquette’s first film as an actor. She has gone on to a successful career and has appeared in great movies like “True Romance” and David Lynch’s “Lost Highway.” All this happened before she went to do “Medium” on NBC. She creates one of the more sympathetic heroines in this kind of movie who has a mother who of course who does not understand what her daughter is actually going through. No one does initially, but if they did, then there wouldn’t be a gosh darn movie!
And of course, you have Robert Englund back as the invincible Freddy Krueger. In many ways, this was really the last “Nightmare” movie where Freddy was a truly threatening presence. Just the thought of him was scary, and you didn’t need to show a lot of him to prove that point. After this movie, he was more of a standup comedian than anything else. For this and the next “Nightmare” movie, it was not that big a deal, but sooner or later, many had to realize that Freddy was no longer terrifying to us as he was in the first movie. We all had to wait till “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” for Freddy to come across as a viciously scary presence once again. Still, Robert embodies this character in a way that no one else ever could. Of course, the original film will soon be remade like all the other classics that Michael Bay can’t leave well enough alone. But the question is, can the filmmakers even dare to hope to find another actor to play Krueger better or as good as Robert Englund? Probably not.
I’m glad that I had the opportunity to check out this particularly “Nightmare” movie at the New Beverly Cinema. Some movies you never get to see on the big screen when they come out, and I was glad that Diablo Cody took the time to add this one to her “Mondo Diablo” film festival. While Freddy ended up having an artistic downslide from here, this Nightmare is still one of the best ones of the series.
***1/2 out of ****
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