A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
During a hallucinatory incident, Kristen Parker has her wrists slashed by dream-stalking monster, Freddy Krueger. Her mother, mistaking the wounds for a suicide attempt, sends her to a psychiatric ward, where she joins a group of similarly troubled teens.
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- Cast:
- Patricia Arquette , Heather Langenkamp , Craig Wasson , Robert Englund , Ken Sagoes , Rodney Eastman , Jennifer Rubin
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Reviews
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Absolutely Fantastic
I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
While most people consider the original to be the best, I'd have to say that this is my favorite entry in the series. I think it's mostly because it takes places at a hospital and it features all the characters interacting with each other in such a realistic manner. The pacing of this film is great. It starts off with the first two deaths, both of which are quite creative before moving onto the big conflict. I love the idea that these characters all have their unique personalities and their own ways of dealing with dreams. Sadly, most of them still can't do much against Freddy.The special effects are quite nice too. It's kind of weird to see a girl whose main power is cartwheels be the one who seems to be the strongest. Freddy is defeated not by the actual dream warriors, but instead by the man who destroys his skeleton. It probably would have been cooler to see him get taken out by them, but it still makes for a good movie. I think this is the point where Freddy starts making puns. It's too early for this to become a huge personality trait so he doesn't come off as annoying. ***
As this instalment opens teenager Kristen Parker is making a papier-mâché model of a house; the house that featured in the first two films. When she sleeps she finds herself in the house where she is chased by Freddy Krueger. She flees to her own bathroom where Krueger attacks her. Her mother finds her with bleeding wrists and a razor blade in her hand. Her mother has her committed to the Westin Hospital. Here it becomes apparent that she isn't the only teenager who is there who has been plagued by nightmares. The staff believe that the nightmares are a way of projecting their own guilt; the fact that the dreams are so similar don't seem to concern them. A new member of staff does believe them though; Nancy Thompson the girl who faced Krueger in the first film has grown up and become an intern therapist at the hospital. She learns that Kristen has the power to pull people into her dreams a power that she will attempt to use to help the teens battle Freddy. Meanwhile Nancy persuades Dr Neil Gordon to try some experimental treatment. He also has a run in with a nun who tells him the story of Freddy's origin and states that if he is to be ultimately defeated his remains must be buried in hallowed ground.This is a pretty good sequel, which is closer to the original than the previous sequel; once again Freddy's attacks take place in the world of dreams and Nancy is the protagonist once more. These dream sequences feature some highly inventive and well executed special effects; they also provide some decent scares. The story is interesting and the setting adds to the feeling of oppression. The cast does a solid job and includes some well-known actors including Patricia Arquette as Kristen and Laurence Fishburne in a relatively minor role. Even though it was only a small part of the overall story I liked the fact that we learnt more about Freddy Krueger's origins. There are a few surprises, most notably at the conclusion. Overall this was a good addition to the franchise; if you thought about dropping the series after Part Two but enjoyed the first film I recommend giving this a go as it is much closer to the original.
*THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS*i gave it a 6/10 for because i think the movie is entertaining, but what bothers me is all the religious propaganda in this kind of movies if you smoke, drink, take drugs, or try to get laid BOOM you die that is so cringe worthy, the kid on the wheel chair died on the dream because he was a wizard doing magic and i know that religious folks consider that to be demonic or something so BOOOMM he dies,than the girl that was addicted to drugs she obviously had to die, than there is the i call him the "Science Faith doctor" when the sister goes to him in the funeral of one of the kids she asks "what faith do you follow" he says "Science i suppose" than she says "Sad choice" when i first saw that it was all obvious to me that this was to promote i believe Christianity witch is the top religion in the US and of course movie makers have to put these things in horror movies to say if you do this and that you die than you go to hell, in the movie scream they even sort of parody that with the rules to survive in horror movies witch i mentioned in the beginning. SO yeah this is why this movie was disappointing to me, i just think that we are in a age were all this stuff is starting to get considered primitive.
The third entry in the Freddy Krueger series still manages to walk the fine line between comedy and horror and pull it off successfully in what is a fun but rather formulaic movie, typical of the late '80s teen horror in that it features lots of cheesy action and close scrapes with the killer, some goofy but amusing one-liners on the part of the villain, and lots of gooey and impressive special effects, with Kevin Yagher and Doug Beswick teaming up to deliver a range of imaginative and often stunning creations for the film. The casting is pretty good too, packed as it is with familiar faces and welcome returns from the first episode in the series (incidentally the first sequel is totally ignored for this one). The setting for the film this time around is a dark and creepy mental asylum in which an assorted bunch of teenage clichés (including the swearing streetwise black guy, the nerdish Dungeons & Dragons player, the scared mute kid, and the pretty blonde victim) find themselves picked off one by one by the killer with steel claws.What this means is that there's a series of staged deaths for the teenagers in gory and usually spectacular ways, followed by retaliation and an overdone conclusion. The film really benefits from the atmospheric and creepy nightmare sequences which highlight some great moments, including my favourite in which Freddy is revealed as a huge, slimy Lovecraftian worm creature who then proceeds to half eat one of the heroines! A later moment involving one sleepwalking boy being used as a puppet with his veins for strings is memorably grotesque, whilst a buxom stripping nurse fantasy turns into a literal descent into the pits of Hell for one victim! The film also benefits from some surprising use of stop-motion animation, including the best skeleton fight seen on film since JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS! To make things even cooler, the man fighting the skeleton is none other than genre icon John Saxon, returning from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. John Saxon + stop-motion skeletons = a darned good time in this viewer's book.Also returning from the first film is Heather Langenkamp giving a fairly matter-of-fact performance as grown-up warrior Nancy, although fans of her in the first will be disappointed that she lacks the same bite this time around. Patricia Arquette does kooky and disturbed very well indeed but her character is somewhat underdeveloped. There's also a key role for the underrated Craig Wasson as an investigating doctor who proves to be a little bit more open-minded than most. Other familiar faces include Laurence Fishburne (still 'Larry') as a hospital orderly and Zsa Zsa Gabor in a hilarious cameo appearance, playing herself as an interviewee who gets attacked by Krueger! Robert Englund returns to his most famous role and once again invests it with a pleasing level of dynamism and enthusiasm. Not to be described as a great film, this is however a good attempt at a much-maligned genre movie and quite watchable. The series went notably downhill from here.