A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) -
Weasello Rating:
{>>--} (So-So) {{
Prequel |
Sequel }}
Please note that this review is laden with spoilers.
Freddy Injury Count: Freddy, as a giant
rubber-neck or
snake-like being, is stabbed in the eye, stabbed in the armpit, zapped with
elf-powered-magic, kicked in the neck, clubbed twice, and impaled.
But wait, there's more. He then proceeded to have his ears nearly burst by a
woman's scream, he is stabbed with his own glove, then dies in a
dazzle of special effects. Apparantly his own glove is the worst injury he incurred.
Body count: 5, with 1 implied death. Freddy can't seem to achieve
Jason's level. If one were to add up all three of his first movies, he would come close. There were, however,
dozens and dozens of supposedly dead bodies hanging from the rafters in one of the dream sequences. It is implied that these are Freddy's kills.
Plot Outline: Freddy is back! And no, not some kid-posessed with Freddy... But Freddy himself! This is the first movie where he is actually called "Freddy" instead of "Fred." It's about time!
In this movie, Freddy is back to
tormenting kids in their dreams. All the kids on
Elm Street are sent to a "
dream hospital" for
therapy - but they seem to be sharing
group hallucinations. Freddy slowly starts killing them off one by one!
It turns out that each kid has a
magical superpower in their dreams. These on their own are funny enough to qualify the watching of the movie. Things like turning into a
magician and zapping people, becomming an 80's punk ass-kicker, or even being
supra-strong.
The star and sole survivor of the first movie,
Nancy, is back too - being the kid's helping hand in their dreams.
The ghost of Freddy's mom (as is revealed at the end of the movie) revealed Freddy's origins to the audience as well. In the same dream-institution, in the abandoned wing, they had a certain cell block devoted to
the world's worst criminally insane. No
maximum security prison, just a communal room
behind a locked door. One night, a young nurse was accidentally locked in the cell, and she was found nearly dead the next morning, being raped by over 100 criminals. She was pregnant... and Freddy turned out to be "
the bastard son of 100 maniacs."
My Opinion: Other than this whole movie and the kids powers reminding me of the
Care Bears, this movie wasn't half bad. It was only one quarter bad. I recommend this over all other movies in the first 4 of the series.
Interesting Notes:
- This is the first movie where Freddy got some "cheezy" lines, making his kills more humorous - and Robert Englund was given chances to improv in almost every kill scene.
- This movie sports a claymation Freddy! Go claymation, go!
- The origional VHS version of this movie sports a pre-show music video! In all of it's hardcore 80's video glory! Some scenes of the movie are very comically spliced in. I loved it.
- This movie was Banned twice in Sweden (running time 93 and 92 min). Finally passed at 90 min in 1988.
Fun Quotes!
- "Welcome to Prime Time, Bitch!" - Freddy's first Improv line, spoken just before shoving a girl's head into a television. The original line was (sadly) "You're on TV now, girl!"
- "Let's go kick the motherfuckers ass all over dreamland!" - This is just too funny.
- "I said, 'Where's the fucking bourbon?'" - Looks like Freddy's turning into a heavy drinker. I hope he doesn't get more messed up than he already is.
Lead roles:
Directed by: Chuck Russell
Writing credits: Wes Craven
Tagline: Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them.
- Edgar Allen Poe
Sources: The oh-so-wonderful IMDB, my head, and the box.