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A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)
In the month of honoring Wes Craven....I skirt around the bush with this one.
Dream Warriors is the second sequel to Wes Craven's horror classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and is considered pretty good by many.
Certainly, as a technical achievement this movie cannot be ignored. Its special effects are quite good, especially considering its relatively low budget ($4.5 million).
The cast is also quite likable, and most of them have distinctive personalities. Which, coming off of cash-in franchises like Friday the 13th, is a very welcome relief. A particular shoutout to Jennifer Rubin, who portrays the druggie girl Taryn.
As a sequel, tonally it is much more in line with what the original Nightmare established then, say, later sequels, or even Freddy's Revenge. Instead of dealing with homoerotic undertones, we're dealing with how dreams and reality intermix with each other.
But with all this sequel gets right, it also gets quite a bit wrong. For one thing, reintroducing Nancy as a counselor for the children. Don't get me wrong, I love Nancy. She's a great character, a strong girl who knows how to help herself. But her existence in this movie raises questions that still remain unanswered.
For one thing, what the heck happened at the end of the first Nightmare? It isn't even addressed in this film, simply glossed over as an unimportant detail, but it remains the most contested question of the series. If the final scene of Nightmare was a dream, what was the rest of the movie? How was it possible for her to survive if she encountered and was presumably trapped by Kruger? By not addressing this question, it just leaves it sort of in the air. Which is quite a shame, because answering this would help tie this movie more closely with its original, and, say, justify its existence.
Speaking of which, what's the deal with Freddy's origin story? It seems completely unneeded to explain he was, and I quote, 'the bastard son of 100 maniacs'. What does it matter if Freddy was conceived by rape? All that matters is his actions later in life, not how he was brought about. Secondly, how the hell is a dead nun walking around talking? I get this is in the same movie where a guy with finger knives haunts dreams, but it is still out of place.
On that note, the whole Freddy's remains subplot is riddled with stupid. First off, it was never mentioned anywhere in the first movie that Freddy's remains were hidden away, in particular in a way that would allow Nancy to even know about them. Secondly, his remains should have nothing to do with his actions now. As shown in Freddy's Revenge, cringe at it all you will, Freddy is perfectly capable of possessing people and using their bodies in the physical world. Why would he still be tied to a bunch of dead bones? He can do magic and ****, not to mention being able to absorb the souls of dead children.
Finally, why would, and I quote Nancy here, her father be 'the only person who would know'? As established in the first and this movie, Freddy's vigilantic murder was enacted by a group of parents furious that he got off so easily. Therefore, multiple parents would have to be involved in order to hide the remains of Freddy. It's not exactly something that can be hidden from other people. What, did he just scoop up his remains, dash off to his car, dump his bones in the trashyard, and somehow get away with it? No. No, what would be the most obvious conclusion would be at least 2 or 3 people finding somewhere to hide his remains.
A few more nitpicks still kind of needle me that I might as well talk about before I move on. First off, what was the point of the druggie hospital employee scene? Was it to establish that Taryn was a druggie? If so, that's kind of stupid because we already know that. Nothing ever comes from this scene, and this character never shows up again, so what's the point?
Also, why did Nancy wait so long to tell them that she knew what they were going to? It took like 3 separate meetings for her to get around to it. If it's because of Dr. Elizabeth's presence, she had an ample opportunity to talk to them after Rolan gets dragged off. She had left the room, and showed no obvious signs that she would be returning anytime soon. Seemed like the perfect opportunity.
ANYWAY, if you ignore the plot canyons, this movie is still quite enjoyable. The acting and special effects are quite nice, and there's plenty of good scenes in there (the whole tendon marionette scene - yuck).Elaborating on Krueger's already existing jokester qualities was a good call on the filmmakers part, as it displays the personality he's already had just a bit more. The soundtrack is also all right, the song Dream Warriors being the best thing ever created out of Elm Street by far.
I just feel like a lot more could have been done with the material, which, let me just say, is some really good material. For example, why not elaborate more on the teenage suicide disorder that the adults were clearly worried about? It would be nice to see some more juxtaposition between the kids who are obviously frightened because of Krueger, and the parents who are obviously frightened for their kids lives because they think they're depressed. We saw a bit of it with Mrs. Parker's reactions who, from what she could tell, Kristen's suicide attempt, but I felt this could have been this interesting subtle commentary that was left off the table. I'm not saying it should be, like, Heathers level, societal commentary, I just think making it more a focus would have been a good idea.
I gave a lot of thought on this movie, maybe a bit more then I expected. It is certainly a worthy sequel to the original Elm Street, bringing in a slew of new ideas to the table. But I feel like it still didn't do enough to step out of its shadow, instead more going towards the same sort of deal as the original with a new cast.
I recommend this movie if you liked the first one, and as a casual moviegoer. It's fairly decent quality, but I would say there's better horror films out there.
Selected Quote:
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)
In the month of honoring Wes Craven....I skirt around the bush with this one.
Dream Warriors is the second sequel to Wes Craven's horror classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and is considered pretty good by many.
Certainly, as a technical achievement this movie cannot be ignored. Its special effects are quite good, especially considering its relatively low budget ($4.5 million).
The cast is also quite likable, and most of them have distinctive personalities. Which, coming off of cash-in franchises like Friday the 13th, is a very welcome relief. A particular shoutout to Jennifer Rubin, who portrays the druggie girl Taryn.
As a sequel, tonally it is much more in line with what the original Nightmare established then, say, later sequels, or even Freddy's Revenge. Instead of dealing with homoerotic undertones, we're dealing with how dreams and reality intermix with each other.
But with all this sequel gets right, it also gets quite a bit wrong. For one thing, reintroducing Nancy as a counselor for the children. Don't get me wrong, I love Nancy. She's a great character, a strong girl who knows how to help herself. But her existence in this movie raises questions that still remain unanswered.
For one thing, what the heck happened at the end of the first Nightmare? It isn't even addressed in this film, simply glossed over as an unimportant detail, but it remains the most contested question of the series. If the final scene of Nightmare was a dream, what was the rest of the movie? How was it possible for her to survive if she encountered and was presumably trapped by Kruger? By not addressing this question, it just leaves it sort of in the air. Which is quite a shame, because answering this would help tie this movie more closely with its original, and, say, justify its existence.
Speaking of which, what's the deal with Freddy's origin story? It seems completely unneeded to explain he was, and I quote, 'the bastard son of 100 maniacs'. What does it matter if Freddy was conceived by rape? All that matters is his actions later in life, not how he was brought about. Secondly, how the hell is a dead nun walking around talking? I get this is in the same movie where a guy with finger knives haunts dreams, but it is still out of place.
On that note, the whole Freddy's remains subplot is riddled with stupid. First off, it was never mentioned anywhere in the first movie that Freddy's remains were hidden away, in particular in a way that would allow Nancy to even know about them. Secondly, his remains should have nothing to do with his actions now. As shown in Freddy's Revenge, cringe at it all you will, Freddy is perfectly capable of possessing people and using their bodies in the physical world. Why would he still be tied to a bunch of dead bones? He can do magic and ****, not to mention being able to absorb the souls of dead children.
Finally, why would, and I quote Nancy here, her father be 'the only person who would know'? As established in the first and this movie, Freddy's vigilantic murder was enacted by a group of parents furious that he got off so easily. Therefore, multiple parents would have to be involved in order to hide the remains of Freddy. It's not exactly something that can be hidden from other people. What, did he just scoop up his remains, dash off to his car, dump his bones in the trashyard, and somehow get away with it? No. No, what would be the most obvious conclusion would be at least 2 or 3 people finding somewhere to hide his remains.
A few more nitpicks still kind of needle me that I might as well talk about before I move on. First off, what was the point of the druggie hospital employee scene? Was it to establish that Taryn was a druggie? If so, that's kind of stupid because we already know that. Nothing ever comes from this scene, and this character never shows up again, so what's the point?
Also, why did Nancy wait so long to tell them that she knew what they were going to? It took like 3 separate meetings for her to get around to it. If it's because of Dr. Elizabeth's presence, she had an ample opportunity to talk to them after Rolan gets dragged off. She had left the room, and showed no obvious signs that she would be returning anytime soon. Seemed like the perfect opportunity.
ANYWAY, if you ignore the plot canyons, this movie is still quite enjoyable. The acting and special effects are quite nice, and there's plenty of good scenes in there (the whole tendon marionette scene - yuck).Elaborating on Krueger's already existing jokester qualities was a good call on the filmmakers part, as it displays the personality he's already had just a bit more. The soundtrack is also all right, the song Dream Warriors being the best thing ever created out of Elm Street by far.
I just feel like a lot more could have been done with the material, which, let me just say, is some really good material. For example, why not elaborate more on the teenage suicide disorder that the adults were clearly worried about? It would be nice to see some more juxtaposition between the kids who are obviously frightened because of Krueger, and the parents who are obviously frightened for their kids lives because they think they're depressed. We saw a bit of it with Mrs. Parker's reactions who, from what she could tell, Kristen's suicide attempt, but I felt this could have been this interesting subtle commentary that was left off the table. I'm not saying it should be, like, Heathers level, societal commentary, I just think making it more a focus would have been a good idea.
I gave a lot of thought on this movie, maybe a bit more then I expected. It is certainly a worthy sequel to the original Elm Street, bringing in a slew of new ideas to the table. But I feel like it still didn't do enough to step out of its shadow, instead more going towards the same sort of deal as the original with a new cast.
I recommend this movie if you liked the first one, and as a casual moviegoer. It's fairly decent quality, but I would say there's better horror films out there.
Selected Quote:
Freddy Krueger: Welcome to prime time, bitch!