Owing to the mediocre (at best) artistic success of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Not Actually a Revenge, But We’re Calling it That, New Line super-producer Robert Shaye went about ensuring that A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors would be the best damn Nightmare on Elm Street sequel possible.
His first step was hiring creator Wes Craven back. Craven was already on record with his distaste for Elm Street as a franchise, but if a Part Three is gonna happen, hell, might as well do damage control. Craven declined a directing position, favoring the noble failure that is The Serpent and the Rainbow, but he sure wrote the hell out of Dream Warriors, with the aid of eventual Carlos Castaneda mystic chum Bruce Wagner. Craven’s initial idea was rejected as “too meta” by New Line, though it would get reworked later into Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Instead, an in-continuity script took on a new idea, about nightmares driving children to commit suicide. Naturally, Freddy Kreuger is involved, his dignity restored in revenge for Revenge.
This suicide angle became controversial and taboo (with the exception of Heathers), so with Craven’s input complete, two new screenwriters came on to put together a lighter Elm Street movie – all the better for competing in the mainstream market. (Reportedly, the film’s novelization retains Craven’s vision.) In hindsight, Shaye did just as well selecting these guys as he did Craven. For instance, one of ‘em was Frank Darabont, and it’s no joke to say you have a script by the Shawshank Redemption guy.
A little less impressive – because it could hardly be more impressive – is Darabont’s co-writer, Chuck Russell, who also became Dream Warrior’s director. No doubt chosen for his former thematically-appropriate production, Dreamscape, Russell is the perfect guy to do an effect-heavy late-‘80s light horror. His remake of The Blob is of a piece with Dream Warriors – though notably lamer. Later work like The Mask, Eraser and The Scorpion King points Russell out as a reliable mid-level journeyman, nothing more. But in the field of horror sequels, this is one exceptional fellow, capable of selling Dream Warriors precisely right. And considering the potentially confusing powers of Freddy Kreuger, more varied than ever, Russell does well with his visual cues to avoid the sort of nebulous confusion Freddy’s Revenge wallowed in.
The good decisions keep on coming! Dream Warrior’s cast is equally unprecedented in the horror field. That is apparent immediately with Patricia Arquette as teen Kristen Parker – good in hindsight, as this is her first film. Still, Arquette acquits herself with more aplomb than most seasoned slasher vets could ever hope to. The same goes for the rest, but let her stand in for ‘em all for now.
No beating around the bush. Following an awesomely ‘80s heavy metal song by Dokken (one of Dream Warrior’s bizarre lasting legacies), Kristen plunges instantly into a very familiar Elm Street style nightmare. For as commonplace as 1428 Elm is, or the jump rope girls or their creepy Freddy rhyme (kids and cloying music in a horror movie = always effective), Russell creates an unnerving sensation. Damned if I can pinpoint how he does it, but it’s there – though it might be nostalgia talking, as this was my first Elm Street movie growing up, at the tender age of seven (though I was already desensitized through schlock like Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter at that age – I had a messed up childhood).
Kristen barely survives her dream encounter with Freddy (Robert Englund, as always), and awakes to endure the series’ first introductory dream-within-a-dream shock. She’s not awake (shades of Inception) and Freddy slashes her wrists anyway. Kristen survives, but this is thought a suicide attempt. All evidence of Freddy is thus ignored – by the adults, I mean, naturally. They’re as useless and well-meaning as ever.
It’s already apparent Dream Warriors employs a far larger budget than its predecessors, as the dream world isn’t a simple perversion of recognizable reality, but a wholly distinct realm. Every nightmare is a chance for special effects guys to work their magic – overall, this is a remarkably impressive low budget pre-CGI effort, excepting maybe some hiccups. Freddy no longer attacks simply with the glove; he can manipulate himself, others and his environment, seemingly at will. He now specifically targets the dreamers’ own fears and neuroses – and relax, the movie justifies this increase in power, unlike Part Two’s arbitrary nonsense. This is a nice evolution of the villain’s threat, keeping him frightening even when a Part Three can no longer achieve horror through mystery. It is also at this point that Freddy starts to move away from a shadowy boogeyman, and into the realm of the merry jester, the quip-spewing anti-hero who’d fester the later sequels. The balance is kept here, but it’s the seed for awful things to come.
Kristen is entrusted to the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital. A rash of teenaged suicides has swept the region, and those few survivors are themselves patients here. We’re left to imply Freddy has caused the other deaths, and these “between movie” acts give him a total body count which is very difficult to ascertain.
This is also the “Meet the Meat” section, a new notion in an Elm Street movie (which haven’t yet truly echoed the structure of a slasher to this degree). As such, this is a wonderfully efficient version on the form. Characters may be types, but they each possess multiple traits, and a camaraderie not often seen. The emerging Elm Street formula demands this, as Freddy needs phobias to feed off of. Still, this necessitates the old Friday-style character rundown:
Taryn (Jennifer Rubin): A former heroin addict, tormented by her former demons.
Jennifer (Penelope Sudrow): A smoker, and a would-be television actress.
Phillip (not Sean Astin, but lookalike Bradley Gregg): A puppeteer. Sadly, he perishes too soon for any further traits to become apparent.
Kincaid (Ken Sagoes): The black one, and the tough one. You know, on paper he sounds no more interesting than Jason Takes Manhattan’s Julius; it’s that indefinable skill of Russell & Co. which lends this group more credence than his fellow stock types.
Joey (Rodney Eastman): Mute, formerly a debater. Oh, the irony!
Will (Ira Heiden): A wheelchair-bound Dungeons & Dragons – excuse me, Wizard Master [cough!] enthusiast. Unlike most such nerds, his crippling wasn’t at the hand of cruel bullies, but by Freddy Kreuger. In other words, a cruel bully.
This being an Elm Street movie, teens alone do not suffice. Also needed are the adult authority figures, to play up that generational divide which thematizes the series – though thematics are hardly a concern with these movies any longer. To that end we have a trio of staff reflecting the varying possible mentalities.
Dr. Neil Gordon (Body Double‘s Craig Watson): A father type who wishes the best for his wards, but is too wedded to rationalistic notions to accept their shared stories of Freddy. Gordon is perhaps the heart and soul of Dream Warriors, as he must endure a crisis of faith if he’s ever to be of any aid.
Max (Laurence Fishburn – you know, Apocalypse Now, What’s Love Got to Do With It, The Matrix): Like Gordon, wishes to help the kids; unlike Gordon, can never make the logical leaps needed to do so.
Finally Dr. Simms (Priscilla Pointer), who is essentially a wrinklier variation on Cuckoo’s Nest’s Nurse Ratched. That is, she “means well” (questionable), but is so dog-headedly opposed to any opinion other than her own pre-formed notion. She’s the human villain, as much as there is one. In a nicely self-aware bit of genre criticism, she even thinks what is killing her kids to be simply “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.” You know, all that moralistic stuff desperate commentators like unearthing in brain-dead slasher flicks.
Oh, and among this group let’s also add the bridge between teen and adult, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp)! That is to say, the survivor of Part One returns as a hospital intern to advise a new roster of victims. It is very uncommon for horror survivors to return to sequels – it usually signals an imminent opening scene death, surely not due up for Nancy. Rather, Nancy has dedicated herself to dream research, and effectively moved beyond Kreuger’s grasp. By the way, this answers once and for all how Part One ended: Nancy’s mother died, Nancy defeat Freddy by whatever means (in overall series context, Part One makes less sense than on its own).
Anyway, Nancy provides the needed back story on Freddy Kreuger, helpful both for his latest victims, and for those audience members just now joining us (given Dream Warrior’s substantial box office, likely a majority of viewers). About the vigilante murder of mortal Freddy, we already know; the new suggestion is that those here in Westin are “the last of the Elm Street children.” That is, they too are the offspring of the parents who once killed Freddy, which makes this the most limited victim pool of any such horror franchise. Since Craven, against all hopes, wished again this would be the last Elm Street, it’s a good means to ensure that. It’ll make some weird gymnastics for the inevitable sequels, however.
All this characters stuff and more (which is pertinent to the story, and not just time-wasting teenaged slice o’ life bullcrap) is intermixed with regular Freddy attacks – whenever someone dozes off. By how the movie is constructed, with an easily whittled main cast, it would be possible to follow the slasher template, as much as an Elm Street allows, and kill someone new all the time. In fact, Freddy’s scenes are so visceral, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact he’s actually batting two for five. Each appearance is notable for a unique manifestation. Usually, it’s Freddy transforming himself, into a giant snake, or a television, or a sexy nurse (hello, belated female nudity!). The most impressive moment is where Freddy instead transforms a victim, which becomes a nicely grotesque bit of body horror. (For the records, this is where puppet master Phillip becomes one of his own creations.) And if Freddy utters the occasional James Bond-style epitaph epithet, it’s just how Russell and Darabont were watering down Craven’s more vulgar initial version. Not that it’s wholly excusable, but there you are.
What makes Dream Warriors work as a sequel is how is builds off of the first’s premise, offering new variations without ever getting out-of-hand or ridiculously oversized. Because Freddy’s getting stronger – fueled by those he kills – his victims must become stronger too, or this conflict loses its credibility. Courtesy of Nancy, those kids who remain learn each of them possesses a special new dream power, something to give them the edge against old Fredster. Add to that Kristen’s extra-plot-sensory skill, to pull others into her own dreams, and we’re set! Kristen’s mass dream skill is needed, if the series is ever to move beyond individual dreams all the time. It lends the proceedings a nicely epic tone, as the struggle against Freddy is no longer one-on-one, but a community effort.
Included in this definition of a good sequel is the idea of retconning in new backstory, without questioning what’s already there. So we learn some more about Freddy – not too much to destroy his threat, and nothing to indicate where his dream powers came from, but something. Basically, we learn of his birth, sired in a massive, weekend-long nun-raping insane asylum frenzy. “The Bastard Son of One-Hundred Maniacs,” he now is. It’s all gothic and silly, but in Russell’s adventurous, nicely comic book tone (also a little after school special with gore, but let’s ignore that).
The new source of Freddy info (Nancy is already tapped) is his mother herself – Amanda Kreuger. Oh, she’s a dead nun ghost now (still we get occasional hints these movies want to be Italian horror), but the supernaturalism is flowing like grue already by this stage. Amanda also explains – to Gordon – how Freddy may be defeated once and for all – or at least Craven would like to believe. Like one of Hammer’s Dracula movies, it’s an arcane, ceremonial affair, placing Kreuger’s (Freddy’s, that is) remains on consecrated, holy ground. As with the roughly contemporary Jason Lives’ intentional homage to Frankenstein, this step unmistakably identifies Freddy as the vampire of the slasher movie brigade.
Well, that’s all the information we need to stage a truly rousing, break-the-bank climax. Necessitated by Kristen’s imminent sedation, Nancy and the remaining kids band together for a final sally into dream world, to rescue both her and the comatose Joey (caused by Freddy, one way he retains his threat on a reduced body count). Meanwhile, a buzzed and wide awake Dr. Gordon seeks Freddy’s mortal remains – meanwhile burgling holy water from a church, like any good scientist. To do this he’ll need…
Well, if Nancy’s return was surprising enough, here’s her dad as well, Lt. Don Thompson (John “Possibly the Same Character as In Black Christmas” Saxon). Recall, he’s one of the parents initially involved in the Kreugerque, and the one who got the jolly task of hiding the skeleton. Operating under unassailable cop logic, Don put those bones in the trunk of a Cadillac in, apparently, the auto wreckage yard from Christine. So it oughta be a simple enough task to bury those femurs in the ground, dash a little holy water ala Simon Belmont, and that is th- Holy schnikeys, the skeleton’s alive!
This is one of those less successful special effects, though it’s always hard to critique a movie for recalling Jason (Voorhees) and the Argonauts. The skeleton kills Don, teaching him a lesson daughter Nancy is soon to learn as well – it doesn’t pay to reappear in horror sequels. Actually, I feel I’ve said too much by spoiling that, especially since Dream Warriors is easy enough to discuss in the broad strokes. It’s a fun movie, no doubt, though barely even in the realm of horror. Oh, Freddy is indeed still frightening, but this is almost more of a fantasy film, a bloody variation on The Wizard of Oz or some Conan thing, to bring up two totally disparate examples. There’s a welcome degree of ‘80s cheese in place, including one kid whose dream powers invoke D&D (as opposed to Part Two’s S&M).
Pausing for a moment and pondering Dream Warriors a bit more, I’m possibly of two minds about it. It’s easily the most fun of the Elm Street movies, with a rockin’ soundtrack, good characters, and insane special effects. This was needed to keep the sequels evolving, though it’s the same problem as the increasingly ridiculous Die Hard follow-ups. They intentionally sabotage the elements which make the original work, things such as darkness (of both visuals and tone). As a story it makes sense, so the problems aren’t very damning; it’s a matter of taste. But the fact remains that Dream Warriors, though great, cemented certain problematic formula elements which would grow rotten with time. And also like the Die Hard sequels, it took Renny Harlin to manifest those problems.
RELATED POSTS:
• No. 1 A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• No. 2 A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
• No. 4 A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
• No. 5 A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
• No. 6 Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
• No. 7 Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
• No. 8 Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
• No. 9 A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
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