Greatest Horror Movie Sequels Part 1: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3

One sequel I consider amongst the greatest is AA Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors@. Most horror fans consider the original Nightmare on Elm Street to be one of the top horror films of all time. While most of the movie=s sequels were awful (4, 5 and 6 will truly give you nightmares - it=s terrifying how bad they are), Nightmare 3 is one of the great horror films of the 1980s.

THE STORY

Child-murderer turned dream stalker Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) returns to finish off Athe last of the Elm St. children@. The teens of Elm St. continue to be punished by Freddy for the sins of their parents, who burned the killer alive in his boiler room. Their encounters with Krueger have left them drug addicted and suicidal, forcing them to be committed to the local asylum.

Nancy Thomson (Heather Langenkamp), apparently the sole survivor of the first film (poor Johnny Depp), returns as a graduate student specializing in pattern nightmares. She begins working at the asylum to try and save the teens from Freddy. Nancy has been able to survive by taking an experimental drug that prevents dreams. She discovers that the key to fighting Krueger lies with one of the residents, a young woman who has the ability to pull people into her dreams. By banding together in one dream, the teens discover that they can use the powers they possess in their best dreams to take Freddy on and defeat him in the dream world.

Meanwhile a psychiatrist at the asylum learns that Krueger was conceived by a staff member of the psychiatric ward who had been accidentally locked in with the inmates. Over the course of a weekend, she was raped hundreds of times. Nine months later she gave birth to Freddy - Athe bastard son of a hundred maniacs@. The psychiatrist forces Nancy=s father (John Saxon) to take him to where the parents hid Freddy=s body, so that he can be laid to rest.

WHAT MAKES IT GREAT

The film is exceptionally well done. New Line Cinema mended their bridges with series creator Wes Craven, and asked him to return to the series to write and direct Nightmare 3. Apparently, they weren=t too happy with the direction of the script, and turned Craven and co-writer Bruce Wagner=s script over to Chuck (AThe Mask@) Russell and Frank (AShawshank Redemption@) Darabont (can you smell the bridges burning again?). Russell and Darabont did a re-write, and Russell ended up with directing duties. To compare the two scripts, check out horrorlair.com.

The characters are well developed, the acting is quite good (the film features Patricia Arquette and Larry aka Laurence Fishburne) and the Freddy mythology is expanded into interesting new areas. The best part of the film is that Freddy is scary. Hard to believe that this pop icon was scary at one time, and Elm St. 3 is Freddy at his best. The film introduces many famous one-liners (Awelcome to prime time bitch@), but the jokes are not over the top or over used as in later sequels. The nightmares are frightening, and the film does not skimp on the gore. The film is worth seeing for the Freddy puppet, and the girl being swallowed by the Freddy-penis alone!

The DVD is pretty bare-bones unless you get it in the Nightmare box set (despite the lack lustre 4, 5 and 6 the set is still worth owning). In the Nightmare box set there are interviews, and a video by one of my favourite bands of the 80s - DOKKEN! It would have been great to include commentaries from Russell and Darabont as well as a separate commentary from Craven and Wagner.

RATING: A -

HONOURABLE MENTION

Wes Craven=s ANew Nightmare@ is the only other sequel to the series worth seeing. But don=t expect teenagers and one-liners. This is about an evil entity trying to break through to our world in the form of Freddy through the real-life actors who appeared in the first film. It also features Heather Langenkamp as both herself, and Nancy.

Review by Tim Hannigan
MoviesOnline Contributing Writer