Brock Landers
01-16-2001, 12:42 PM
The Third "Nightmare" - "A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" A Brock Landers Overview…
All right…I'm going to try and forget "Freddy's Revenge" (Part 2 of the series). Aside from reinventing Freddy's make-up and giving him a more fun-loving spirit, part 2 was pretty much a wasted effort. But part 3 ("Dream Warriors") was written by four big names in genre films…Chuck Russell (who also directed), Frank Darabont (the man behind a slew of "Young Indy" episodes, "The Shawshank Redemption" & "The Green Mile"), Bruce Wagner (novelist, creator of "Wild Palms", and actor in "Savage" Steve Holland films), and of course, Wes Craven. They worked as two teams, with Wagner and Craven writing the first draft, and Russell and Darabont doing enough Round 2 tweaking to garner screen credit…
"Get ready for primetime, bitch!"…I mean, "Dream Warriors" is more a direct sequel to part 1, than it is a follow up to part 2. In fact, this film pretends the second one never existed. The story follows a group of teens locked up in a psychiatric hospital, who all experience the same nightmare. Or at least, they experience the same nightmare host…Freddy Krueger. The newest member into this group of teens is Kristen (Patricia Arquette), a young woman so afraid of sleep she eats spoonfuls of instant coffee with a Tab chaser. (Didn't they have NoDoz or Vivarin back then…I mean, damn…) Anyway, Kristen is sent to the hospital to undergo some tests, and it's there she meets her new friends. There's the street-tough/ex-drug addict girl, a smart-ass artist-type who sleepwalks, a fat actress wannabe, the standard "geek-confined-to-a-wheelchair" dude (a horror standard), a "tired-of-the-man" black kid and a preppy kid who can't or won't talk. The cast of characters is pretty cliched, covers all the bases, and you can pretty much pick out from the beginning who the "victims" are and who the "heroes" are. Thrown into this mix for good measure is Heather Langenkamp (Nancy from the original), who is now a psychologist specializing in dreams…go figure, I wonder what credentials she has? She doesn't know it in the beginning, but she is about to face Freddy one more time…
"Dream Warrior" kicks the "Nightmare" series up a level, and also goes back to the dream basis that "Freddy's Revenge" missed out on. In the kids' dreams, they each have different powers that they can use to fight Freddy. Their mission is to learn how to use them against evil, and even though sometimes the powers seem a bit far-fetched (ex: Joey's sonic voice…considering he used to talk, why would this be his dream power?), most of the film is justified and works. The greatest power among the crew, is Kristen's ability to bring other dreamers into her own dream world. It's an interesting twist that really works well for the series. The cast is rounded out by Craig Wasson ("Body Double", "Ghost Story"), John Saxon (reprising his role as Nancy's pop), and Laurence Fishburne as Max the orderly. It's a solid cast, that lends the film a bit of credibility some of the other films just didn't have. "Dream Warriors" is an entertaining flick, a worthy follow-up to the original and one of the best in the series…in my opinion. I mean, it even takes the time to expand on the origins of Freddy…the bastard son of 100 maniacs…
All right…I'm going to try and forget "Freddy's Revenge" (Part 2 of the series). Aside from reinventing Freddy's make-up and giving him a more fun-loving spirit, part 2 was pretty much a wasted effort. But part 3 ("Dream Warriors") was written by four big names in genre films…Chuck Russell (who also directed), Frank Darabont (the man behind a slew of "Young Indy" episodes, "The Shawshank Redemption" & "The Green Mile"), Bruce Wagner (novelist, creator of "Wild Palms", and actor in "Savage" Steve Holland films), and of course, Wes Craven. They worked as two teams, with Wagner and Craven writing the first draft, and Russell and Darabont doing enough Round 2 tweaking to garner screen credit…
"Get ready for primetime, bitch!"…I mean, "Dream Warriors" is more a direct sequel to part 1, than it is a follow up to part 2. In fact, this film pretends the second one never existed. The story follows a group of teens locked up in a psychiatric hospital, who all experience the same nightmare. Or at least, they experience the same nightmare host…Freddy Krueger. The newest member into this group of teens is Kristen (Patricia Arquette), a young woman so afraid of sleep she eats spoonfuls of instant coffee with a Tab chaser. (Didn't they have NoDoz or Vivarin back then…I mean, damn…) Anyway, Kristen is sent to the hospital to undergo some tests, and it's there she meets her new friends. There's the street-tough/ex-drug addict girl, a smart-ass artist-type who sleepwalks, a fat actress wannabe, the standard "geek-confined-to-a-wheelchair" dude (a horror standard), a "tired-of-the-man" black kid and a preppy kid who can't or won't talk. The cast of characters is pretty cliched, covers all the bases, and you can pretty much pick out from the beginning who the "victims" are and who the "heroes" are. Thrown into this mix for good measure is Heather Langenkamp (Nancy from the original), who is now a psychologist specializing in dreams…go figure, I wonder what credentials she has? She doesn't know it in the beginning, but she is about to face Freddy one more time…
"Dream Warrior" kicks the "Nightmare" series up a level, and also goes back to the dream basis that "Freddy's Revenge" missed out on. In the kids' dreams, they each have different powers that they can use to fight Freddy. Their mission is to learn how to use them against evil, and even though sometimes the powers seem a bit far-fetched (ex: Joey's sonic voice…considering he used to talk, why would this be his dream power?), most of the film is justified and works. The greatest power among the crew, is Kristen's ability to bring other dreamers into her own dream world. It's an interesting twist that really works well for the series. The cast is rounded out by Craig Wasson ("Body Double", "Ghost Story"), John Saxon (reprising his role as Nancy's pop), and Laurence Fishburne as Max the orderly. It's a solid cast, that lends the film a bit of credibility some of the other films just didn't have. "Dream Warriors" is an entertaining flick, a worthy follow-up to the original and one of the best in the series…in my opinion. I mean, it even takes the time to expand on the origins of Freddy…the bastard son of 100 maniacs…