A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warrior

Dir. Chuck Russell 96 Minutes

USA

1987

Starring: Heather Langenkamp, Craig Wasson, Patricia Arquette, Robert England, Ken Sagoes, Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Rubin, Rodney Eastman, Bradley Gregg

**1/2/***** After the fascinating and surprisingly thoughtful (and belatedly queer championing) Freddy's Revenge, the Elm Street series returns with a more "direct" connection with the narrative of the original, bringing back Heather Langenkamp's haunted Nancy as a mentor figure of sorts for the titular "dream warriors": a group of teens at a mental hospital who have begun fighting the famed Freddy Kruger who is haunting their dreams. Dream Warriors follows the template of the earlier two films, with some marvelous visual set pieces that creatively showcase Freddy's cerebral stalking. But the narrative attempts to add some scope to the Kruger mythology, and, much like when the original Halloween sequence veers off into lands of siblings, legacy, and gaps in the past, the whole business begins to get a little tiresome. Additionally, after being a little spoiled by some thematic interest in the second film Dream Warriors' rhythm in shifting between exposition and dream horror feels a little bit empty by comparison, though the movie is certainly entertaining in bits and spurts even when it starts to feel like it is treading water. Interesting for some early work for Patricia Arquette and Lawrence Fishburne. ​October 18th, 2019