Cast/Notable Credits:
Chuck Russell (Director): The Blob (1988), The Mask (1994), Eraser (1996), The Scorpion King (2002)
Robert Englund (Freddy):
Heather Langenkamp (Nancy): A Nightmare on Elm St
John Saxon (Lt. Donald Thompson): A Nightmare on Elm St
Patricia Arquette (Kristen Parker): Stigmata (1999), Little Nicky (2000), Holes (2003), Medium T.V. Series...pictured right
Laurence Fishburne (Max): Apocalypse Now (1979), Death Wish 2 (1982), The Cotton Club (1984), The Color Purple (1985), Red Heat 91988), Boyz N’ the Hood (1991), What’s Love Got to Do With It (1993), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), Othello (1995), Event Horizon (1997), Matrix Trilogy, Biker Boyz (1993), Mystic River (2003), Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), Mission Impossible 3 (2006), Bobby 92006), TMNT (2007), Fantastic Four 2 (2007)
Ken Sagoes (Kincaid): A Nightmare on Elm St Pt 4
Rodney Eastman(Joey): A Nightmare on Elm St Pt 4, Caveman’s Valentine (2001)
Jennifer Rubin (Taryn): Bad Dreams (1988), The Doors (1991), The Crush (1993)
Bradley Gregg (Phillip): Stand by Me (1986), Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade (1989), Fire in the Sky (1993)
Clayton Landey (Lorenzo): Knots Landing T.V. series, The Blob (1988), Ghost in the Machine (1993), Tank Girl (1995), Eraser (1996)
Brooke Bundy(Elaine Parker): A Nightmare on Elm St Pt 4, Explorers (1985)
Ira Heiden (Will): Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988), Zapped Again! (1990), Alias T.V. series
Craig Wasson (Dr. Gordon): Body Double (1984)
Trailer:
The only other good one...
The third installment of the Nightmare on Elm St. franchise focuses on seven teens who are
committed at Westin Hills (mental hospital…also in Freddy vs. Jason). Besides having scary dreams in common, all of their parents are part of the group of vengeful townsfolk that had burned Freddy to death back in the day. They are the last of Elm St. children…or the Dream Team. Not the Olympic basketball team.The teens have banded together trying to watch each other's backs at night so they don't become victims to the legendary nightmare man himself, Freddy.
Nancy Thompson (the surviving chick from the first film) has grown up a little bit and has started working at Westin Hills. She serves as an intern to the hospital's “dream specialist” Dr. Gordon and Dr. Simms. Nancy can to relate to the children because…well you know, the whole “Freddy murdered my friends and mom thing” years before. Nancy actively tries to help the children battle their demons while learning that Freddy is not as dead as she had thought.
One of the children patients, Kristen (Patricia Arquette) has a unique ability of pulling other persons into her dreams. Can you see where this film is going? During a “group therapy” session, Nancy, Dr. Gordon and their band of sleep deprived rejects learn to use Kristen’s special dream abilities to come together inside one big dream reality in the dream world.
While asleep in the dream world, they also learn that they can become whatever they dream of. If you can dream it....you can do it! Now instead of running and hiding from Freddy, the group learns that they can take him on with the help of their new powers/dream abilities to become “Dream Warriors.” I like Dream Team better.
The Dream Team includes: Kristen the gymnast (who can also bring other people into her dreams), Will the Wizard (normally a geeky kid stuck in a wheel chair), Taryn the Bad Ass Chick (normally a drug addict), Kincaid the world’s strongest man, Nancy the I-fought-Freddy-before, Dr. Gordon the I-can’t-believe-what’s-happening and Joey the…well he’s mute…but he learns to talk (all other kids are dead by now).
While the “Dream Team” members are learning their abilities in the dream world, the ghost of Amanda Krueger (Freddy’s mom…sorry…spoiler) confronts Dr. Gordon several times inside of the mental hospital. Here we learn the back-story of Freddy’s conception.
A young nurse (Amanda) is accidentally locked up overnight with a bunch of disturbed inmates. She is beaten and raped numerous times by the inmates. She is eventually found, but with now bearing a child. Drum roll please…the child turns out to be Freddy. No way.
Amanda tells Dr. Gordon, the only way to kill Freddy (at least for this movie) is to bury his missing body in sacred grounds. But where is the missing body? I'm sure Nancy's dad knows. Nancy and Dr. Gordon both go to him to find out where they (the parents of the dead children...or the revenge seeking mob) hid Freddy’s remains.
Nancy returns to Westin Hills to help the Dream Team stay alive and battle Freddy while Dr. Gordon and Nancy’s dad travel to some junkyard to retrieve the hidden remains of one Mr. Fredrick Krueger.
To sum up the ending: Nancy and Dream Team battles Freddy in the dream world…a few die (and Nancy) while Dr. Gordon buries the bones in the junkyard and pours holy water on them. Freddy’s dead…for now.
Dream Sequence Time:
34 minutes 33 seconds
(Series total: 1 hr 17 minutes 20 seconds out of 263 minutes)
Freddy Pun/Smart Ass Comment Count:
11 (17 total thru three films)
Villain:
Freddy makes his comeback after the disaster we witness with Nightmare Part 2. This film really marks a turning point in the Freddy's character. In the first two films, Freddy hardly spoke at all (just notice his pun count). In this film Freddy begins his onslaught of smart-ass comments and puns which is also followed by the make-a-kill-to-fit-the-pun style of killing.
From here on out, Freddy becomes the silver tongued comedic killer. Which was fine...when I was 10. But honestly, as a grown up and going back to watch the film's that I so dearly loved...it was painful to endure as the sequels kept going. It's like the film producer's knew that Freddy's puns would appeal to an audience of 6th graders.
Cast:Part 3: The Dream Warriors features an All Star filled cast…well, sort of...but I do have to say, the Nightmare franchise had a unique ability of finding good young talent that eventually does other films outside of horror films.
Heather Langenkamp returns to fulfill her role of Nancy Thompson along with John Saxon as her father. Instead of a frighten teenager, Nancy has grown up and started up a profession in dream therapy. She's faced a few demons of her own in the past. Nancy is a role model for the troubled teens as she acts as their guide in the dream world.
Patricia Arquette (T.V. show Medium) makes her film debut with the lead teen role of Kristen. Kristen has the ability to bring other sleeping people into her dreams. Using this ability, she's able to assemble the Dream Team to fight Freddy.
Also co-starring in The Dream Warriors, we get to see the young Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). Fishburne plays an assistant male nurse at Westin Hills. On a side note, was it me or did his role in the Matrix become less and less? He was a cool ass character in the first film and a half of the Matrix trilogy and then he became fat and sat around whining about prophecy sh*t.
SFX/Gore:
The “Nightmare” franchise continues to struggle with the simple concept of higher body counts. Wow...they improved over Part 2 by one extra dead body. They still have not gotten it through their head: higher body counts in sequels equals success. There were only five dead bodies knocked off in The Dream Warriors.
The special effects were pretty good for being an 80’s movie. I thought that they could have done better in some of the dream world sequences, especially during the Dream Team kills. The best that they could come up with for Taryn is a bad ass chick with two switch blades and a spiky haircut? That’s her ultimate dream? She doesn't have that much of an imagination on her.
TNA:
Two complete films and forty nine minutes into this one and we finally get our first glimpse at female breasts. That’s like 220 minutes of film…or 13,200 seconds. Five hot ch
icks (Shark Factor) and a Freddy tongue bed-bondage scene. Jennifer Rubin...pictured right.T.Gun's Take:
Part 3: The Dream Warriors brought an interesting story and concept to the front lines. Unfortunately, nothing takes place on “Elm Street”, but oh well. There are parts of the story that are is very important to concepts in later films. Such as...Westin Hills comes back into the fold in Freddy vs. Jason. Another Vs. key element introduced in this film is Hypnocil. Hypnocil is an experimental drug used to “suppress” dreams. It’s a clever little sub plot that is set up for later use.
The Dream Warriors also introduces the mommy character of Freddy. That key ingredient will be put to use in upcoming films. The film also sets up a generic formula for the next two films: bring a few characters from the previous film to kill them and introduce new characters for the next film. And they play off the whole special ability of “bringing people into dreams” over the course of the next two films. Also…there is storyline inconsistency. OMG! Not a horror movie! That's not possible.
Outside of the first film and versus, this is the next best of the franchise. There is a huge drop off after this. HUGE. It was a fun, enjoyable horror movie to watch. I can’t say that for most of the Elm Street films, but I liked this one. Freddy wasn’t exactly at the point where they came up with funny shit to match his kills.
I liked that they brought back Nancy into the equation. It’s fun to see someone who has already battled the bad guy to come back and mentor others. They embraced the sequel thing and wrote off all “let’s try to make it scary and believable” and went into the direction of “let’s have fun with this” approach. It’s a dream world thing…have fun with it.
Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened February 27, 1987 and made $44 million at the box office ($8.88 million opening weekend)
-Patricia Arquette & Jennifer Rubin’s first film
-Movie on T.V. during Jennifer’s death: Critters
No comments:
Post a Comment