A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

1987 film by Chuck Russell

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is a 1987 American fantasy slasher film directed by Chuck Russell in his feature directorial debut. The story was developed by Wes Craven and Bruce Wagner and is the third installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and stars Heather Langenkamp, Patricia Arquette, Larry Fishburne, Priscilla Pointer, Craig Wasson, and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. Nancy Thompson, now a psychiatrist, and Kristen, a patient who can bring others into her own dreams, team up with other kids to launch a daring rescue into the dreamland and save a child from Freddy Krueger. Dream Warriors was theatrically released on February 27, 1987, and grossed $44.8 million domestically on a budget of over $4 million. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and is considered by many to be one of the best films in the Elm Street series. The film was preceded by A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) and followed by A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988).

One year after the events of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, teenager Kristen Parker dreams that Freddy Krueger is chasing her. He attacks her in her bathroom after she thinks she has already awoken, making it look like she has slit her wrist in the real world. Believing Kristen to be suicidal, her mother admits her to Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, where she is placed under the care of Dr. Neil Gordon. At the hospital, Kristen fights the orderlies who try to sedate her because she fears falling asleep. The new intern therapist, Nancy Thompson, calms her down and befriends her by reciting part of Freddy's nursery rhyme. Nancy is introduced to the rest of Dr. Gordon's patients: Phillip, a habitual sleepwalker; Kincaid, a tough kid from the streets who is prone to violence; Jennifer, a hopeful television actress who is prone to cigarette burns; Will, who uses a wheelchair due to a prior suicide attempt; Taryn, a recovering drug addict; and Joey, the youngest, who is too traumatized to speak. One night, Freddy attacks Kristen in her dreams, but she unwittingly pulls Nancy into her dream, allowing them to escape. Kristen reveals that she has been able to pull people into her dreams since she was young. Over the next two nights, Freddy throws Phillip off a roof and kills Jennifer by smashing her head into a television. In their next group session, Nancy reveals to the remaining patients that they are "the last of the Elm Street kids," the surviving children of those who banded together and burned Krueger to death many years ago. Both Nancy and Neil encourage them to try group hypnosis so that they can experience a shared dream and discover their dream powers. In the dream, Joey wanders off in the hall and sees nurse Marcie enticing him to come with her inside a room. He follows her and she seduces him, undressing and kissing him until her face transforms and she shoves her very long demonic tongue into his mouth, suffocating him. It was actually Freddy in disguise who then captures him, leaving him comatose in the real world. The dean is furious and Nancy and Neil are relieved of duty. A nun named Sister Mary Helena tells Neil that Freddy is the son of a young woman on the hospital staff who was accidentally locked in a room with hundreds of mental patients who raped her continually. She explains that the only way to stop him is to lay his bones to rest. He and Nancy ask her father, Officer Donald Thompson, where the bones are hidden, but he is uncooperative. Nancy rushes back to the hospital when she learns that Kristen has been sedated. Neil stays behind to convince Donald to help them. Nancy and the others again engage in group hypnosis to reunite with Kristen, but they are all separated by Freddy. Taryn and Will are killed by Freddy, while Kristen, Nancy, and Kincaid find one another. The trio rescues Joey but are unable to defeat Freddy because he has become too powerful due to the souls he has absorbed. Sensing that his remains have been found, Freddy appropriates his own skeleton and kills Donald before incapacitating Neil. Freddy returns to attack the others, but Joey uses his dream power voice to repel him. Donald tells Nancy that he is crossing over, but he is revealed to be Freddy and stabs Nancy in the stomach, tossing her aside. Freddy, believing that Nancy is dead, comes upon Kristen in order to kill her, but a still alive Nancy stabs him with his own glove. Neil manages to recover and purifies Freddy's bones, killing him. After Nancy dies, Kristen manages to awaken everyone and return them to the real world. During Nancy's funeral, Neil finds Amanda Krueger's tombstone and discovers that she is Sister Mary Helena. That evening, he goes to sleep with the Malaysian doll Nancy gave him and Kristen's papier mâché house nearby. Suddenly, Kristen's house lights up from the inside, suggesting that Freddy is not completely defeated.

Following the critical failure of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, New Line Cinema was unsure if it would continue with the series. Wes Craven, who wrote and directed the original A Nightmare on Elm Street, did not participate in the second film. He had not wanted the original to evolve into a franchise, but due to immense dissatisfaction with Freddy's Revenge, signed on to co write the screenplay for the third installment with the intention that it would end the series. However, the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors prompted a continuation of the series. Craven himself would be unavailable for directing, as he was tied up with filming Deadly Friend around the same time. Craven's first concept for the film was to have Freddy Krueger invade the real world: Krueger would haunt the actors filming a new Nightmare on Elm Street sequel. New Line Cinema rejected the metacinematic idea, but years later, Craven's concept was brought to the screen in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Before the script was finalized,In 1986 John Saxon and Robert Englund wrote their own scripts for a third Nightmare film. In Saxon's script a prequel story called How the Nightmare on Elm Street All Began Freddy is ultimately innocent, or at least set up for the murders by the main culprits Charles Manson and the Manson Family. Freddy is forced by a mob of angry parents to confess to the crimes, which enrages them further. After lynching Freddy, he comes back to avenge his wrongful death by targeting the mob's children. In Englund's treatment, Freddy's Funhouse, the protagonist is Tina Gray's older sister, who was away at college when Tina was murdered and returns to Springwood to investigate how she died. Freddy had claimed the 1428 Elm Street house for his own in the dreamworld, setting up booby traps like Nancy had done against him. According to Englund, after the script had been unused for years, part of it was used in the pilot episode of Freddy's Nightmares.

Wes Craven has said, about the franchise's guidance by he and Bruce Wagner, that "we decided that it could no longer be one person fighting Freddy. It had to be a group, because the souls of Freddy's victims have made Freddy stronger". He also called Heather Langenkamp to ask her if he may include her character Nancy in the script, which she agreed to. In Craven's and Wagner's original script, the characters were somewhat different from what was eventually filmed. Nancy was neither a dream expert nor a mental health professional. Kristen (named Kirsten in this script) only stayed in the institution briefly; she had a father and her mother was named Alice. Neil's last name was Guinness and his character was much younger. Dr. Simms's last name was Maddalena, Taryn was African American, Joey was the one who built the model of a house and had trouble getting around (although he did not use a wheelchair), and Philip was a thirteen year old. Will's name was originally Laredo, he had long hair, did not use a wheelchair, and was the one who made the clay puppets. This script also described the ranch house where Krueger was born, and that is the house that shows up in the kids' dreams rather than the Elm Street house. Wes Craven specifies the house in his original script to be "an architectural portal to [Freddy's dreamscape]. It is virtually a limitless world of the human psyche in all of its dimensions So you can enter this other world through the house or dreams or madness or hallucinations or special psychic states that various people have". Contrary to the film, Donald Thompson knew from the start that Krueger was real and still alive. Krueger was missing and Nancy wanted to find him. When she finds him, Nancy learns that Krueger is obsessed with finding the house where he was born so he could burn it down. In the original script, there is a romance between Nancy and Neil and they have sex. There are scenes and lines that are reminiscent of the first film. There is no mention that Krueger's mother had been a nun or that Freddy was born of rape. Both Joey and Kincaid are killed. The deaths in this script were more grotesque; Krueger was not as talkative and he was more vulgar. Freddy is killed by Nancy by using his own glove, not by holy water, and she sees through his shapeshifting trick even though she still dies. One of the most memorable scenes in the film is the sequence that takes place in the junkyard during the film's climax. The junkyard sequence and the set itself were the product of art director Mick Strawn, who also handled some of the film's special effects sequences and became production designer on the sequel. The sequence was so popular that it appeared again in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. The junkyard sequence was filmed in Pacoima, California for both films.

Lisa Wilcox and Lezlie Deane, who would respectively be cast as Alice Johnson and Tracy in later installments, have both reported to have auditioned for roles in Dream Warriors previously. Patricia Arquette was nearly recast early in the production, but Chuck Russell intervened and convinced the producers to allow her to stay. According to producer Sara Risher, the role that the producers spent the most time interviewing and auditioning for was Marcie (Stacy Alden), the 'sexy nurse' who seemingly seduces Joey in his dream but turns out to be Freddy. Nurse Marcie, while seducing Joey, was originally supposed to turn into a 'she Freddy' with Alden wearing Freddy's mask; Roy H. Wagner had second thoughts about this after seeing how 'she Freddy' looked in practice, stating that "Freddy with breasts, it was too off kilter". The concept of 'she Freddy' was substituted with having the nurse shoot prehensile tongues at Joey to trap him and then be switched with Englund Freddy. but Cavett allegedly handpicked Zsa Zsa Gabor personally after being given the opportunity to choose who he thought should appear in his show and be slaughtered by Freddy. According to Robert Englund, all of her reactions and dialogue were completely improvised:

“Ms. Gabor, who was probably just grateful to be asked to appear in a movie again, apparently didn’t read the script or bother to do any research on the Nightmare flicks. I guess her agent told her, “I have a job for you,” and all she said was “Great. Vhat time zhould I zhow up, dahlink?” not realizing that she was about to throw down with a burnt to a crisp serial killer. During the fake talk show where she’s interviewed by Dick Cavett, all her reactions seen on film were 100 percent genuine. She didn’t know who the fuck Freddy was, so when I jumped out, she had a mild freak out.”

The storyboards for the shooting were supplied by Pete von Sholly. Russell originally hired a cinematographer whom line producer Rachel Talalay perceived to be "Eastern European"; Talalay had the cinematographer fired after he had insulted Penelope Sudrow and replaced him with Roy H. Wagner. The scenes in Freddy's boiler room were filmed at a converted warehouse across the street from Los Angeles County Jail.

The special effects were created by a team led by Peter Chesney and included Kevin Yagher and Mark Shostrom. For the iconic deathscene for Jennifer, where her body is hoisted into the air, Shostrom created a dummy of Penelope Sudrow with fully flexible limbs out of fiberglass and urethane and then put a matching wig on the dummy. The team built five fake televisions, each with different functions, with one being equipped with a rubber membrane which a dummy of Freddy's head pushed up through, after which they substituted the dummy with Robert Englund. Another was equipped with the metal arms which included Freddy's fingerblades and vacuum tubes from real televisions. The line "welcome to prime time, bitch" was ad libbed by Robert Englund.

Heather Langenkamp and co star Craig Wasson refer to a deleted scene in which they kissed, with Wasson stating that "No, we didn't have sex, but there was this one real hot kiss that just about melted the camera lens. Too bad they cut it".

The theme song, "Dream Warriors", was written and performed by the American heavy metal band Dokken. The single was a success and a decision was made to include heavy metal songs in the soundtrack of the sequels. The band's manager Cliff Burnstein was acquainted with Wes Craven and was able to get a copy of the film script as reference for the lyrics. Robert Englund as Freddy then helped providing unique footage with the band for the music video. Clips of Patricia Arquette as Kristen Parker were also used, with some notable changes such as her model house being built with Dokken fanzines instead of papier mâché. The opening sequence of the original VHS release of the film has a hard rock instrumental version of the Joe Lamont song "Quiet Cool". The DVD instead has "Into the Fire" by Dokken which is in the original theatrical release.

New Line Cinema's distributing partner Media Home Entertainment recorded a promo reel with Robert Englund as Freddy advertising the VHS release of the film primarily to video rental shop and other vendors, including a promised chance to one winner to appear in the sequel (The Dream Master).

The film was released theatrically in the United States by New Line Cinema in February 1987. It was its first film to open nationally, opening in 1,343 theaters and debuting at number one, with a weekend gross of $8.9 million, a record for an independent film at the time. It made $44,793,222 at the domestic box office making it both the highest grossing film for the studio that year and the 24th highest grossing film of 1987. It is the third highest grossing film of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise after Freddy vs. Jason and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. In the Australian state of Queensland, the movie was banned by the Bjelke Petersen government because of its drug references, specifically the scene where Freddy's glove becomes a row of syringes and he injects Taryn with an overdose. In 1990, the newly elected Goss government abolished the Queensland Film Board of Review and the film became available through normal market channels. The Australian public at the time thought the ban was absurd, as the film was not very graphic.

On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 67% based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors offers an imaginative and surprisingly satisfying rebound for a franchise already starting to succumb to sequelitis." Variety wrote that Russell's poor direction makes the film's intended and unintended humor difficult to differentiate. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times rated it one and a half out of four stars; he liked the production values but said that it "never generated any sympathy for its characters". Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "The film's dream sequences are ingenious, and they feature some remarkable nightmare images and special effects." Although he criticizes Langenkamp's acting, Kim Newman wrote in Empire that the "film delivers amazing scenes in spades, bringing to life the sort of bizarre images which used to be found only on comic book covers".

In the franchise, Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital and the dream suppressing drug Hypnocil introduced in Dream Warriors reappear in Freddy vs. Jason, where it is shown that prolonged use of the drug results in irreversible coma. In the comics Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors, the drug is referenced when Maggie Burroughs taunts Dr. Neil Gordon for being a "Hypnocil junkie" and that if he hadn't been, he would have seen her betrayal and corruption by her demonic father coming. Josh Boone, co writer and director of the superhero film The New Mutants (2020) about the Marvel Comics superhero team New Mutants, has cited Dream Warriors as one of the major influences on his film, which has been described as a supernatural horror film. An earlier screenplay by Michael Almereyda for what became Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) involved bringing back members of the Dream Warriors as a form of "dream police" to help Jacob Johnson in fighting Freddy. In Friday the 13th: The Game, in the Friday the 13th franchise, the "Tommy Tapes" hints at Tommy Jarvis being sent to Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, to be cared for by Dr. Neil Gordon. Roy H. Wagner re created scenes from the film with Kristen and the "Little girl" from her dreams in 2019 while using only an iPhone 11 Pro for the production.

Many characters from the Dream Warriors film appear in Andy Mangels' 1991 comic book story Nightmares on Elm Street which continues the "Dream trilogy" and brings back most characters from Dream Warriors, with the Dream Warriors group sans Kristen appearing in the last two issues of the series. In the storyline, Kristen's psychic powers and her wish of putting Nancy into a "beautiful dream" allowed Nancy's soul to ascend to the positive side of the dream world, wherein her soul is free and able to oppose Freddy. Aside from Nancy and the Dream Warriors group, Nancy's father Donald, Dr. Simms and Dr. Neil Gordon also appear and Amanda Krueger is mentioned. In the 2009 comic book series Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors, Dr. Neil Gordon plays a major role while Nancy, Amanda Krueger and the Dream Warriors group makes cameo appearances after Jacob Johnson releases some of the spirits of Freddy Krueger's victims to help in defeating Freddy.

The two video games released for the franchise, the Commodore 64/IBM PC (1989) and the NES adaption (1990), are independently based primarily on the Dream Warriors concept, characters, and film. The C64/IBM PC game allows the player to play as one of the Dream Warriors characters, including Nancy who, unique to the game, has a "dream power" of freezing enemies. The NES game centers around collecting Freddy's scattered bones to destroy them (bury them in the original game concept) and Dream Warrior powers can be acquired through collecting power ups.

Fright Rags has released several limited edition Dream Warriors themed clothing, including one design that is a pastiche of the cover of the first 1963 issue of Uncanny X Men, substituting the X Men with the Dream Warriors and Magneto with Freddy Krueger. They have also released a print inspired by their own earlier work on The Warriors (1979) design. Mondo created a printing for MondoCon 2016 based on the 1428 Elm Street house from the film. NECA released an adaptable 7 inch Freddy Krueger figure from the film in 2016 and another 18 inch figure in 2017. Sets including Elaine Parker's severed head and "Tuxedo Freddy" and of Kristen being devoured by the Freddy snake were released as part of the Cinema of Fear series. A sleeping pill named Dream Warrior has been released, with one function being advertised as "Battle Sleeplessness" and promises the user to “Win Back Your Dreams”. A replica of Nancy Thompson's personal Hypnocil bottle from the film is one of the items released in the January 2018 Bam! Horror Box.