Heather Langenkamp returns as Nancy for this third instalment in the Nightmare series. Ignoring the existence of Freddy's Revenge (that's one way of dealing with an unpopular sequel) the film picks up six years after Freddy's original attacks. Nancy is now a dream therapist sent to work at a local psychiatric home. She meets a group of troubled teenagers whose dreams are haunted by the same monster hers once were; Freddy Krueger.
She teams up with the doctor assigned to the group, Dr. Neil Gordon in hopes of saving the endangered teenagers. But as they are knocked off one by one their deaths are written off as suicides and accidents. Finally Heather meets a member of the group, Kirsten, who has the power to bring others in to her dreams. Using this special ability, Heather and the patients enter Freddy's world and decide to fight back.
The Dream Warriors is perhaps one of the stupidest of the Nightmare sequels. It starts out on the right foot with a creepy opening scene at the old house followed by a suspenseful chase scene involving Kirsten (Patricia Arquette). Unfortunately from its spooky opening sequence it just goes down hill.
Kirsten is committed to the psychiatric hospital where she meets Nancy and the group of teenagers who are tormented by Freddy. They are the ones who will become the "Dream Warriors" which is every bit as lame as it sounds. The characters are obnoxious, the dialogue is stupid, and the acting is less than awesome. Basically the premise is that they all have super powers in their dreams and they can use them to fight Freddy. Doesn't sound very scary? It's not.
Furthermore this film seals Freddy's fate for several years as a wise-cracking pun master who can't help but make really bad jokes every time he is on screen. Once again, not scary. Not really funny either. Just kind of stupid. There are some really bad special effects here as well. Take, for example, the Wizard Master. Yeah, I said Wizard Master. I told you it was bad.
The film isn't a total loss though, it does explain the origins of Freddy in further detail, right back to his conception. It also does have some quite memorable kill scenes such as the one where Freddy plays puppeteer, or kills the punk rocker Taryn by overdose. Again, cheese ball scenes to be sure, but memorable.
2 Freddy snakes out of 5
Rated R for violence/gore, frightening scenes, nudity, language, drug use.
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