I must preface this review by admitting a certain sentimental attachment to this third film in the Elm Street franchise, simply because it was the first installment I saw. However, even judging it from the strictest critical eye, Dream Warriors is a worthy successor to the brilliant original, and it certainly has the distinction of being the best sequel of the series that retains "Elm Street" in its title.
Granted, there isn't a whole lot of competition on that front. While the concept of a maniacal killer who stalks you in your dreams was, and remains, a truly frightening and original punchline for a horror film, it's amazing how many atrocities were done with this powerful concept, as the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise is overall the worst extended horror film series of all time. While horror lore paints Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface, and Pinhead as modern successors to the Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, and Creature From The Black Lagoon rogues gallery of horror's classic past, Freddy's contributions are by far the most lackluster of the bunch. While the original Nightmare is a certified classic in its own right, the downward slide the series started right after it was only interrupted by Dream Warriors, and to a lesser extent, its follow-up, Part 4: The Dream Master. This duo was followed by a Part 5 that offered very little in the way of notable legacy enhancement, and this was in turn followed by Freddy's Dead, which is a largely unwatchable and pathetic embarrassment to the character. Though Freddy would be re-imagined to fantastic effect with Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which is by far the best true sequel to the original Elm Street (the fun and goofily awesome Freddy Vs. Jason notwithstanding), the Nightmare On Elm Street series boasts almost no sustainability as a franchise. Even though there have been subpar raisings of Hell, unmemorable Friday The 13ths, and massacres of Texas Chainsaws, Nightmare On Elm Street remains perhaps the most problematic horror franchise of all time, simply because so little justice was done to an original concept that seemed to promise so much.
But, I'm not here to review the series (although I'm sure I'll get around to each installment before too long). Even ignoring the wretched tripe that followed it, Dream Warriors holds up as a creative and well-executed Freddy tale, and had the film-makers followed the intriguing concept of individuals having powers in the world of their dreams to combat Freddy with, chances are, we would have gotten sequels with much more punch than what stands on the record. Kids with dream powers are certainly a more worthy foil for Freddy than dreaming babies, terrible 3-D effects, and Roseanne Barr cameos.
As it stands, not much is done with the idea here, either. We only get a few short glimpses at the powers hinted at in the film, and seeing how quickly a pre-dating Harry Potter wannabe and a Suicide Girls cast-away get thwarted by Freddy, these "special abilities" are rendered a bit mediocre.
But, for pure visual and visceral panache, Elm Street 3 packs more into its 90-minutes than any other film in the series. The film is almost an homage to special effects, utilizing every trick available at the time, and resurrecting ones that were seldom used in the era. The straight-up splatter is augmented with claymation effects, stop-motion animation, puppetry, and even pure camera tricks. Though Part 4 would employ all of these elements to even more fantastic effect, Dream Warriors maintains a darkness that keeps it true to its horrific centerpiece, while the films that followed continued to explore the fantasy-based elements of the character.
Some of the sequences still pack an indelible punch today, and I defy anyone not to cringe at the sleepwalking sequence. I have a friend who will not let anyone touch her wrists, and she told me this phobia stems directly from this scene. The neglect of an erogenous zone because it brings about thoughts of Freddy is certainly a powerful statement about the impact of a well-executed scare.
Having Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon back in the fold certainly helps things along, and the great performance from a young Patricia Arquette and equally strong turns from her peers in the film add some credibility to the teens vs. adults crux of the story. And, while Freddy certainly has his wise-cracks here, they aren't as over the top or prevalent as those we'd find in future installments. Here, he doesn't make a quip every 10 seconds, and when he does, most of the lines are witty and morbid enough to enhance, rather than detract from, the brutality.
As previously stated, it's a real shame that the series didn't progress forward in the direction hinted at here. For sure, we would have had future installments that were more scary than silly, and the Freddy character might have maintained what little menace he had left when Dream Warriors came out. A subsequent film that centered itself around the idea of actual Dream Warriors, with complementary dream powers that were fully developed and explored, certainly couldn't have been worse than what we ended up getting.
In the end, Dream Warriors remains a brief ray of light in a series that degenerated into nauseating disappointment. For that, it certainly deserves notice, and those who never revisited this chapter because of the sour taste left by The Dream Child and Freddy's Dead should give this outing another shot. We'll see how much life Freddy has left in him, but if his legacy has already been largely carved, Dream Warriors deserves to be mentioned on the tombstone.
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