Posted on: October 14th, 2009 TEN of TERROR #4: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3
You didn’t actually think these were all going to be scary, did you? Halloween is a time to celebrate horror films from all walks, be it the legitimately frightening films to the downright terrible b-movies. No film of the genre is exempt from TEN of TERROR, not even one from a mindless franchise. While the concept of Freddy Krueger, the entity that attacks kids in their dreams as a form of revenge against the parents that killed him, is incredibly unique and worthy of many great stories, we really only got a couple decent movies out of the franchise, at this point eight films deep with a remake en route.
Halloween, and with that TEN of TERROR should be fun, which is why we’ve selected A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors as our fourth entry in GKS Halloween programming.
The plot for the third film is pretty simple, yet genius – Nancy, the sole survivor of Freddy’s previous attacks, now works as a researcher at a psychiatric institution for teens. When Freddy returns and begins pimping his brand of terror on these nutty kids, one of them reveals a talent that may help put ol’ knifey-hands away for good. Freddy in a mental hospital – how awesome is that!
I’m going to try something a little different for this entry. I’ve got the dvd of this on right now, it just started, so I’m going to write this entry in real-time; a written commentary if you will. I’ll try my best to have it make sense to you, the reader who most likely isn’t watching the film at this time.
Okay. Pressing play. Here we go.
The film starts out with a pretty cool quote:
“Sleep. Those little slices of death. How I loathe them.” – Edgar Allan Poe
And cue one of the cheesiest title cards ever – wipe reveal followed by neon green subtitle. Even for 1987 this is a little cheesy.
Patricia Arquette’s credit just appeared – she was 19 at the time. Hubba hubba. Not to sound like that guy, but Patricia Arquette is wicked cute back then as she is today.
Cue awful 80’s tune “Into the Fire”. I’m Faaaalllllliiinnn’… INTO THE FI-YAH!
First Dream Sequence
Patricia Arquette’s character wakes up outside the paper mache house she made. Little kids skipping rope and singing. Little girl on a tricycle. Creepy. Arquette, stupidly, enters the house. Cue boiler room full of skulls and 80’s synth. The floor just turned to tar – classic Freddy! The little girl turns into a skeleton and Arquette’s in a room full of hanging bodies. Then she wakes up. Definitely a great nightmare sequence.
Oh shit! She wasn’t awake after all, Freddy’s in the bathroom mirror! The tap just turned into a Freddy hand!
Now her mom thinks she attempted suicide – > looney bin.
Cowboy Curtis himself, Laurence Fishburne, plays a nurse in this here coconut college.
We’re 11 minutes in and this flick kicks-ass already, though I’m beginning to feel wary about this real-time blogging thing.
Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) just showed up – now she knows that Arquette is legit and not just a nutter. The lead doctor at the hospital (who also looks frighteningly like Bill Mahr) is totally putting the moves on her.
Intro – Phillip the sleepwalker. “Welcome to the snake pit”. Bad-ass.
Intro – Kincaid. I take that back, he’s the bad-ass. But with a helium voice.
Intro – Joey. Doesn’t talk. Tear drop tattoo. Affinity for hot nurses. Can’t blame him.
Second Dream Sequence
Arquette falls asleep in her room. Door opens, tricycle rolls in and melts! Now she’s in the Freddy house. Pig on a platter just squealed at her. Awesome. The rug and the walls start moving holy shit! A giant Freddy snake monster is eating her! She’s waist deep in it’s mouth! Nancy heard her screaming now she’s in the dream? This is intense. Snake Freddy looks bad-ass. Nancy woke up. She looks 17. How can a 17 year old be a scientific researcher?
Intro – Will. Wheelchair kid.
Intro – Jennifer. Wants to be an actress. Way too fat, cmon.
Intro – Taryn. She’s the bitch of the group and a former junkie. I can see it.
Wheelchair kid, Taryn the junkie and sad boy are playing D&D in bed. Larry Fishburne just shut the game down. We all know D&D leads to mental institute orgies.
Oh boy… Nancy and Bill Mahr are on a date. She just dropped the Freddy bomb, dates over.
Third Dream Sequence
Phillip kid is asleep. Marionette next to bed turns into Freddy. AWESOME stop-motion animation happening. Freddy just cut his tendons out and is walking him around like a marionette! This is insane. He just walked him to the roof! All the looney’s think he’s a jumper. Freddy cut the cords…. splat.
Death toll – 1
Kincaid just landed himself a night in the “quiet room”. What a bad-ass.
Now they’re putting the kids on hypnocil, a dream suppressant. Freddy vs. Jason referenced a ton from this movie.
Fourth Dream Sequence
Jennifer, the fat actress, is watching some tv. Late night talk-show. Freddy is the host! The wall-mounted tv set just grew arms and Freddy’s head came out of the top!
Freddy:
“This is it Jennifer, your big break in tv… welcome to prime-time bitch!”
Jennifer’s head -> television set = Death toll – 2
Fifth Dream Sequence
The doctor just hypnotized Nancy and all the kids. Ho boy. The naughty nurse gave Joey the ol’ wink and he follows her. Wheelchair kid can walk! That’s his dream ability! He just called himself the “wizard master”, I hate this kid. Patricia Arquette can do gymnastics. Kincaid can bend metal chairs. Taryn the junkie has a mohawk and thinks she’s beautiful. I never have dreams like these.
Joey’s unzipping the nurse’s gown… those are the worst 80’s fake tits I’ve ever seen. Now they’re frenching. Her tongue is a foot long and she spits out mini tongues, tying him to the bed. It’s Freddy!
“What’s wrong Joey, tongue tied?”
The bed falls away and now he’s hanging over a pit of fire. A nurse wakes everyone up and now sad boy Joey is in a coma.
Oh snap Nancy and Bill Mahr got fired! This truly is the Empire Strikes Back of Freddy movies.
We get a little back-story on Freddy’s origin. Apparently the mental institution used to be a dirty old psycho ward and one Amanda Krueger got locked in one night. She was raped by all the nutsos and became pregnant. Freddy literally is the son of a hundred maniacs. Well… just one really. That’s a lot of sperm though, Maury has his work cut out this time.
Cool! Sad boy just had his chest slashed while in a coma. It reads: COME AND GET HIM BITCH. Jesus, I love Freddy.
Cue Nancy’s dad, drinking in a bar, the dead-beat.
Great, now Arquette’s alone in the “quiet room”. Fuck, Heather Langenkamp’s acting is brutal. Nancy’s dad takes Bill Mahr to an old junk-yard to dig up Freddy’s bones. Seriously. They wrote that in this movie.
“Let’s go kick this mothafucka’s ass all over dream-land” – Kincaid.
I wish it were this goddamn easy to fall asleep in real life, seriously. Maybe I need a “quiet room”.
So apparently Arquette’s power, aside from gymnastics, is being able to pull people into here dream. She can consolidate dreams. She’s the dream-consolidator. Good lord, I hope I never pull anyone into one of my dreams…
Musical interlude – INTO THE FI-YAHHHHHHH!
Sixth Dream Sequence
Arquette is back to the beginning of the movie. Freddy kills her mom and her severed head is bitching at her. Arquette does a bad-ass wall-flip and dives through a window into Freddy’s house. Taryn the junkie, now punk-rockified, is wandering some dingy back-alley. She’s actually kind of hot now with this 4 foot mohawk. Her and Freddy get in a knife-fight. Freddy’s claws turn to syringes and he stabs Taryn right in the arms.
Death toll – 3
Now wheelchair kid is walking around and finds some crazy torture wheelchair courtesy of Freddy. This thing has spikes and chains, etc. Freddy just brought major lols with “when you wake up, it’s back in the saddle again”. Now wheelchair kid is being chased by the wheelchair of death. Oh the irony, he gets his legs slashed.
But wait! He’s the wizard master! With a cloak… dear lord this scene is unwatchable. Boom. Freddy just gave him the five-finger death punch to the heart. Later wizard master.
Death toll – 4
“Yo! Freddy! Where you hidin’ at you burnt-ass pussy?” – Kincaid.
I love this guy.
Now Nancy, Arquette and Kincaid are going down to the boiler room. These people are nuts. LOL Sad boy is STILL hanging over a pit of fire. INTO THE FI-YAH!
Freddy just did a kick-up! That guy can move.
You turkey, stabbing Freddy in a dream won’t do shit. He’ll just pull it out and lick it. That’s what she said. Also bad-ass: Freddy’s stomach is made up of screaming heads. I need to find the script for this movie to corroborate it’s kickassedness.
Holy hell Freddy’s bones just animated in the real world. How can that happen? Nancy’s dad just got impaled on the tail-fin of a cadillac. That’s the only way I want to go, seriously. With Creedence coming out of the stereo.
Death toll – 5
Now Freddy’s bones are digging a grave for Bill Mahr. This movie is sooooo ironic!
So, sad boy’s dream power is sonic scream (again with the irony). This would have been more effective however, if said scream didn’t sound like his was mid-puberty.
Nancy got punked thinking that was actually the ghost of her dad… it was Freddy you moron! Now she’s stabbed. But to be fair, that was low… even for Krueger. So Nancy just stabbed him with his own gloved hand. Quit hittin’ yourself!
Nancy kicked it. Death toll – 6
Bill Mahr is burying Freddy’s skeleton. Apparently holy water is toxic to him and he went all glowey and disappeared.
Final death toll, including Freddy – 7
End credits, “Dream Warriors” – WE’RE THE DREAAAAAMMM WARRIOOORRRRRRRSSS.
So there you have it folks, you’ve just spent 96 minutes with yours truly watching my favorite entry in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. Though I’ve been making fun of it today, it really is a fun watch, though severely dated. Dare I say it’s one of the more inventive 80’s slasher-stye horror films. My only real complaints are the ending, far too rushed and unclear, and the total misuse of Kincaid. They hyped him up as this real tough guy, but we barely got to see a one-on-one with Freddy. I much preferred the scene from Jason Takes Manhattan where the boxer-dude goes a round with Jason only to have his head hadokened off into a dumpster.
Those minor complaints aside, I love this movie. If you can get past the thick layer of cheese and not compare it to the infinitely darker first movie, you will love it to.
Trivia
- Taryn can be seen wearing a Dokken shirt in her first scene – Dokken provided the two tracks for this movie that I lovingly make fun of. INTO THE FI-YAH!
- The original Freddy snake looked too much like a penis so they covered it with green slime. This scene was shot then played in reverse to give the effect that the snake was eating Patricia Arquette.
- Apparently Freddy’s glove was stolen from the set of this film, to appear later in Ash’s workshop in Evil Dead II. Rumor has it that directors Sam Raimi and Wes Craven have kept this tradition of swapping the glove alive.
- Robert Englund, the man behind the makeup, wrote a treatment for this film that went unused.
- The film was banned in Queensland until 1990 when the Queensland Film Board of Review was abolished.
Stay tuned for TEN of TERROR #5!