Plot: Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), now a psychiatrist specializing in dream therapy, returns to fight Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) when his new target is a group of teenagers at a local hospital. With Nancy’s coaching to control their dreams and the special power of one teen, Kristen (Patricia Arquette), to bring others into her dreams, they finally have the ability to destroy Freddy in his own world.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, is the fan favorite for good reason. Up until part three we have seen people fight Freddy in their dreams, and even pull him out into the “real world,” but we have never experienced a group take control of their dreams in order to fight him together on his plane.
My personal favorite part of the whole film is Taryn (Jennifer Rubin), the heroin addict. I love that her dream power is to be bad and beautiful, as if her mohawk and switchblade are any competition against Freddy’s glove of knives, or in her specific case, glove of heroin needles. I always felt that Taryn could have been a bigger competitor had they not taken her down so quickly with her addiction weakness.
Dream Warriors is significant in the series to me for two reasons:
One, this was Patricia Arquette’s first film and only role in the series. She was replaced in Part 4 with Tuesday Knight due to Arquette’s pregnancy with her first child. While Knight was not bad in the short role, she was no Patricia.
Two, Dream Warriors marks the end of our heroine, Nancy, who is taken out by Freddy after years of fighting and protecting others from him. While Nancy was not physically in Part 2, it was her diary that helped Jesse (Mark Patton) learn who was haunting his nightmares and killing his friends. It isn’t until Wes Craven’s New Nightmare that we get to see Nancy again, even though it is as Heather herself.
While A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 is my personal favorite in the series, Dream Warriors comes in at a very close second.
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Ann Hale is the horror editor for Pop-Break.com and a senior contributing writer, reviewing horror movies and television shows. She is also the American Correspondent for Lovehorror.co.uk. Ann attended East Carolina University, majoring in English Literature. She is a collector of Halloween (the film) memorabilia and is a self-admitted opinionated horror nerd. You can follow her, her collection and her cat, Edward Kittyhands on Twitter and Instagram @Scarletjupiter
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