A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors ** (1987, Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Craig Wasson, John Saxon, Patricia Arquette, Laurence Fishburne) – Classic Movie Review 4551

For director Chuck Russell’s 1987 second sequel in the long running horror thriller franchise, Robert Englund once again returns as the fiendish pizza-face monster Freddy Krueger, the undead serial killer who this time rampages through the hospital where the surviving teenagers are sent for hypnosis to cure their nightmares.

There the 1984 first film A Nightmare on Elm Street’s heroine, Nancy Thompson (played once more by Heather Langenkamp), has become a psychiatrist specialising in dream therapy and is helping the patients. One of Nancy’s patients is Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette), who can draw other people into her dreams. And John Saxon is back too as Nancy’s policeman dad, Lieutenant Donald Thompson.

Also in the cast are Larry [Laurence] Fishburne, Priscilla Pointer, Craig Wasson, Ken Sagoes, Rodney Eastman, Jennifer Rubin, Bradley Gregg, Ira Heiden, Penelope Sudrow, Clayton Landey, Nan Martin, Brooke Bundy, Kristen Clayton, Stacey Alden, Jack Shea, Paul Kent and Dick Cavett and Zsa Zsa Gabor as themselves.

That intriguing cast and the horrid slasher movie horror effects are focused sharply in the foreground, though the story much less well focused and is a bit of a muddle.

The screenplay is by Wes Craven, Bruce Wagner, Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont from a story by Craven and Wagner. It is Darabont’s first feature film writing credit. Robert Englund’s treatment for the movie was not used. Russell is making his directorial debut. It is Arquette’s film debut.

For the dream sequence in which a Dick Cavett interview is interrupted by Freddy Krueger, Sally Kellerman was originally the guest until Cavett was allowed to pick his interviewee and chose Zsa Zsa Gabor, saying if there was one person he would want to see killed by Freddy it would be her. They are both on screen for 30 seconds.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4551

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