4 out of 5

Directed by: Chuck Russell

So while I didn’t mind the diversion that was NoES 2, it definitely ended up crumbling into pretty disparate pieces by the end, marking it as a good try only.  But what’s this in part 3?  Two of the actors from the original?  Wes Craven is back on board to write?  Frank Darabont is along for the ride??  Angelo Badalamenti doing the score???  Yeah, it had to be better.  And it is.  It’s much better.  It is, in some ways, better than the first one, but this couldn’t have been the first one.  We needed the intro story and basic setup to let the team go wild here, with awesome prosthetics and some truly amazing practical effects and sets.  Had we jumped right into the awesomeness of Dream Warriors, it certainly would’ve nabbed a nifty cult nomination, but Freddy simply wouldn’t have the same effect (or he would’ve simply been a faceless (nyuck nyuck) bogeyman.).  So in deference to film 1 – and admitting that we still don’t get a fitting epilogue, jumping right into sequel-set-up plus some un-needed plot diversions for 90 minutes – we’re going with four stars.

The film starts off with an awesome fake-out – casting creepy music over the (as the camera eventually shows) mundane task of papier-mache before Patricia Arquette (as Kristen) cranks some 80s jams, downs a spoonful of instant coffee grains with a swig of coke (awesome) and continues her crafting.  Certainly she’s trying to ward off Freddy…?  But no, fake-out two comes when mother arrives home late.  Kristen was just waiting up for her.  So shooed off to bed by mother (perhaps single, entertaining a guest downstairs… another single mother of a lead character…?), we finally get what’s been wonderfully delayed when, getting ready for bed, the faucets come alive and grab Kristen – with some fun effects that are already more creative than anything executed in film 2 – and eventually Mr. Kruger emerges and does his slashing bit, which, when Kristen’s mother bursts into the bathroom, looks like a suicide attempt.

Bringing us to the setting of the rest of the film: an in-patient hospital ward focused on teens with extreme sleep disorders, tales of drastic attempts taken to stay awake.  The kids are mostly looked over by Neil, who obviously is concerned for their well-being but believes that there will be a scientific method to see the problems through, and then Neil reports to Dr. Simms, the bitch character who ain’t gonna’ believe nothin’ about no Freddy, probably maybe (spoiler: yes).  Simms is sort of the required, doubting, parent-class voice in a horror flick, causing our teens more harm than good by ‘simply’ not listening, but her role feels something like padding in ‘Dream Warriors.’  The script does the right thing by acclimating Neil to events after he witnesses some dream magic, thankfully skipping past the whole denial phase that normally takes until the end of the movie for the denial to be recanted.  Drama could have been added with an unseen threat of “shutting the ward down” or some such; having Simms institute mandatory isolation and sedation seems to unnecessarily crowd the omnipresent threat of Freddy.  And this is nitpicking, but having to jump between stories in the concluding act is extended to the point of losing some linearity thanks to having to work around this extra padding, so it could’ve allowed for more room for a complete ending without it.  Beep boop.

So dunt dunt dunn Nancy returns to assist with the sleep studies, discovering that Kristen has the power to pull people into her dreams.  In the same leap of logic Nancy made in film one – pull Freddy out and we can beat him – she convinces all that pulling the group into the dream gives them all superpowers which they can use to defeat Kruger.  Meanwhile, Neil is haunted by visions which explain more about Kruger’s past, as well as a potential method for defeating him for good…

But what’s most important is that the visuals are back.  These are truly amazing sets, full-on destruction in frame, crazy prosthetics bending and twisting right before your eyes.  And they don’t spare on the gore, either, one scene with a kid’s tendons (i guess?) pulled out of arms and legs to manipulate him like a puppet particularly great / painful.  It very much drives back home the nightmare / dreamstate Craven had done well with in the original, and the expanded cast gives us room to do the ‘themed’ kills – i.e. you’re a junky, get stabbed with a bunch of needles.  It’s the precursor to the teen format in the 90s, but done with more intelligence and less of a need to be flashy and attractive and to just make a fun flick.  We’re also actually given a reason why these kids are being targeted, which was a huge question mark in part 2.

NoES will always have a slightly hokey undercurrent to it, but the flexibility Craven built into the concept allows for a lot of great ideas if the scripters / directors are will to take advantage of it.  Part 3 stands equally with the first movie in the visual department, and has more plotting stability than part 2 by keeping the Freddy logic ‘in-house.’