A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) is the film that redirected the series. The last children of Elm Street are gathered in a psychiatric hospital, where what look like suicide attempts are Freddy's work. The idea is that in dreams everyone has a power, and the children learn to use theirs. Wes Craven had made the first film and had nothing to do with the second. He returned here as a writer, on a team that included Frank Darabont, who would go on to write and direct The Shawshank Redemption. The tone of the franchise was set here. In the first film Freddy was a threat who barely spoke; from this one on he became a figure who makes jokes and stages his kills, and the sequels followed that path. Heather Langenkamp returned as Nancy from the first film, and John Saxon returned as her father. Patricia Arquette had her first major film role in it. The effects are entirely practical: puppets, prosthetics, oversized sets and rooms built upside down. The skeleton puppet and the television sequence are among the most remembered images in the series. It runs 96 minutes. Good for: eighties horror, practical effects craft, and followers of the series. Less good for: the deaths are graphic and suicide is part of the subject matter. Most of the characters are defined by a single trait, and past a point the comedy eats the fear.