A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

If you think you'll get out alive, You must be dreaming.

We open with a girl, Kristen, making a house out of papier-mâché and popsicle sticks, which looks a lot like Nancy's house.  I'm thinking she's been visited by Freddy, as she ate a spoonful of coffee grounds and drank it down with a coke.  Her mom comes home, with a guy, and comes up to her room, Kristen tells her that she's having bad dreams, but her mom dismisses her and leaves.  Kristen falls asleep, and in her dream she wakes up outside of Nancy's house, which looks condemned, and we see the little girls doing the nursery rhyme.  Kristen follows a little girl into the house and into the cellar, the furnace starts up and the little girl says that Freddy is home.  Kristen picks the girl up and runs through the house trying to find a way out, the girl eventually turns into a skeleton and Kristen wakes up.

"1, 2 Freddy's coming for you"

 

When Kristen wakes up she heads to the bathroom and Freddy attacks her, her mom walks in and we see that Kristen has slit her wrists.  We then head to a psychiatric hospital where we meet, Neil, a doctor at the hospital, and Max, an orderly, who are talking about all the suicide's that have been taking place.  After that we are introduced to the other kids in Neil's dream pattern group, Taryn, a former druggie, Joey, who wont speak, Phillip, who makes puppets and sleepwalks, Kincaid, who has an anger problem, Will, who is in a wheelchair, and Jennifer, an inspiring actress.  The one thing they all have in common is that they all have attempted suicide, and all have the similar dreams featuring Freddy.  Neil and Simms, head of the department, are talking about the new doctor when they get paged to deal with Kristen. 

Kristen has been admitted to the hospital and is going crazy because she doesn't want to be sedated.  They try to get her under control but she pulls a scalpel out and starts singing the nursery rhyme, she gets to the last part and starts crying, the new doctor finishes the rhyme for her.  The new doctor is none other than Nancy, which is awesome, and she manages to get Kristen under control.  After that Neil and Kristen go outside to talk about the patients, and we find out that Nancy is taking Hypnocil, which a drug that helps you sleep while suppressing nightmares.  Neil then sees a nun standing in a hall, but then she disappears.  Nancy heads back into the hospital and Max introduces Nancy to all of the patients in the ward.  Nancy then goes to Kristen's house to see if her mom had noticed anything weird, Nancy goes to get Kristen's suitcase and see the papier-mâché building of her house, and takes it.

"You!"

Back at the hospital Kristen falls asleep and in her dream she goes back to Nancy's house, where she manages to bring Nancy into the dream, they face Freddy, and Kristen takes them out of the dream.  The next day Nancy confronts Kristen about bringing her into the dream, Kristen tells her that she hasn't done it since she was little and asks if Freddy is real, which Nancy tells her that he is.  We then head to the first group meeting with Nancy, where they talk about why they are there and why they are all having the same dreams.  Simms dismisses the whole idea of their dreams being real, and that they are having the dreams because they feel guilt for something.  That night, after lights out, in Joey and Will's room, they have duties for who sleeps first, to make sure Freddy doesn't get them, Joey takes first watch.  In a restaurant Neil and Nancy are out together, and Nancy tells him that the kids are in real danger and she wants them to be put on Hypnocil, but he doesn't believe her. 

Back at the hospital in Phillip and Kincaid's room, Freddy takes a hold of Phillip, like a puppet, which is awesome, and sleepwalks to the roof of the building.  Joey sees him on the top of the building and starts waking everybody up, but it's too late, and they all watch him fall to his death.  The next day at group they talk about Phillips death, they all know what happened, but Simms plays it off and tells them that they all will be sedated before bed.  After group, Neil approaches Simms and tells her that he is putting all the kids on Hypnocil, Simms tries to reject it, but Neil wins.  That night Jennifer hides out in the TV room, Max comes in and tells her it's bed time, but Jennifer convinces him to let her stay and he leaves.  Jennifer is flipping through the channels when Freddy appears on the TV and he kills Jennifer.

"I wasn't here"

At Jennifer's funeral, Neil meets the nun, Mary Helena, and she tells him that 'he', Freddy, needs to be laid to rest because he is an abomination to god, and then she disappears.  That night Nancy and Neil are talking about the deaths and Nancy realizes it's time to tell Neil about Freddy and what's really going on.  The next day at group, or unofficial group as Simms isn't there, we find out that the kids are the last of the elm street children, of the parents who killed Freddy.  They then try a group sleep hypnosis, which doesn't seem to work, until they realize that they are actually in a dream.  Unfortunately Freddy appears and attacks Joey, which wakes everyone up and Joey sinks into a coma.  Simms comes in after they wake up and tells the head of the hospital what happened and he fires Nancy and Neil.

That night, Neil is packing up his stuff when he stumbles across a door, that somehow leads into the hospital, inside is Mary Helena who tells him that the room they are in used to be where the worse of the criminally insane were sent.  She then tells him that in the 40's a nurse got locked in this room, and was raped 100's of time, and that girl was Amanda Krueger, who is Freddy's mom.  Neil asks how he should lay Freddy to rest, and learns that it needs to be done on holy ground.  In Joey's room, Nancy is visiting him and gets a message from Freddy written on Joeys stomach saying, and I quote, 'come and get him bitch'.  Nancy tells Neil that she has to go into dream world and get Joey, Neil says they should try his route, of burying the body in holy ground, first.

"Group hypnosis"

The first thing to do, to bury the body, is to find Freddy's remains, and the only person who can help with that is Nancy's dad, Donald.  They find him in a bar, but he wont help, and Nancy leaves, because they got a call from the kids saying that Simms sedated Kristen and put her in the quiet room, aka solitary confinement.  Neil stays behind to talk to Donald and gets Donald to tell him where the remains are located, but first they stop at a church to get holy water and a cross.  Nancy gets to the hospital, but Max wont let her in to see Kristen, however he does let her say goodbye to the other kids.  Her and the other kids go and hole up in the group room and agree to do a group sleep hypnosis, they all fall asleep and end up in the quiet room with Kristen.  Neil and Donald arrive at a auto salvage yard, which is where the remains are located, the remains are in a car, the same car from the end of the first movie.

In the quiet room, Freddy appears and everyone gets split up when they are transported to different areas in the dream.  Kristen ends up at the beginning of the movie, but this time the guy her mom brought home is Freddy and kills her mom, Kristen is then transported to Nancy's house.  Over with Taryn, she winds up in a dark alley, where Freddy shows up and kills her.  We then go to Will who gets confronted by Freddy and almost gets the upper hand, but Freddy kills him.  Back with Kristen, we see her wander upstairs and she finds Nancy and Kincaid, Kincaid starts calling Freddy out and a door appears, the door leads to the boiler room where they find Joey.  In the real world, Neil and Donald are digging a grave for the bones when Freddy makes all the cars come to life and kills Donald. 

"Look familiar?"

Back in dream world, they manage to save Joey and head back through the door to Nancy's house.  When they get on the other side of the door, Freddy appears and starts taking each of them, but Joey finally speaks and manages to get the 3 of them back.  Nancy then sees her dad, who tells her that he has crossed over and that he is sorry for everything he's done, but it's not her dad it's Freddy and Freddy kills Nancy.  In Nancy's last effort, she stabs Freddy with his own knives, and at the moment we see Neil put Freddy's remains in the grave, sprinkle holy water, place the cross on the remains and pray, casting Freddy away.  At Nancy's funeral, Neil sees the nun and heads after her, she disappears, but he finds Amanda Krueger's grave, who also goes by her Christian name of Mary Helena, yup!  That night we see that Neil has Kristen's papier-mâché building of Nancy's house, and we see a light come on in the little house, signaling that Freddy really isn't dead.

The End.

 

I really liked this one!  I liked that they had a better understanding of how to move through their dreams and that Freddy didn't use them as the killers.  I also liked that Nancy returned, sad to see her die though, curious to see if Jesse will return too!  Tell me what you thought of the movie in the comments, on Twitter (@SilentToHughes) or on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SilentToHughes).

 

Hope you all have a great night!