As we continue to get prepared for the release of Platinum Dunes' "Nightmare on Elm Street," it becomes apparent that in order to fully look at the present, we need to look at the past...You know, people have called me out on something more than once. I seem to give the "Friday the 13th" movies a free pass when it comes to their "quality" as feature films. It's a fair complaint. I'm WAY more forgiving when it comes to things like script, acting, and character development with the F13 franchise than I am with the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films. People have called me a hypocrite for calling movies like "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" and "Sleepaway Camp" masterpieces while nitpicking all of the pesky details of Craven's original "Nightmare" flick like a high-fallutin' film critic picking apart "Citizen Kane", shining a magnifying glass on its static characters, logic bombs, and occasional cheesiness that almost railroad the movie.
I believe that this scrutiny is only appropriate. Why? Because the "Friday the 13th" films, and their early-to-mid '80s slasher ilk, were perfectly happy being just that - exercises in fun, gory popcorn cinema. "Nightmare on Elm Street" is an entirely different animal; it is a series with some VERY grand ambitions. Series creator Wes Craven has stated that his original goal with the very first movie was to present a very heartfelt, long-term view of the world, of the power of the individual's ability to face and overcome ultimate evil, taking the form of dream stalker Freddy Krueger in the film. And while moments in that first movie are deservedly immortal...there is LOADS there that just doesn't ring right or true. Namely, every other teenage character not named Nancy Thompson being a one-note archetype complete with (come on, admit it, horror fans) some pretty damn awful dialogue. Don't get me started on the nonsensical ending scene.
From "Nightmare 1's" simple-yet-complicated (is that an oxymoron? Probably) story of Nancy and her battle with Freddy, we went a RADICALLY different direction with the first sequel, 1985's "Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge" (a truly Oscar-worthy title if there ever was one). And this movie...just flat-out sucked. It messed with the rules of the series in a way that seemed really off-putting, taking Freddy out of the dream world and making him a truly strange villain trying to break - physically - into our world. Coupled with a main plot concerning what is truly one of the weeniest hero characters in the history of film, and it's no wonder that every movie in the series from that point on pretended this one didn't exist.
In retrospect, however, it's a good thing that "Freddy's Revenge" happened. It gave Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont, the creative driving force behind THIS particular film, a template of what NOT to do with the series and the character of Freddy, and seemed to inspire these two gentlemen to create what is not only one of the great horror films of all time, but one of the great MOVIES of all time. To be sure, "Nightmare 3" is one of the COOLEST films ever, a movie where our quotient of "badass villain worship" is actually EQUALLED by our level of sympathy for the victim characters, most of whom are very memorable with actual DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS (gasp!). It's also got unbelievable murder scenes, some great gore, and the first doses of "Freddy humor" that alienates some fans, but in the small shots of it that we get here, a very refreshing series addition to yours truly.
In short, Platinum Dunes, if you weren't looking at "Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors" as the movie that you most wanted your own film to be like...well, there's plenty of expletives from PD-hating horror nerds around the globe to describe what will transpire on Friday.
See all that above? I think that's my longest introduction ever.
THE MOVIE!!
"Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is a horror sequel, but one that seems truly different within the realm of not only '80s horror sequels but sequels period, and if I say the word "sequel" one more time in this paragraph I'm going to ball up my fist and hit myself in the face. The movie introduces us to several important new characters - Kristen Parker, a teenage girl suffering from the movie's patented "Freddy nightmares" (for those EXTREMELY on the short side of the pop culture stick, the rule of the "Nightmare" series is that Freddy attacks you in your dreams, and if he kills you there, you're dead for real); Kincaid, a cool brother who views his dreams as no serious threat; Joey, whose dreams have actually stressed him out to the point of turning mute; Will, a D&D loving nerdy kid whose suicide attempt may not have actually been a suicide, and, amazingly enough, several more.
While Wes Craven's original screenplay for this film had these kids spread out across the country and finding their way together to fight Freddy, the Russell-Darabont script wisely took the route of bringing them together in a way slightly less pre-ordained - all locked up together in a mental asylum, with the hospital staff (including good-hearted Dr. Neal Gordon and Nurse Ratchet-esque Dr. Carver) seeing their shared nightmare as some sort of "mellow mass hysteria" (to quote one of the doomed characters). What the staff doesn't realize is that these are the last of the "Elm Street children" - a very important fact for any fan of the series, as former child murderer/molester Freddy Krueger has returned from the dead to stalk the children of the parents who burned him alive in a hideous revenge act (run-on sentence). All of our characters are trapped together, having only themselves to turn to as their friends - moreso by fate than by choice - begin falling one by one to the dream demon's wrath...
First, a word on the performances in this movie. In short, they're wonderful. Yes, we get Laurence Fishburne in a bit role, but the highlight of this movie is no doubt Patricia Arquette, in her very first movie performance and playing the AFOREMENTIONED main protagonist, Kristen Parker. She's shy, she's sweet, she's relatable as a result of her own psychotic mother's refusal to believe her daughter's stories of a hdieously burned clawed guy chasing her in her dreams (hey, we've all been there). In a way, she's even Freddy's equal, as the movie gives us some supernatural undertones to work with in the form of Kristen's ability to pull people into her dreams. Despite all the attention focused on her, Arquette never seemed for one minute put off by the importance of her role or her stake in this franchise, and creates what is one of my favorite horror movie heroines.
In addition to Arquette, we get the return of the two most popular non-Freddy characters from the original film. Nancy Thompson and her hard-drinking father come back in this movie, and amazingly enough, the screenwriters don't simply rehash their roles from the first movie. Nancy (once again played by Heather Langenkamp, who while not quite as effective as she was in the first movie is still aces) is now a dream psychotherapist specializing in pattern nightmares, while her dad (the amazing John Saxon) is absent for most of the movie - but as Nancy becomes firmly entrenched as the kids' new therapist, his role in this movie exponentially increases as the stakes and body count rise.
Much of "Nightmare on Elm Street 3" is the proverbial build to the last trimester, as the kids build themselves up for the final showdown with Freddy. Along the way, though, we get several outstanding scenes with Krueger and the victim characters. There's the TV death, the poor marionette kid, "Come and get him, bitch..." The knot draws tighter and tighter as the classic death scenes (and there are plenty of them - just watch the flick to find out) balance out the moments where we're given the Homeric journey of the Elm Street kids, who, one-by-one, begin plucking up their courage and achieving solidarity against the ultimate menace that threatens their existence.
I've held off on it for long enough, but I must now talk about him. The man, the myth, Freddy. Freddy Krueger is a villain that deserves his status among the Mount Rushmore of horror icons, and while Robert Englund was awesome every time he donned the sweater and fedora, I still believe this to be his BEST performance as the world's most infamous janitor. A character actor by trade, Englund digs deep down within the place in himself that exists in us all to be unspeakably nasty and embraces it wholeheartedly; compared to the earlier films, there is a true sense of just how much Freddy ENJOYS his deadly job in this film. The signature body language was already well in place, but with a script giving him more lines to say and more memorable quotes to plant in people's memories, Englund delivers and steals the show every time in he is in front of the camera. There's no sympathy factor, there's no sense of remorse, and the only additional back story we get on him makes Freddy even MORE of an evil son of a bitch. Absolute menace personified, and one of the most perfect villains in any movie.
While every horror movie needs a great villain, eventually, we have to ask ourselves the most important question. Longtime readers of these manifestos know that I judge movies on what I refer to as the Emotional Scale, and that question is the following: did this movie get me to care about the characters and root for them in what they were trying to accomplish? More than almost every other horror movie I have seen, the answer is a ringing, defining "yes." The ending moments consist of some very thrilling stuff, and even though there are a couple suspect and dated special effects, it doesn't matter in the least. These are people that I'm emotionally invested in, and when they're in jeopardy, I'm in jeopardy.
It should be noted that I've reviewed this movie on two separate occasions already; every time, I seem to have the same problem. This is a movie with a lot going on; there's perhaps a dozen major characters, and a few subplots that serve as good diversions to the main Elm Street Kids vs. Freddy arc (a dream suppressant drug, Dr. Gordon's struggle to save his rapidly shrinking patient base, etc.), and expounding on all of these things in lengthy detail would probably make this seem like a very confusing movie. Rest assurred, "Nightmare 3" is anything but confusing. It's written and paced so well that all of the parts, characters, and stories seem to match seamlessly and achieve the goal that the first movie only dreamed of achieving - a fascinating, evocative metaphor for overcoming adversity in life, of facing your demons and conquering them. It ranks comfortably at #2 on my list of all-time favorite horror films (beaten only by Carpenter's original "Halloween"), and, to date, is the only movie in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series to realize the full potential that the premise and theme of the story had.
Having said that, once again, we look forward to the remake. Will it take this movie's lesson - that actors who fit characters like a glove, a good balance between dark and humorous Freddy, and stylish, snappy direction are the hallmarks of a great "Nightmare on Elm Street" film - or will it go the usual Platinum Dunes route of bland characters and actors, clinical (and lifeless) direction, and the strange need to add sympathy factor to its villains? Time will tell, but I sincerely hope that the former is true, and that PD has this movie's - and, by extension, the series' - lofty goals at its heart.
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