A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Arquette plays Kristen, a teenager tormented by nightmares of a badly burned man with razors for fingers. When she wakes from one of her dreams to find her wrists slashed, her parents–believing it a suicide attempt–commit her to a local psychiatric hospital.

There she meets a group of teens plagued by similar nightmares and Nancy (played by Langenkamp) a survivor of the first film who’s now a doctor. Nancy tells Kristen and the other children that they–like herself–are the last descendants of the men and women who originally killed the man in their dreams: Freddy Krueger. Nancy also breaks the bad news that dying a dream with Krueger equals death in the real world.

Later, Kristen falls asleep and encounters Krueger. In a panic, she pulls Nancy into her dream, unaware she could to do so. The two manage to escape Krueger. Sensing an opportunity, Nancy teaches the kids how to fight back in their dreams, but Krueger manages to take one child hostage, rendering him comatose in the real world. Nancy mounts a rescue mission, using Kristen to pull all the kids into a group dream and final showdown with Krueger.

This third installment in the franchise veers toward dark fantasy, with Krueger claiming victims in a variety of imaginative, fx-heavy ways. Early on he’s a giant snake looking to swallow his victim whole, later he’s a giant-sized puppet-master, manipulating his victim’s tendons like a marionette. There’s even a scene where he’s a Ray Harryhausen-esque stop-motion skeleton. The inventive visuals help to mitigate the flat dialog and wooden performances. The worst of which belongs to Arquette, who does little more than scream. At everything. All the time.