RW292 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

In this episode of our A Nightmare on Elm Street Rewatch, Cory and Nathan are hitting a high as they discuss "A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors."

Trailer:

Our Favourite Trivia:

When Taryn is first seen in the hallway, she's wearing a Dokken shirt

Dokken - Dream Warriors

Wes Craven had nothing to do with the first sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge(1985), as he didn't believe that Elm Street was capable of spawning a franchise. The success of the second film, outgrossing the original, convinced him otherwise. The original premise of the film involved Freddy invading the real world and haunting the actors and crew responsible for the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" films. This idea was rejected by the studio, though Wes Craven later used it for Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994).

Chuck Russell made his directorial debut with this movie, but the script he and Frank Darabont delivered called for a twenty million dollar budget to pull off the effects, even though they only had four and a half million dollars. The result was an incredibly tense set, not a particularly ideal setting for Patricia Arquette to make her film debut. On her first day of filming, the production was already so behind, they didn't get to her scenes until 4 a.m., by which point she had forgotten her lines. It took fifty-two takes of her feebly making her way through it before they simply fed her the lines via cue cards behind the camera. Arquette has stated it wasn't a pleasant experience for her, while Russell said he may have pushed her too hard.

For one week during filming, Robert Englund was working twenty-four hours every day. By day, he was wrapping up filming on his television series Downtown (1986), and then would report to the A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) set at nights.

This is the first movie in which the main antagonist is called by the name "Freddy" Krueger. In the first two films, he is called "Fred" Krueger.

Robert Englund improvised quite a few of Freddy Krueger's one-liners, but the best-known example happened in this movie, in a scene where Freddy emerged from a television set and killed a girl by smashing her head into it. For this scene, his line in the script was "This is it Jennifer, your big break on TV!" Robert Englund said this line for the first two takes, but on the third take, when Chuck Russell went for an alternate angle shot, Robert Englund changed it to "Welcome to Primetime, bitch!" Chuck Russell couldn't decide which version to use, so he edited the two together. The different camera angles made it easy to edit the two lines together, and it became probably Freddy's defining one-liner.

Robert Englund admits that he knew Patricia Arquette would go on to be a big star one day. He also explains how all of the guys on the set were heels over head in love with her. Between takes, some of them would even go to Robert Englund to get his advice on whether or not he thought they had a chance with her, and should ask her out.

Ken Sagoes stated in an interview he really didn't want to audition for the role of Kincaid, but his agent talked him into going. On the day of the audition, he walked in heavy rain to catch a bus to the location. He showed up completely drenched and had to sit and wait for a few hours, due to the auditions running late. When it was his turn, Director Chuck Russell told him, "Do whatever you want to do". Sagoes was so frustrated and mad about the whole ordeal that he yelled "FUCK YOU!", and then proceeded to scream and curse out Russell. Russell immediately hired him.

Whats Next?

Up next, Cory and Nathan go down the rabbit hole of "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The The Dream Master."

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