A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

Kristen Parker, who builds a papier-mache model of a house, dreams of Freddy Krueger, and he comes after her. When she wakes, it looks like she has cut her own wrist. Her mother Elaine thinks she tried to kill herself and has her committed to Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, under the care of Dr. Neil Gordon.

Kristen fights the orderlies who try to sedate her, because she is terrified of falling asleep. The new intern therapist, Nancy Thompson, calms her down by reciting Freddy's nursery rhyme. Nancy survived Freddy six years earlier, and Kristen realizes she is not alone.

Nancy meets Neil's other teenage patients. Phillip Anderson is a sleepwalker who carves puppets. Roland Kincaid is a tough kid from the streets. Jennifer Caulfield wants to be on TV. Will Stanton uses a wheelchair after a suicide attempt. Taryn White is a recovering drug addict. Joey Crusel, the youngest, is too traumatized to talk. The orderly Max looks after them, and Dr. Elizabeth Simms runs the ward.

One night Freddy turns into a giant snake and attacks Kristen in a dream. Without meaning to, Kristen pulls Nancy into the dream, and the two of them escape. Kristen explains that she has been able to pull people into her dreams since she was little.

Over the next two nights Freddy kills two of the kids. He cuts open Phillip's arms and legs and uses his tendons like puppet strings to walk him up to a high window of the bell tower, then cuts the strings and lets him fall. Jennifer is watching a late-night talk show when the TV grows arms and Freddy's head, lifts her up and slams her head into the screen. The staff calls both deaths suicides.

Nancy tells the kids they are the last of the Elm Street children, whose parents burned Freddy to death. Neil comes around, and they try group hypnosis so everyone can share one dream and find a power there. Kincaid is super strong. Taryn becomes a punk fighter with switchblades. Will can walk again and use magic. Joey gets a powerful, deafening voice. Kristen already has her power. In the dream Freddy grabs Joey, who falls into a coma in the real world. The hospital is furious, and Nancy and Neil are taken off the case.

A nun named Sister Mary Helena, who keeps showing up around the hospital, tells Neil who Freddy really is. His mother, Amanda Krueger, was a young woman on the hospital staff who was accidentally locked in with hundreds of the criminally insane patients over the holidays. They raped her again and again, and Freddy was born. She tells Neil that the only way to stop Freddy is to bury his bones in hallowed ground.

Nancy and Neil ask her father, Don Thompson, one of the men who killed Freddy, where the bones are. He tells them Freddy's remains were hidden in an auto junkyard. Nancy learns Kristen has been sedated and rushes back to Westin Hills, while Neil takes Don to the junkyard to find the bones and lay them to rest.

At the hospital Nancy and the kids go under together to reach Kristen and save Joey. Freddy picks them off. He turns his glove blades into needles and gives Taryn a fatal overdose. He catches and kills Will. Kristen, Nancy and Kincaid make it to Freddy's boiler room and rescue Joey.

At the junkyard, Neil and Don dig up the bones. Freddy's skeleton comes alive, impales Don on the metal fin of a Cadillac and knocks Neil out. In the dream, Don seems to appear to Nancy to say goodbye, but it is Freddy in disguise, and he stabs her. When Freddy goes for Kristen, Nancy stabs him with his own glove. Neil comes to, sprinkles holy water on the bones, and Freddy is destroyed. Nancy dies in Kristen's arms.

Days later, Neil, Kristen, Kincaid and Joey go to the funeral for Nancy and Don. Neil spots the nun and follows her to a headstone. It belongs to Amanda Krueger, and her name in the church was Sister Mary Helena. That night Neil goes to sleep with a Malaysian dream doll Nancy gave him beside Kristen's paper house. A light turns on inside the model house, a sign that Freddy is not finished.

Story notes

• Nancy Thompson returns as a therapist working with teenagers at Westin Hills who share Freddy nightmares.
• The group learns to use individual dream powers against Freddy while uncovering more of his history.

Release facts

• Budget: $4.3 million (Robert Shaye, March 1987); later trade charts said $4.6 million

This was the first Nightmare film New Line opened nationwide. The first two had gone out through regional distributors. New Line spent $5 million to $6 million on prints and ads.

It opened February 27, 1987, in 1,343 theaters and was number one with $8,880,555, a record for an independent film at the time. It dropped only 20 to 25 percent in its second weekend and played in up to 1,383 theaters. It finished with $44,793,222 in the US, New Line's biggest film of the year and the 24th biggest film of 1987. It spent two weeks at number one in the UK. Among the franchise, The Numbers ranks only Freddy vs. Jason, the 2010 remake and The Dream Master above it in US gross.

It opened in France June 17, 1987; Denmark and Finland July 24, 1987; Australia August 27, 1987; Hong Kong November 23, 1987; West Germany January 7, 1988; the Netherlands February 25, 1988; and Sweden September 9, 1988.

In Queensland, Australia, the Bjelke-Petersen government banned the film over its drug references, mainly Taryn's syringe death. The ban lasted until the Queensland Film Board of Review was abolished in 1990.

Reviews were mixed. Roger Ebert gave it one and a half stars out of four, liking the production values but saying he never cared about the characters. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the dream sequences ingenious. Variety said Russell's direction made it hard to tell the intended laughs from the unintended ones. Kim Newman, writing later in Empire, praised the big scenes but felt Langenkamp was miscast as a teenage psychiatrist.

Rotten Tomatoes lists 68 percent approval from 65 reviews, with an average of 5.9 out of 10. Metacritic gives it 49 out of 100 from 11 critics.

Awards: the 1988 Saturn Awards nominated it for Best Horror Film and Best Make-up, and nominated Robert Englund for Best Supporting Actor. At Fantasporto 1988, Russell was nominated for the International Fantasy Film Award and won a Critics Award special mention.

Press and marketing

• Theatrical key-art / poster campaign reference: A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors Poster Extra Soft T-Shirt — hottopic.com.

Cast

Crew

Production

After Freddy's Revenge got poor reviews, New Line thought about ending the series. Wes Craven agreed to come back as co-writer. His first idea, Freddy breaking into the real world to haunt the actors making a new Elm Street film, was turned down. It later became Wes Craven's New Nightmare.

Before the script was settled, John Saxon and Robert Englund each wrote treatments. Saxon's prequel, How the Nightmare on Elm Street All Began, painted Freddy as innocent or framed by Charles Manson and his followers. Englund's Freddy's Funhouse had Tina Gray's sister looking into her death while Freddy took over the Elm Street house. Englund says parts of it ended up in No More Mr. Nice Guy, the pilot of Freddy's Nightmares.

Craven and Bruce Wagner turned in a first draft dated June 16, 1986. Craven said they decided one person could no longer fight Freddy, because the souls of his victims had made him stronger. That draft was darker and more profane. Nancy was not a dream expert, Neil (then named Guinness) was much younger and had a romance with Nancy, Taryn was Black, Will was named Laredo, Phillip was 13, the story centered on the ranch house where Freddy was born, Amanda was not a nun or a rape victim, both Joey and Kincaid died, and Nancy killed Freddy with his glove instead of holy water.

New Line hired Chuck Russell to direct and rewrite the script. He had co-written Dreamscape and produced Back to School, and this was his first film as director. Rachel Talalay thought the Craven and Wagner draft read like a $20 million script. Russell and Frank Darabont locked themselves away in Big Bear and rewrote it in eleven days. Sara Risher said they rewrote 70 percent of it. Russell said he wanted to turn the dreams into a carnival and add dark humor. Craven later said New Line never really called him again once it had his script.

Lisa Wilcox and Lezlie Deane, who were cast in later sequels, auditioned for this one. Patricia Arquette nearly got replaced early in the shoot until Russell stood up for her. Nurse Marcie took the most casting, because she was first meant to turn into a she-Freddy wearing Freddy's face. Roy H. Wagner had second thoughts after seeing it, and the scene was changed to Marcie shooting out long tongues before turning into Englund.

The talk show scene was written for Sally Kellerman, but Dick Cavett reportedly picked Zsa Zsa Gabor himself. Englund said Gabor did not know much about the movie and had a real mild freak-out when Freddy showed up.

Filming began July 28, 1986. A Fangoria set report described a 40-day schedule, and the DVD box set booklet says it shot over eight weeks in and around Los Angeles. Construction started three months before filming. The budget was first set at $3 million in May 1986 and grew to about $4.3 million.

Line producer Rachel Talalay had Russell's first cinematographer fired after he insulted Penelope Sudrow and brought in Roy H. Wagner. Wagner joined after shooting had started. He read the script one evening and began work the next day, and his first job was the junkyard skeleton fight.

Wagner and assistant Giles Dunning kept detailed notes on exposure, lighting and camera positions so unfinished effects scenes could be picked up later and still match. A Louma crane helped move through the multi-level boiler room set, and Wagner said he finished work planned for five days in three.

For the shot that goes from Kristen's bedroom to Elm Street, the camera sped up from 24 to 60 frames per second while the exposure was adjusted, so the children in the background slip into slow motion. Wagner said he lit Freddy like a product shot, with very little front light, detail in the shadows and no long close-ups.

Peter Chesney's company, Image Engineering, handled more than 50 mechanical effects. He said the schedule was so tight he kept ten crew on set and fifteen in the shop, with three units shooting effects in different places at the same time.

Freddy's boiler room, called Freddy Hell by the crew, took eight weeks to build with up to 30 people working at once. It was built in a warehouse across from the Los Angeles County Jail. The AFI Catalog says the warehouse covered 125,000 square feet and held 26 or 27 sets. Art directors Mick and C.J. Strawn designed the sets, and Pete von Sholly drew the storyboards.

Englund was playing Freddy while also working on the TV series Downtown.

Chesney reported maintaining ten effects crew members on set and fifteen fabricating in the shop while three units filmed effects at different locations.

The production built Freddy’s boiler-room underworld over eight weeks, within a 125,000-square-foot warehouse opposite the Los Angeles County Jail. The warehouse also housed 26 other sets.

Roy H. Wagner joined after shooting had started, reading the screenplay one evening and beginning work the next day. His first assignment was the junkyard skeleton battle.

Wagner and assistant Giles Dunning kept detailed exposure, lighting and camera-position notes so unfinished effects scenes could be resumed consistently.

A Louma crane helped negotiate the multi-level boiler-room set. Wagner reported completing work scheduled for five days in three.

The bedroom-to-Elm-Street transition accelerated the camera from 24 to 60 frames per second while compensating exposure, shifting the background children into slow motion.

Wagner favored restrained front lighting and shadow detail for Freddy, limiting prolonged close views to preserve the makeup illusion.

Filming locations

• Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles: Exterior of Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital
• St. Brendan Catholic Church, Los Angeles: Church scenes
• Converted warehouse across from the Los Angeles County Jail: Freddy's boiler room and 26 other sets
• Old Los Angeles City Dump (Puente Hills Landfill), 13130 Crossroads Parkway South, City of Industry, California: The junkyard where Freddy's bones are found. The landfill closed October 31, 2013.
• Pacoima, California: Wikipedia also names Pacoima as the junkyard location. The DVD box set booklet says only that the junkyard was north of Los Angeles.
• A cemetery in East Los Angeles: Funeral and graveyard scenes, per the DVD box set booklet
• Dream Warriors shot for roughly eight weeks in and around Los Angeles. UCLA's Royce Hall supplied the Westin Hills exterior, St. Brendan Catholic Church supplied church scenes, a converted warehouse near the Los Angeles County Jail became Freddy's boiler-room complex, and the junkyard was built at the Puente Hills landfill/Los Angeles city dump.

Effects and makeup

Kevin Yagher reworked his Part 2 Freddy makeup, giving Freddy a smaller nose and a face closer to Englund's own, and cut the number of pieces from nine to eight according to a Fangoria set report. The DVD box set booklet says the makeup used 18 pieces of foam latex, took almost four hours to put on and one hour to take off.

Peter Chesney led the mechanical effects, with makeup effects by Yagher, Mark Shostrom and Greg Cannom. Hoyt Yeatman supervised visual effects at Dream Quest Images, with stop-motion by Doug Beswick and Jim Aupperle.

Yagher helped build the Freddy Snake that swallows Kristen, a puppet about ten feet long.

For Freddy's chest of souls, the crew took a cast of Englund's chest and casts of the actors' faces. Small sculpted faces were mounted on the chest and mechanized so they seemed to scream.

Chesney's crew built five fake televisions for Jennifer's death, each for a different job. One had a rubber membrane so a dummy Freddy head could push through the screen before Englund took over. Another had metal arms with finger blades and real vacuum tubes. Shostrom built a dummy of Penelope Sudrow with flexible fiberglass and urethane limbs and a matching wig. Englund made up the line about prime time on the spot.

For Taryn's death the team first tried to make her head explode after the drug injection. It did not work, so they put withering appliances on Jennifer Rubin instead.

Peter Chesney's crew made the melting tricycle from different grades of polyurethane foam instead of wax. Twenty-six fine wires pulled it down, and the setup took eleven hours.

For the mirror scene, 19 mirrors shattered at once. Chesney rigged an electronic release to slingshot mechanisms hidden behind the glass, and stunt doubles jumped out through some of them. Half the mirrors were tempered glass so the stunt people could come through safely.

The skeletal girl Kristen holds at the start was first a mechanical corpse Shostrom spent ten weeks building, based on Auschwitz photographs from the Simon Wiesenthal museum. Russell found it too disturbing, and a plainer decayed skeleton was made in a few hours.

Kevin Yagher refined Freddy's Part 2 makeup into an eight-piece application and helped build the approximately ten-foot Freddy Snake, while the Chest of Souls used casts of Robert Englund and the victims with miniature faces mechanically animated to writhe and scream.

Jennifer's television death used multiple purpose-built television props and a flexible membrane so a Freddy head could push physically through the screen before the live performer took over.

The mirror sequence coordinated nineteen breakaway mirrors with an electronic release system and mechanisms positioned behind the glass.

Props and costumes

The Freddy glove in this film was a new build, not the original 1984 hero glove, which had been stolen during Part 2. Jim Doyle says the original had a soldered seam on the index-finger blade that later gloves do not have.

Tom Spina Designs restored and displayed Englund's Dream Warriors foam latex face appliances. Patrick Louie reconstructed the pieces and Melissa Ocampo did the in-painting.

Mark Shostrom may have sneaked a Dream Warriors glove onto the set of Evil Dead II, where he was working at the same time, as a background prop.

Camile Schroeder designed the costumes. Batia Grafka was property master.

The theatrical poster art is by Matthew Peak.

The sequel-era Freddy glove was a later build rather than the original 1984 hero. Crew recollections identify the original by its repaired index-finger blade seam, making glove continuity a trackable prop distinction across the early sequels.

The Westin Hills effects package included dedicated TV shells, a giant Freddy Snake puppet and the mechanical Chest of Souls, all built as physical character/set pieces rather than generic dressing.

Production artifacts

Art and design

• The IMP Awards primary one-sheet credits illustration to Matthew Joseph Peak.

Scripts and documents

The killers

Deaths

Phillip Anderson

Played by

Bradley Gregg

How

Freddy slices open his arms and legs, pulls out his tendons, walks him like a puppet to a tower window and cuts the strings so he falls

Where

Westin Hills bell tower

By

Freddy Krueger

Jennifer Caulfield

Played by

Penelope Sudrow

How

The TV sprouts arms and Freddy's head, lifts her and slams her head into the screen, electrocuting her

Where

Westin Hills TV lounge

By

Freddy Krueger

Taryn White

Played by

Jennifer Rubin

How

Freddy turns his glove blades into syringes and injects her with a fatal overdose

Where

The group dream

By

Freddy Krueger

Will Stanton

Played by

Ira Heiden

How

Caught and killed by Freddy after his dream magic fails

Where

The group dream

By

Freddy Krueger

Donald Thompson

Played by

John Saxon

How

Impaled on the metal fin of a Cadillac by Freddy's revived skeleton

Where

The auto junkyard where Freddy's remains were hidden

By

Freddy Krueger

Nancy Thompson

Played by

Heather Langenkamp

How

Stabbed in the stomach by Freddy disguised as her father; dies in Kristen's arms

Where

The group dream

By

Freddy Krueger

Angelo Badalamenti, known for his work with David Lynch, wrote the score. Varese Sarabande released the album about three weeks before the film opened, running 32 minutes 2 seconds. The Nightmare on Elm Street Companion lists a 21-track Varese CD on June 1, 1990. Andrew Barrett and Joseph Turrin orchestrated, Earl Ghaffari edited the music, and Kevin Benson supervised. Ken Harrison and Don Dokken are credited with additional music, and Charles Bernstein's original Nightmare music is also used.

'Dream Warriors' written by George Lynch and Jeff Pilson, performed by Dokken. Released as a single February 18, 1987, on Elektra, it reached number 22 on Billboard's Album Rock Tracks chart and number 26 on the AOR Tracks chart. It closes Dokken's album Back for the Attack. The end credits list it as 'Dream Warrior.'

'Into the Fire' performed by Dokken, used over the opening in theaters and on the DVD.

The original VHS opening used a hard rock instrumental version of Joe Lamont's 'Quiet Cool' in place of 'Into the Fire.'

The Dream Warriors music video mixes film footage of Patricia Arquette with new footage of Englund as Freddy and the band, who save Kristen with rock music. Kristen's model house in the video was built from Dokken fanzines. VH1 ranked it the top killer 1980s heavy metal horror movie video in 2015.

The song's success led New Line to use heavy metal songs in later sequels. Dokken's manager Cliff Burnstein, who knew Craven, got the band a copy of the script to write from.

Varese Sarabande put five cues on Freddy's Favorites: Best of A Nightmare on Elm Street (October 12, 1993), and the score is in Varese's 8-CD series box (October 16, 2015). Death Waltz put it in the Box of Souls vinyl set (October 25, 2017).

Death Waltz Recording Co., Mondo and WaterTower Music released an expanded 2-LP in November 2024 on Hypnocil Dream Haze and black vinyl, with the original album on disc one and unreleased cues on disc two, art by Mike Saputo and liner notes by Ira Heiden.

Soundtrack releases

Home Media

• 1987 VHS, Media Home Entertainment, released May 27, 1987, per Wikipedia. Video sales earned about $12 million. Media Home made a promo reel with Englund as Freddy for rental stores, offering one winner a part in The Dream Master.
• 1988 VHS, Betamax and LaserDisc, Media Home Entertainment, as dated by the Nightmare on Elm Street Companion. Pan and scan, with the Dokken music video and trailers for the first two films. Media Home also put out a Spanish-subtitled tape and a preview tape.
• 1989 VHS, HGV Video Productions, Canada. LP mode.
• 1990 VHS, Video Treasures. LP mode reissue.
• 1993 VHS, Video Treasures. Pan and scan, EP mode.
• 1995 VHS, Video Treasures. Double the Horror set with The Dream Master.
• 1999 VHS, New Line Home Video. Remastered pan and scan with promotional material, trailer and a director interview. Also part of a seven-tape box set.
• 1999 DVD, New Line Home Video, September 21, 1999, per Wikipedia.
• 2000 DVD, New Line Home Video. Digitally remastered, widescreen and full screen, trailer, cast and crew profiles, trivia and the rewritten screenplay.
• 2008 DVD, New Line Home Video. 4 Film Favorites with Parts 1, 2 and 4.
• 2011 Blu-ray, New Line Home Video. Double feature with Freddy's Revenge, with seven Nightmare Series Encyclopedia featurettes, the Dokken music video and the theatrical trailer.
• 2014 DVD, Warner Home Video. Walmart exclusive double feature with The Dream Master.
• 2017 DVD, New Line Home Video. Double feature with The Dream Master. Warner also released the 4-Film Collection: Monster Mayhem.
• 2025 4K Ultra HD, Warner Bros. A Nightmare on Elm Street 7-Film Collection. US street date September 30, 2025; UK October 27, 2025, in standard and SteelBook editions. HDR. Extras for this film: Behind the Story segments Burnout, Fan Mail, The House That Freddy Built, Onward Christian Soldiers, Snakes and Ladders, That's Showbiz and Trading 8's, plus the Dokken Dream Warriors music video.
• 2025 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray, Warner Bros. Japan Collector's Box, 11 discs, December 3, 2025.
• The Nightmare on Elm Street Companion also lists DVDs from Russia, the UK, Japan, France, Brazil, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Sweden and Germany, a Warner Home Video LaserDisc sampler with a preview of the film, and VHS tapes from Japan, Russia, the UK, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

• The Nightmares on Elm Street Parts 1, 2 and 3, novelization by Jeffrey Cooper, St. Martin's, 1987, 216 pages. The Dream Warriors section follows the Craven and Wagner draft, not the finished film.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, young adult adaptation by Bob Italia, Abdo and Daughters, September 1992, 64 pages, with color photos.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street computer game for the Commodore 64 and IBM PC, 1989, drawing on the Dream Warriors idea.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street for the NES, developed by Rare and published by LJN, October 1990.
• Nightmares on Elm Street comic by Andy Mangels, 1991, bringing back the Dream Warriors characters to continue the Dream Trilogy.
• New Line's 1987 merchandising plans included Freddy T-shirts, bubble gum, door posters, wall hangings and pillowcases.
• NECA 7-inch Dream Warriors Freddy figure (2016) and 18-inch figure (2017).
• NECA Freddy accessory set with the Freddy worm and Freddy TV.
• Trick or Treat Studios Dream Warriors Deluxe Freddy Krueger Glove by Anders Eriksen (SKU MAAEWB103), copper armature, stainless steel blades, leather glove.
• Fright-Rags Dream Warriors clothing, including a design based on the cover of Uncanny X-Men #1 with the Dream Warriors in place of the X-Men and Freddy in place of Magneto.
• Hot Topic Dream Warriors poster T-shirt.
• MondoCon 2016 print of the 1428 Elm Street house.
• Replica Hypnocil bottle in the January 2018 Bam! Horror Box.
• Death Waltz Recording Co. and Mondo expanded 2-LP soundtrack, 2024.

Books and publishing

Replica props and masks

The catalog

Trailers & clips

Gallery

Posters & Key Art

Film Stills

Behind the Scenes

Press & Promo

Effects

Props

Costumes

Production Art

Home Media

Merchandise