While Nightmare On Elm Street: Dream Warriors was one of the strongest sequels in the The Hills Have Eyes went on to influence many of the slasher hits of the early ‘80s.
However, the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise never really got to take advantage of this particular slasher staple. Since Freddy Krueger attacked his victims in their dreams (as Nightmare On Elm Street’s Johnny Depp discovered in memorably gruesome fashion), the killer could appear in the relative comfort of suburbia. While this did mean that no setting was safe, it also meant that most of the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise installments were robbed of memorable horror settings. For the most part, the slasher franchise is set primarily in nondescript suburban neighborhoods—save for one stellar sequel.
Why Nightmare On Elm Street 3’s Setting Is So Important
1986’s Nightmare On Elm Street: Dream Warriors is often listed, alongside the original Nightmare On Elm Street and New Nightmare, as one of the best outings in the series. It is almost certainly the most popular Nightmare On Elm Street movie not directed by Craven, and much of its success comes down to an ingenious setting. Like the Friday the 13th franchise, Nightmare On Elm Street: Dream Warriors takes things out of the suburbs and into a self-contained, inherently creepy setting. It’s the only sequel with a deeply unsettling, isolated setting in the form of Westin Hills psychiatric hospital.
Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge was just another story of Freddy tormenting suburban teens, offering nothing new. Westin Hills, in contrast, takes the cast away from their parents and systems, strands them in an unfamiliar setting, and surrounds them with characters who don’t believe they are sane to boot. While the idea of a killer who stalks the heroes in their sleep was already scary, putting the eponymous Dream Warriors in a psychiatric institution ensured that their attempts to warn adults about Freddy would fall on deaf ears. If the long-awaited Nightmare On Elm Street reboot ever happens, Westin Hills should be the first setting the series revisits.
Nightmare On Elm Street 3’s Setting Leveled The Playing Field
The titular Dream Warriors have a better shot at beating Freddy than the heroes of earlier Nightmare On Elm Street movies thanks to their powers. However, the fact that they are trapped in an isolated, remote setting levels the playing field (in Freddy’s favor, as it should be in a slasher movie). The Dream Warriors work well together, and they might have been able to overpower Freddy early on by combining their unique powers (which they eventually did in the first draft of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare). However, it is Westin Hills that makes this impossible and ensures that Freddy picks them off one by one.
Later Nightmare On Elm Street Movies Lost The Setting Trick
While 2010’s disastrous Nightmare On Elm Street reboot got a lot wrong, the movie can at least be excused for its failure to revisit Westin Hills. As a straightforward remake of the 1984 original, 2010's Nightmare On Elm Street had neither the screen time nor the story scope to return to the creepy asylum. However, the rest of the Nightmare On Elm Street sequels are not as easy to defend. Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is easily the worst offender, as the movie was inexplicably a road trip movie which meant it didn't even have a clear setting. However, none of the Nightmare On Elm Street sequels recaptured the claustrophobia of Westin Hills.
While the earliest draft of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare did bring back the Dream Warriors, this plot thread was jettisoned in the final film. Even then, the sequel was set in the sprawling suburban town of Springwood, not the claustrophobic confines of Westin Hill. This is a shame, as Freddy Krueger is at his most threatening when the heroes were abandoned far from home and surrounded by skeptical adults who didn’t believe their dire warnings and cries for help. Despite this, the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise shot itself in the foot by abandoning the killer location established in its strongest sequel, Nightmare On Elm Street: Dream Warriors.
