Gimmicks. That's what's the name of the game, and just as Voorhees has his gimmicks for every kill, and Myers has his stone cold nods of the head for each kill, Krueger has his gimmicks, and holy cow did New Line feel the penny drop when it go to be time for a second sequel to their smash hit original horror A Nightmare on ElmStreet. I previously mentioned that I don't think they fully understood the concept/formula of Freddy Krueger with the "Freddy's Revenge" sequel, as it left the rules of the first one, and to be honest what made the original so fucking disturbing, as we had a hard time figuring out what was dream and wasn't until it was too late. But with Dream Warriors they knew exactly what the fans where after, dug out the rulebook and stuck to it, hence it becoming one big bleeding ensemble flick, where each death was to be more inventive than the previous. And I'd also give a fair bet that this is why Craven was back on the writing team, to wrangle that creation back into the formula, set in stone with this one .

The Kruger mask that we have in our pop-culture collective minds is the one that is conceived here. It's a lighter, less gooey, more accessible and out of the dark, up front mask, as Englund had to deliver witty one-liners with each Krueger kill, and boy does he deliver them.

The return of Heather Langencamp's Nancy is a great move, as so John Saxon in his small part, and it's really there that the movie is interesting, because to be honest, because she's the original investment. Patricia Arquette's Kristen doesn't really add much to the game more than to act as a gateway into the story to tell the truth. But plot wise, it's genius. A bunch of "suicidal kids" who refuse to sleep because of their nightmares... So let's lock them up and drug them down. It had us straight away, because this is the motion of the original, and after the ensemble is introduced, even though some are killed off pretty fast, we're all set, locked and ready to go with a familiar set of rules and a Krueger who's making it hard for us to empathise with the cast seen as we really want to see what innovative way of killing them in their dreams he comes up with this time around.

Love the young Larry Fishburn shuffling about his job and the Zsa Zsa Gabor/Dick Cavett moment, and then it's all about finding your fave kill/ oneliner and going with it, "Let's get high!"

As I've mentioned previously, the Elmstreet films are also the story of Rachel Talalay, as you can follow her steps through her career on these films. This time around she's progressed to Line producer.

Fun times, and yes, I do actually have the Dokken 7" off this flick.