10 Reasons Nightmare On Elm Street 3 Is Secretly The Best Freddy Film

8. Better SFX

It's more or less a foregone conclusion that the later entries in a series are going to visually improve as a result of advances in the effects industry, particularly in 80's horror. Dream Warriors is no exception, but being so heavily reliant on effects, it could be considered one of the top visual feasts of that decade. The original undoubtedly set a benchmark of its own, but three years on, the effects team naturally had so many more moves in their repertoire, and a bigger budget to boot. The Krueger house is one example; from the opening chase to the room with the Freddy snake, there's just a shinier coat (so to speak) on the visuals. Sure, some scenes have aged poorly (see: stop-motion Freddy and pen-generated veins,) but for the era they hit new heights for production values. It's no Poltergeist, but in retrospect, it represents the moment the franchise hit an apex, especially the practical effects. Meanwhile, no amount of nostalgia can embellish some of the tricks in the original.