Dokken’s “Dream Warriors” became the headbanging heart of “Nightmare on Elm Street 3″—forging a metal anthem that transcended the screen.
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Crafted in its flawless and masterful editing and adding Dokken, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), and scenes of Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette) into the mix, Dokken’s timeless glam hair hit single, “Dream Warriors”, continues to reign as the rocking music video anthem for the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.
The video begins with the film’s opening sequence of Kristen’s handmade house of popsicle sticks but now with pictures of Dokken pasted. As she dreams and the wind comes in, the zoom-in shot of the house is finely edited to the beat of the drums. Kristen wakes up to the guitarist, George Lynch, smiling, and may I say, what a bitching skull guitar he has!
The band continues to play with more intercut scenes of Kristen looking upon Freddy’s house of deceased children playing and following the little girl on the tricycle. Cut to Don Dokken singing:
“I lie awake and dread the lonely nights.
I’m not alone.
I wonder if these heavy eyes can face the unknown.”
Walking down to the basement, I love the scenes of Kristen and the child at the fiery blazing furnace intercepted by the jump cut of Mick Brown, drumming with intensity.
Don Dokken singing and bassist Jeff Pilson playing side by side down the hallway is especially effective. It gives the feel that at each turn of Freddy’s bloody, dark underworld of hell and skulls, Dokken is to her rescue!
Taking in the film’s final dream standoff where originally, our initial heroine, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), breaks through the wall to save Kristen, now it’s George Lynch crashing through the same wall with a rocking guitar solo before Freddy takes him away. Dokken and Freddy have their own standoff, with Freddy sung away to his own torture and Kristin smiling on in victory.
“We’re the dream warriors
Don’t wanna dream no more
We’re the dream warriors
And maybe tonight
Maybe tonight you’ll be gone!”
Freddy awakes from his own nightmare, scratching his head. “What a nightmare! Who were those guys?”
Directors Preacher Ewing (Ramones) and Bill Fishman (Megadeth) carefully planned out Dokken’s performance while shooting on the same set as the film.
The continuity editing is superb; in fact, it’s everything. A seamless montage of crosscutting between the film’s narrative and the band’s performances with perfect timing cues of the lyrics.
Thanks to this MTV promo with Dokken and Englund introducing the video, the end credits list Stuart Bass, ACE (The Wonder Years), as editor. If correct? Bass needs to be given more credit for his MTV music video years.
As beautiful and unforgettable as Arquette’s screaming debut was, I would have loved to have seen Jennifer Rubin’s (Taryn White) footage of her wearing a Dokken shirt, her sexy black mohawk, and her punk-studded outfit included in the video.
When approached to write the film’s title song, the chorus lyrics of “Dream Warriors” were required by the producers. Dokken wrote two versions: one faster-paced at a higher tempo and the other slower, which was chosen for the film per the Never Sleep Again 2010 Documentary.
Dokken’s “Into the Fire” was added to the soundtrack, and the VHS release even included the music video at the end.
“Dream Warriors” was featured on Headbanger’s Ball’s first inaugural episode with Motorhead hosting and number one from VH1’s 2015 “Killer 80s Heavy Metal Horror Movie Music Videos.” The song went platinum and reached No. 22 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock 1987 charts.
Unfortunately, the band parted ways in 1989, with Don Dokken regrouping with new musicians. A decade later, the four embarked on a short-lived 1994 reunion. With the success of Dokken’s popularity, more metal artists, including Bruce Dickinson and W.A.S.P, were booked for future Nightmare soundtracks.
Gibson Series
Part of choosing Dokken and Freddy was also to introduce metal horror hounds to the fun and significance of Gibson’s YouTube Metal and Monsters series!
Count D. (Piggy D., former Bassist for Rob Zombie) hosted the initial episode back in 2022 with a 35th-anniversary reunion of dear old friends Robert Englund and Don Dokken. The three reflected on their musical influences, the songwriting process, from shooting the video in the cold California desert to how relevant Dream Warriors is to the franchise.
I loved how the show infuses vintage ’80s metal ads and music videos with one-on-one interviews from metal’s finest horror-loving musicians and acting icons.
The Legacy
Freddy Krueger is purely original in what a boogeyman could be, cornering you in your most defenseless and sleep-sedated condition: your dreams. Only the conscious can give him a real fight for their survival, even after ten films, including a 2010 remake. Wes Craven produced and co-wrote, while Chuck Russell (The Blob) stepped in as director.
The third New Line Cinemas installment also brought back Nancy as a mentoring counselor and further explored the dark backstory of how our sharp-bladed child killer was birthed.
Like Dream Warriors, the third film within Damien Leone’s flesh-ripping Terrifier series, recently released a prominent song written for the film by horror metal band Ice Nine Kills (INK). Directed by frequent INK collaborator Jensen Noen, “A Work of Art” plays on the pressures to exceed a trilogy creatively with much gratuitous gore and a large mischievous body count from Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton).
Art creates a darker, maniacal chaos in today’s world, truly becoming the new original horror property. Thornton’s rise in the horror world also strongly resembles Englund’s overnight success of Freddy Krueger back in the 1980s. Both music videos feature the original actor in makeup terrorizing their victims while the band performs.
For a franchise to prove to its fans that it can take on a life beyond the trilogy at a new level, it helps to have an “anthem.”
In the golden age of MTV’s innovation, “Dream Warriors” showed the power of marketing music videos for new theatrical releases. Thirty-seven years later, I’d like to think Dokken’s “Dream Warriors” helped shape our horror and metal culture by giving heavy metal some more love against its share of controversy.
Dokken solidified our fears, bravery, and fascination with Freddy, with each of us becoming our own rocking Dream Warrior–“forever… together… oh.”
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