The Terrible Catsafterme

I really liked the original Nightmare on Elm Street film, but I thought the second one really tanked. In recent years, the second film has regained some of its popularity, but even now, no one even tries to compare it with Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. This film pretty much ignored the second installment and brought back Heather Langenkamp in the lead role as Nancy Thompson. Where the second film had floundered in mediocrity, this one brought back the creativity of the first film. In fact I liked it so much that I saw it twice in the movie theaters. Who would have thought that I’d be hanging out with a good portion of the cast of the film 28 years later?

I had already met the leads of the film Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund, but I had yet to meet any additional actors who portrayed the Dream Warriors – aka patients in the Westin Hills mental facility who could be brought into the dreams of Kristen Parker’s dream to do battle with Freddy Krueger. Kristen was played by Patricia Arquette, and as much as I’d love to meet her, she unfortunately wasn’t one of the ones who showed up at this gathering.

But on September 12, 2015, I met five of the Dream Warriors at the HorrorHound event in Indianapolis, Indiana… all but one of the remaining Dream Warriors in fact (no word on why Penelope Sudrow didn’t make the reunion, but I’ve seen that she has an appearance scheduled elsewhere in 2016). I’ll cover four of the five here, leaving one remaining for another, even more important posting.

First up is the wheelchair-bound Dungeons & Dragons geek Will Stanton, who was portrayed by actor Ira Heiden. His film career was pretty limited, but he did make appearances in a few classic sitcoms: Family Ties, Just the Ten of Us, and Family Matters, in addition to appearing in two episodes of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and the Steve Martin film Father of the Bride.

It seemed that somewhere along the line, he was typecast as a delivery boy – pizza, flowers typically – before settling into a recurring role on the more recent series Alias.

In any case, Ira Heiden was the first of the Dream Warriors we greeted at the show, and he set the standard that all of the others seemed to follow: $20 for an autograph, which included a free photo op that they were willing to share with Carolyn as well. That made things at this show extremely pleasant and enjoyable.

Next was the character Joey Crusel (or Peterson, depending on what source you believe), the horny deaf-mute of the Westin Hills institution. Joey was one of the three Dream Warriors characters who survived Nightmare 3 and moved onto Nightmare 4. The actor who played him, Rodney Eastman, graduated to the next film as well (noting here that Patricia Arquette’s character Kristen Parker was played by a different actress in Nightmare 4).

Rodney Eastman continues to act today, but I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who had seen any of the more recent films. However he did have his share of sitcom credits like Who’s the Boss?, Charles in Charge, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, and Cybill, as well as TV drama roles in such shows as Murder She Wrote, ER, Monk, and a recurring role on Melrose Place.

He was busy hanging up his banner when Carolyn and I arrived at his table, but he jumped down from his chair to take care of us. To be honest, he’d be the one I’d have the most trouble recognizing even though it’s wild to bear in mind that Nightmare on Elm Street 3 was just a couple of years shy of its 30-year anniversary. Rodney didn’t say much (maybe staying true to his character?), but he signed my picture and posed for photos with both of us.

One guy who was not at all hard to recognize was the actor who played Roland Kincaid. He was the most outspoken and aggressive of the bunch, and like Joey, he survived Nightmare 3, only to bite the bullet in Nightmare 4 early in the proceedings. Roland was portrayed by Ken Sagoes, and I must say he had hardly changed a bit in the last 28 years.

Of note with Ken Sagoes was that he appeared in episodes of Night Court, The Bernie Mac Show, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and starred in the film Intolerable Cruelty. But what I actually talked to him about was his starring role in the third season of What’s Happening Now! for 22 episodes as Darryl.

Not that What’s Happening Now! was ever in contention for any Emmy Awards, but both the second and third season of that show are highly elusive and quite desirable to fans. I expressed how much I’d like to see it come out on DVD, and he agreed. Like the others, he was nice enough to pose for pictures with both Carolyn and me.

The final Dream Warrior featured in this posting is the character Taryn White, the punk rock drug addict of the team. For some reason the actress playing her, Jennifer Rubin, had the longest line of any of the Dream Warriors.

It may have been because she was quite pretty or because her role was quite memorable, because I couldn’t discern that she had done much else that would leave fans clamoring. Of interest where roles in Miami Vice and the films The Doors and The Crush, but other than that I really hadn’t see or heard of much of her other roles.

Nevertheless she was very nice and very attractive, and I found her hair style most fascinating. I mentioned to her that I’d be seeing her in a few weeks at the Hollywood Show (which I did). So any way you slice it, she was worth the wait to be the last one to sign my photo that day.

So that’s my dream… er, story… and I’m sticking with it. Like I said, I’ll be posting the one additional Dream Warrior in an upcoming posting under a different heading. Because as good as the Nightmare on Elm Street series might be, there are some things that are even better…

Celebrities of the 2015 Indianapolis HorrorHound will continue…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2015 at 6:13 am and is filed under 2010's - Late, Autographs, Celebrity Encounters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.