Heather Langenkamp's performance

maybe she was trying to be more frown up?
she had more youthful anguish in Nightmare.
I liked her in this too. but maybe her range is limited depending on the director.

I like her performance in this. She brought a certain kindness and understanding to the role so that you could tell she truly cared about the teenagers' well being and would go to any limit to save them.

Her performance isn't bad, but far better in the first movie.and New Nightmare.

Partly character, partly acting.

She did a good job, but was hindered by having to play 'mother figure' to a bunch of actors who were basically the same age as her. There was only a three year gap between parts one and three. IRL and in real time, all of them could've been in high school together.

Piggy backing what others have said but I disliked her performance in this movie. She looked like a kid playing dress up with moms clothes. She was only 22 at the time of filming and the way her lines were delivered didn't work. Most fans disagree with me but this is one of my least favorite in the series. The dream team preparing to fight Freddy was just to cheesy even by 80's standards.

I remember reading an interview in which a lot of it was the director's decision. He wanted to portray Nancy as a cool, collected character as opposed to the warrior she was in the original - which somewhat dramatically makes sense since she was (character-wise) six years older and far removed from her bouts with Freddy. Heather was quoted that every time she tried to make Nancy bolder, she was reigned back in by Chuck Russell.

almost like she was taking those experimental pills for no dreams..

that stuff will make you lose energy i bet.