A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) New Line/Horror RT: 85 minutes Rated R (language, graphic violence, frightening images, sexual content) Director: Jack Sholder Screenplay: David Chaskin Music: Christopher Young Cinematography: Jacques Haitkin and Christopher Tufty Release date: November 1, 1985 (US) Cast: Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Englund, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, Christie Clark, Marshall Bell, Melinda O. Fee, Tom McFadden, Sydney Walsh. Box Office: $30 million (US)
Rating: ***
While I like A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Wes Craven’s absence is definitely felt. Nobody was as thrilled as me upon learning that a sequel to NOES was on its way to theaters less than a year after the original came out (at least in my neck of the woods). I saw the trailer before Krush Groove and could barely contain my excitement. I was totally psyched!
I had to wait an extra week to see Freddy’s Revenge because it didn’t open in any theaters convenient to me until the following week. I took in a Saturday night show at the Lawrence Park Theater and the joint was packed. It would appear as though Freddy Krueger built up quite a fan base in the months since the first NOES came out. It was a top rental at my favorite video store (the Video Den) throughout the previous summer.
Anyway, I was expecting gold from Freddy’s Revenge but walked away with bronze instead. It’s a decent enough flick, but director Jack Sholder (Alone in the Dark) takes the story in a rather unusual and unexpected direction. Instead of having Freddy manifest himself in nightmares, he possesses a teenage boy and makes him do his dirty work. The idea of Freddy attacking people in the real world is too much of a deviation from the original premise of killing them in their nightmares. It takes a little something away from the overall effect of the movie. Besides, possession by an evil entity is pretty old hat, don’t you think?
Five years after the events of the first movie, a new family has moved into 1428 Elm Street. Teenage son Jesse Walsh (Patton) now occupies Nancy Thompson’s old room. It doesn’t take long for him to start experiencing terrifying nightmares starring you-know-who. He doesn’t know what to make of them until his girlfriend Lisa (Myers, Hellraiser: Bloodline) finds Nancy’s diary hidden on a shelf in the closet. It chronicles all of her encounters with the gloved one.
Why don’t we cut right to the chase? Freddy wants Jesse to kill for him. He then proceeds to take over his body. His first victim is sadistic gym teacher Coach Schneider (Bell, Total Recall). Jesse finds himself at a gay leather bar where he runs into Schneider, a regular customer by the looks of him. They end up back at the high school where Jesse/Freddy kills the tied-up coach with his finger knives. Jesse’s father (Gulager, The Return of the Living Dead) is convinced his son is on drugs based on his recent behavior. Strange things start to happen like the family’s pet bird exploding into flames. It all comes down to Lisa trying to convince Jesse to fight the fiendish intruder and reclaim his body.
Honestly, there isn’t much to Freddy’s Revenge plotwise. There aren’t any major plot twists or surprise revelations. It’s just a standard fight flick with a number in the title. There are a few cool scenes though. My personal favorite is when Freddy claws his way out of Jesse’s body in front of his frightened friend Grady (Rusler, Vamp). The party scene near the end is pretty good too as Freddy takes out a few of the teens in attendance before announcing, “You are all my children now!” Although he’s not yet the boogeyman comedian fans have come to revere, Freddy gets a few decent one-liners. Upon telling Jesse that he needs his help, he says “You got the body …. I’ve got the brain” as he rips the skin off his skull and exposes his brain.
A lot has been made over the years about the homoerotic subtext in Freddy’s Revenge. I can see it. Think about it, the encounter Jesse has with his gym teacher at the gay S&M bar and him fleeing to Grady’s house after aborting an attempt to make out with Lisa. Is all this indicative of Jesse’s latent homosexuality? The fact that the character is played by an openly gay actor makes a strong argument in favor of it. This is one of the more interesting aspects of the movie.
The visuals and effects are okay, but nowhere near as cool as those in Craven’s movie. Patton delivers a decent performance as Jesse and it’s cool seeing screen vets like Gulager and Hope Lange (Death Wish) in action. As for Englund, he looks like he’s having a ball. How can I knock a performance like that? The score isn’t quite as eerie as that of the original, but the song played over the closing credits serves as an amusing punchline.
Freddy’s Revenge is nicely campy and reasonably fun, but still one of the series’ lesser entries. It doesn’t have the scare factor of the original. The change of premise isn’t quite deadly, but still slightly damaging. It’s a decent sequel that doesn’t quite measure up to the original, but it’s watchable. You can’t say that about too many sequels.
