A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
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A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge Movie Review
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge is a 1985 slasher film directed by Jack Sholder and starring Mark Patton. It is a very odd and memorable, but flawed sequel.
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“You are all my children now“
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It follows a teenager who begins having recurring nightmares about Freddy Krueger after moving into the former home of his previous victim. This first sequel to the seminal original was the oddest of the bunch. This was the film where they actually went out of their way to change the formula and rules of the world from its predecessor, but mostly for the worse.
The originality here was apparent and admirable, but changing the rules of a horror villain so heavily was not a good idea. Freddy being able to operate in the real world instead of just the dream world was honestly too strange, so it did not work. Also, him inhabiting the bodies of his victims, though producing very creepy and memorably grotesque results, was too different from the original and it made the character less striking and/or dangerous.
The most often discussed aspect of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 has to be its homoerotic subtext. I would much rather call it text than subtext given that what they were trying to portray here was so obvious. Having your protagonist be a final guy instead of the usual final girl trope was suspicious first and foremost, but having him struggle with his sexuality while also including a teacher who is so obviously gay himself and who gets spanked before being killed were all the signs that this was an obvious metaphor for homosexuality.
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That idea was an interesting one and it mostly worked, but the ending was somewhat disappointing and the female love interest was largely forgettable. Mark Patton was pretty good in the main role of the tortured Jesse, but more character development was needed to really sell his repressed sexuality arc. The visuals on this movie are quite strong and so was the production design with that first scene being particularly intriguing, but for the most part bringing Freddy to the real world robbed the movie of its ethereal, dreamlike quality and authenticity.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge had a rather interesting metaphor for repressed sexuality. It also needs to be praised for its originality as it was different than any other Elm Street sequel. However, bringing Freddy to the real world was ultimately not a good choice as it robbed the film of the franchise’s dreamlike and imaginative qualities. It was ultimately a commendable effort that was too strange for this particular series.
My Rating – 3
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