Movie Info
Movie Name: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
Studio: Smart Egg Pictures
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): November 1, 1985
MPAA Rating: R
Jesse’s body is going through changes
The Walshes have moved to Elm Street, and now Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) is suffering from strange nightmare. With haunting images of a man in a red-and-green sweater, Jesse feels something is growing inside of him. Jesse discovers he’s becoming possessed by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), and he can do nothing to stop it. Jesse’s girlfriend Lisa (Kim Myers) tries to convince Jesse that it is all in his head, and Jesse’s classmate Ron (Robert Rusler) wonders if Jesse is going insane. Jesse isn’t sleeping, and Freddy is coming.
Directed by Jack Sholder, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge is a slasher horror movie. A sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street from 1984, the film had a strong box office but was received with mixed reviews. Since its release, many have reassessed the movie, and it has gained a cult following.
Who didn’t walk into an S&M bar and run into their gym teacher…am I right?
A Nightmare on Elm Street received surprisingly strong reviews. It was original, scary, and had a great villain. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge was just…weird.
As a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, you immediately see the problems. Freddy (whose banter helped make the first movie) is largely absent. The horror is internalized by the Jesse character and the jumps aren’t as big and terrifying as Freddy’s attacks in the first. You also get stuff like possessed parakeets…which just isn’t scary. The tone of the whole movie is off.
What has happened since the movie’s first release is that it has been reassessed as a homoerotic thriller which has led to the cult status. There is overt stuff like the strange S&M scene involving Coach Schneider (Marshall Bell), but there is more subtext type scenes involving Jesse who can’t be with his girlfriend Lisa Webber while going to Ron Grady for help. There are a number of off-color jokes about Jesse’s sexuality and he feels something is inside of him that makes him different (in this case it is Freddy).
Jesse shouldn’t have eaten the burritos
Mark Patton is an odd “leading man”. In real life, Patton was gay, and the story played into a lot of what he was going through. His story was told in the documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street in 2019. Unfortunately, Mark doesn’t have a lot of support in the movie from the rest of the cast. Kim Myers and Robert Rusler also never seems to develop because of the weird tension with Jesse’s character. Clu Gulager and Hope Lange are fun additions as Jesse’s father and mother, and Marshall Bell always seems to play the same character. Robert Englund suffers the most in this movie. It is still the scary Freddy (that later turns to the funny Freddy), but he isn’t in it enough.
This is like some bizarre anime nightmare
With Freddy largely lacking in the movie, Freddy is generally implied. I do like the idea of Freddy’s blades coming out of the skin (it is rather gross), and imagery like the baby-faced dogs just is creepy. Time hasn’t necessarily aged the story’s effects well in scenes like Freddy bursting from Jesse which looks like Robert Englund coming out of dummy.
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge is worth watching as a mere oddity in the whole series but in horror in general. It just isn’t what you expected from the series, but it isn’t like a typical sophomore slump that these movies can have. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge was followed by the potentially the most popular film in the series A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors in 1987 which feels like another thematic change for the series.
Related Links:
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (1987)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)
