A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge

As is the horrible case with most sequels, “A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge,” released in 1985, is worse than the first one. However, it’s still very good, more so than most viewers say it is. Dustin Putman is right when he said, “And, in its own way, it is just as groundbreaking, as thematically loaded and downright courageous as any horror film released in the mid-'80s.” Taking over for Wes Craven, director Jack Sholder and screenwriter David Chaskin decided not to repeat the same story of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” but decide to go in a completely different direction. Putman compared, “It still has Freddy Krueger as its central opposing figure, but otherwise is the "Halloween III: Season of the Witch"-style black sheep of the series. Its moment in the spotlight is long overdue.”

Taken place five years after the first film, 16-year-old Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) has moved with his family – tough dad Ken (Clu Gulager), loving mother Cheryl (Hope Lange), and intelligent little sister Angela (Christie Clark) – into the same house on Elm Street that previously had Nancy and her family living in it. Freddy Kruegar’s legendary memory would appear to have disappeared completely if not for one problem: tossing and turning in an overheated sleep state that comes from the house’s failing air conditioning system, Jesse has started to dream about him. Wanting to come back into the real world, Freddy wants to take over Jesse’s body and have him to murder for him. Without a possible way of stopping him, suddenly no one around Jesse – among them, friends Lisa (Kim Myers) and Grady (Robert Russler), and strict gym teacher Coach Schneider (Marshall Bell) – is safe from Freddy’s murder.

The movie starts with a scary prologue, as Jesse and two teenage girls (Allison Barron and JoAnn Willette) are haunted on a runaway school bus with no way of getting out after the ground deteriorates from under the bus. This is obviously just a dream, but the first to let Jesse know that something strange is going to happen. As his nightmares get worse and the mystery around Freddy’s identity and past are clarified through a diary written by Nancy that Lisa finds in his bedroom closet, Jesse goes up against the scary realization that he may no longer be able to control himself.

Putman says, “It is at this point that the film itself goes down a path far removed from simple, cookie-cutter horror fare.” Jesse’s friendship with Lisa (“he’s just my ride to school,” Lisa defensively says when Kerry, played by Sydney Walsh, tenses their relationship) appears to start to love him, but it is one that Jesse doesn’t want to be really interested in. Putman said, “He is more in his skin when hanging out with hunky male classmate Grady, whom he semi-regularly shares afterschool detention with on the sports field, lorded over by the skeevy Coach Schneider. Plagued with bouts of sleepwalking, a partially-clothed Jesse leaves his house in the pouring rain and ends up having a drink at the local gay bar.” This is where Jesse encounters Coach Schneider wearing leather in some weird way, who strangely takes him back to the high school to run laps. Later in the locker room showers, Freddy enters Jesse and starts one sort of supposed gay assumption that people have made about the movie. Trying to avoid all the sports balls that appear to be flying at him, Coach Schneider runs into the locker room, where he is dragged into the showers with jump ropes and tied to the wall, stripped down and spanked on his bare backside with towels.

Putman said, “Keeping in mind all the evidence in between and what has come shortly before this curious sequence—Jesse dances in his bedroom to "Touch Me (All Night Long") by Wish (feat. Fonda Rae), the sign on his door reading, "No Out-of-Town Chicks"—and it becomes obvious that the film isn't really about Freddy Krueger at all, but about a confused teenage boy unsuccessfully trying to come-to-terms with his orientation.” At Lisa’s pool party in the final act, Jesse doesn’t feel good and hides out in the cabana. Lisa comes in to comfort him, and they have a strange love moment that suddenly halts when he runs away and goes to Grady’s house. Here, Jesse asks Grady for his help. “Something is trying to get inside of me!” Grady is rightfully perplexed why Jesse has stood Lisa up and shown up to sleep in his room that night.

The movie does go back to its horror roots, with Freddy bursting out of Jesse’s chest to kill Grady and attacking Lisa at her home before crashing the party. In one horrifying part, Freddy raises his arms before the scared students and says, “You are all my children now.” The climax builds at the rusty abandoned factory Freddy used to work at before the parents burned him alive because he was a child murderer, with Lisa following Jesse there and stubbornly telling him that he has to fight to stop what goes on inside of him. That’s right, Freddy meets his end with the “power of love.” In the end, a surprising shock that goes back to the school bus opening tells us that Jesse’s fight with Freddy (symbolic of the supposed “gayness” that is inside of him, and that he cannot escape) is not over.

Putman credited, “Viewed strictly on the surface, "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge" is a well-made and suspenseful possession-laden thriller that drops some of the rules distinguished by the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street" in order to avoid being a mere lazy redux. Performances from Mark Patton, strongly cast as protagonist Jesse, and Kim Myers, emanating sweetness and light as Lisa, help to make accessible the story's leaps in logic.” From everything, the movie is more than likable. However, for its main message about fear of being gay in a judgmental world, the film actually takes it one step down. Putman is right when he said, “Psychology majors could have a field day with "A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge."” A lot is left ambiguous that it couldn’t have been unintentional that the movie is not only a slasher flick, but as a sadly-felt coming-of-age story where the protagonist’s complicated struggles to know who he is and be accepted by others aren’t so easily done and figured out.

The one downside about this movie is that there isn’t many kills in here, which is sad. However, I like the movie because it seems to be in the same vain as “Top Gun,” so I do say check it out. I know it’s not as good as the first, but it’s nowhere near being horrible or one of the worst slasher sequels ever. It’s similar to “Halloween 3,” where that was misjudged. Definitely see this movie and give it a chance because many people seem to not do so.

Alright everyone, tomorrow we will be going back to the good stuff in “Elm Street-a-thon.” Check in tomorrow to what certain people like to say is the best of the franchise, but I think comes close to being the best. It’s a great movie to look at in this year’s “Halloween Month.”