A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
- written January 2004
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Jesse has just moved into 1428 Elm St. and immediately he knows something isn’t right. A few dreams about Freddy Kruger and he begins to feel the need to kill. Soon enough Freddy is itching to take over Jesse’s body and Jesse isn’t sane enough to stop him.
Overall: This was the beginning of the end for good horror sequels. Movies like this gave horror films a bad name and this is precisely the reason most horror sequels go directly to video. I think the public was happy and willing to give sequels a chance and once this bastardization of the original was released, most people saw a changing of the guard. Over 20 years later, horror films have not recovered. The first film sets up the future stories that Freddy is going after the kids of the people that burned him to death. This film more parallels and copies from “Poltergeist” than is connected to part 1. Here we see that Freddy is able to not only enter Jesse’s nightmares but essentially possesses him and has him kill classmates. The ending and the beginning are so similar and so unsatisfying that I’d have had to agree a part 3 was necessary to undo the damage this film does. And what’s with all the homosexual aspects to the film? Jesse spends much of his time in his underwear and that’s not when they are doing shots of him naked in the shower, getting his pants undone by Ron on the baseball field, visits Ron in Ron’s bedroom and wants to sleep next to him, ends up watching his gay Phys Ed coach at a gay bar and then later watches the coach get stripped and whipped to death in the shower while he is naked too. I’ve seen some horror movies with plenty of nudity before but probably never seen one where the main character (male or female) is less clothed throughout the film than Jesse is. Had the character of Jesse been cast with a woman, the National Organization of Women probably would have had cheesy horror films been given “X” ratings. Oh and then there is the line said by Freddy to Jesse: “You’ve got the body, I’ve got the brains.” That’s a mere paraphrase of the Pet Shop Boys Song "Opportunities": I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the looks, let’s make lots of money. And yeah, that band was gay! The film basically gives the idea that Freddy was a gay Child Murderer and molester which really just connects to Jeffrey Dahmer. I mean you’ve got Freddy admiring Jesse’s body, possesses Jesse and makes Jesse kill people while Jesse is barely clothed. And the cameramen had to be homosexual too - the shots of Jesse’s crotch while wearing underwear are simply too long in film time to be nothing more than admiration for Jesse’s crotch. Part 3 ended up sucking anyway so I think the owners of the film rights to this series should have stopped while they were behind. But we ended up with a few more crappy films - and yet at least they didn’t repeat the same mistakes as this film. Comparison: Matthew Shepard Story meets Poltergeist |
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