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

Release Date: 11/1/1985 – Rated R

Starring: Robert Englund (2001 Maniacs)

Plot Summary:  At the end of A Nightmare on Elm Street we learned that you can’t keep a good, dead child murderer down, and that Freddy Krueger wasn’t destroyed by Nancy after all.  Well, the events of the first film drove Nancy to the loony bin, and now there is a new family residing in her house.  Our young closeted gay friend Jesse and his family live there now.  This time Freddy skips the whole ‘I can only kill you in your sleep’ schtick, and straight up possesses Jesse’s ass, because Freddy is a ghost or some shit now (they don’t really explain it).  Freddy makes Jesse kill is gym teacher and his best friend before Jesse even fully realizes whats going on.  With the discovery of Nancy’s diary and the help of his ‘girlfriend’ (beard) Lisa, they try to discover a way to stop all this crazy shit from happening.   As Freddy is out in the real world running amuck killing teenagers left and right, Lisa realizes that Freddy can’t win without your fear and confronts the Jesse/Freddy hybrid in the old boiler room location that is in every film.  Lisa tells the Jes-ddy how much she loves him and wants to hold his hand and stuff, and that causes the whole place, including Freddy, to catch on fire.  From the ashes of Fred Krueger arises Jesse, like some sort of homosexual phoenix.   The movie ends in typical Nightmare fashion with Freddy getting in one last kill when you think everything is over and done with.

Alex’s Thoughts:  I love this franchise, but this is my least favorite sequel.  The mythology that the first film set, and that was used in every sequel but this one, is just changed for convince and the story doesn’t really make much sence.  The acting isn’t great, all around, especially between the gay actor who plays Jesse and his on-screen love interest; there is zero chemistry between them…and the effects are nowhere near as creative and well executed as in the first film.  New Line was fortunate that this movie didn’t kill off the franchise, and that audiences gave Nightmare another chance, because it’s truly awful.  They did get it back on track with part 3 – The Dream Warriors, which is my favorite, by the way.

Tim’s Thoughts: This is not my least favorite Freddy movie, New Nightmare by far is worse. Mostly because to save themselves they read the ‘effing script, barf! But this sequel isn’t good, it starts off with what could be an interesting take on the character, and then promptly devolves into weird homoerotic murder fantasy. I think it’s fun to watch to see how unintentionally homosexual this movie is, and at the time nobody knew it. And unlike Alex, I feel that nothing compares to the first A Nightmare on Elm Street, none of the others are scary, but the original scared the shit out of me.

Final Thoughts:  Having just watched Never Sleep Again, the four-hour Nightmare on Elm Street documentary, everyone involved in this movie will tell you that it wasn’t one of their best efforts, and was pretty much a cash grab.  It wasn’t until Part 3 that Freddy Krueger became the wise-cracking and creative killer we know today, Freddy in Part 2 is just kind of sad and in need of a hug.

Alex Rates This Movie 4/10

Tim Rates This Movie 5/10

“There is no Jesse! I’m Jesse now!”

View the IMDB entry for this movie here or add it to your Netflix queue