A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

"There's something inside me!" - Jesse Walsh

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
The Nightmare on Elm Street Collection - Disk 2

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge Year of Release - 1985
DVD Release - New Line Home Video - 1999
Region 1 - NTSC - Rated R
Running Time - 85:28

Director: Jack Sholder
Starring: Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler, and Robert Englund as Fred Krueger
Music: Christopher Young

After A Nightmare on Elm Street proved to be a huge success, this sequel was rushed out without the services of Wes Craven. Big mistake.

SYNOPSIS

Set five years after the first movie, Jesse Walsh (Patton) and his family has moved into 1428 Elm St. Jesse is sleeping in what was Nancy's bedroom and he is beginning to have terrible nightmares. And just like Nancy, Jesse's nightmares feature Freddy Krueger (Englund)!

Jesse is becoming friendly with neighbour, Lisa Webber (Myers), who visits him while he is cleaning his room. Together they find an old diary in the wardrobe. Nancy's diary! She wrote about Freddy and her nightmares in her diary. As Lisa reads, Jesse realises that he is dreaming about the same man.

But this time it's different. Freddy doesn't want to kill Jesse, he wants to take over his body, so Freddy can live again!

VIDEO

Freddy's Revenge is in it's original aspect of 1.85:1 and is 16:9 enhanced. The transfer is very well presented, there are a few film artefacts, but on the most part, the transfer is clean.

Jaques Haitkin, again, is the Director of Photography, so at least the visual aspect of the movie is reminiscent of the first.

AUDIO

There are two audio tracks on this DVD. The original mono soundtrack and a new Dolby Digital 5.1 track.

EXTRAS

Jump to a Nightmare

As with the first Disk, this moderately amusing feature is just an modified version of Scene Selection. Instead of navigating Chapters, you select a Nightmare with titles such as; "Kill for me" and "I'm Jesse now".

Cast & Crew

The bios are reproduced from the original press kits for the release of the movie. I really do think that that is such a great idea.

DVD-ROM Content

If you have a DVD-ROM there is; "Script to Screen" Interactive Screenplay, "Dream World" Trivia Game #2 and Up-to-the-Minute Cast and Crew Biographies with Weblinks.

OVERALL

Freddy's Revenge is well shot, well acted and as a movie in it's own right, it has a good story. It's only flaw is the fact that it is a sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The first movie established Freddy in what he is and what he can do. But unfortunatly the only resemblance between the Freddy of the original movie and the Freddy of the sequel is physical.

Freddy originally did not try to possess people and he did not manifest physically unless he was pulled out of his victim's dreams. David Chaskin (who wrote the film) seemed to ignore this.

It is that fact alone which drags the movie down. Robert Englund is again wonderfully evil as Freddy, the main cast put in exceptionally competent performances and there are some very well realised scenes.

It has been said that Freddy's Revenge has homo-erotic undertones and is the "first gay horror film". I suppose it could be seen that way. Freddy is the metaphor for Jesse's latent homosexuality. Not only is he "dreaming of a man", the battle for Jesse's soul is the struggle to realize his "true feelings". It could be interpreted that the scene where Jesse is in Ron's bedroom and tells him that there "is something inside him" that he cannot control has enormous homo-erotic undertones. If Coach Schneider, who is into leather and disciplining young men, isn't gay or at least represents another metaphor for homosexuality, I'd be surprised.

The battle for Jesse's "soul" is won due to of Lisa's love. While this could be seen as a defeat of Jesse's latent homosexuality and the inference that a gay person can be "straigtened out", it could also be interpreted that it doesn't matter if you are gay or not. Trust your feelings, love conquers all.

Who knows? The director, Jack Sholder, denies intentionally making it in such a fashion. But that's art. It can be interpretted in many ways.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge had a good script that was hampered by a poor understanding of the conventions of the first film. The fact that it was a sequel to a great film doesn't help. It is a good film in it's own right, but as a sequel it fails.

The Film: 1/2
The Disk: 1/2