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

The first of the Elm Street sequels is a bit different than the other films of the series, but it's not nearly as bad as some critics say.

Young man (whose family has moved into the Elm Street house) is terrorized by chuckling Freddy, who wants to use him to do his dirty work.

'Elm Street 2 is a fairly entertaining sequel directed by B movie maker Jack Sholder. The movie's possession theme is solidly played out with some tight direction. Sholder gives this movie some well-done moments of shock and dark humor. The opening sequence on the bus is a memorable thrill ride. The film boasts some bloody FX. Charles Bernstein's theme music is missed, but Bing Crosby's song 'Did You Ever See A Dream' makes for a nice touch. Many say that this movie has homosexual themes and granted star Mark Patton does spend much of the movie semi-naked, but the theme is a bit of a stretch.

Robert Englund makes a welcomed return as Freddy, while the rest of the cast does decent performances.

All around, a good sequel that hasn't really gotten critical justice.

Followed by the superior Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987).

*** out of ****

Now that Nightmare is up to seven or eight sequels, while Friday The 13th is up to ten (and counting), it must be hard to look back on the days when horror films tried to be vaguely original or even different. With all the Screams and I Know What Your Breasts Did Last Summers, making Freddy's Revenge in these "enlightened" days would be just about impossible.

But culture, and particularly youth culture, in the 1980s was considerably different, certainly far less conservative and anti-creative. In those days, The Cure were a big thing, and even the most basic of pop sludge was far more creative than what we have today. Not to mention that it was far easier to make dodgy films and get them released theatrically.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2 picks up five years after the original, although it was a rush-job filmed less than a year after said original was out of the theatre. The film company, at that time the independent startup known as New Line, saw a quick and easy meal ticket that only required them to convince Robert Englund to submerge himself in what looks like three tons of multi-coloured latex. So the idea of a decent script, decent actors, or decent photography, went right out the window.

Which is kind of sad, really, when you consider that this is the only Freddy film in which an original premise is used. You might want to skip the rest of this paragraph if you have yet to see it. In it, a young man (whose behaviour is consistent with repressed homosexuality, in one of those hilarious plot coincidences) has just moved into the house from which Nancy originally dealt with Freddy. With the help of the sort of girlfriend any other male (and even some females) of this age would want to climb atop of at every opportunity, our hero attempts to fight off Freddy (and his own gayness), which in turn creates some very interesting plot devices. The moment when our heroine is holding up a carving knife at Freddy, who gives her a graphic and terrifying demonstration of the fact that she'll kill her (confused) lover if she kills Freddy, could have been one of the most horrific moments in the entire series. I am not quite convinced that it isn't, given that the only other episode in the series that was vaugely adult after this point was Part 3.

Unfortunately, the actors hired for these roles cannot act their way out of a wet paper bag. The only cast member with acting skills that even compare to Robert Englund's would be Marshall Bell. I am convinced that his turn here as the (gay) gym teacher was what got him hired to be in Total Recall and StarShip Troopers. Mark Patton (no relation to the Mike Patton who leads Mr. Bungle or the Mike Patton who was an early cast member in You Can't Do That On Television) is terrible - his only talent, as such, is to scream like a seventy-year-old woman. The actors who play his family look as if they belong on a cheap knock-off of Family Ties. The best actor in the whole piece was the budgie, who seemed to decide he would rather explode than be in this idiotic film a second longer.

When all is said and done, Robert Louis Stevenson said it much better in The Frightening Tale Of Doctor Jekyll And Mister Hyde (although there are no shortage of adaptations to that work which suck more than this). Normally, I would give this effort a three out of ten, but it gets two bonus points because it is like no other episode in the Nightmare canon, and that is a damned good thing when you put it alongside episodes four through seven.

This film is definitely the most different of the series. I mean first with the undertones and secondly with how Freddy decides to go after teens. I'm going to skip a synopsis since other people have done that plenty of times before but instead go over where this film succeeds and fails. First Freddy is still somewhat scary in this film and not goofy yet and in my opinion it is the best looking make up for Freddy of this series. Next the film has some very progressive undertones as in coming out and homosexuality, despite being disputed by the creators. Next I liked the atmosphere which was solid throughout. Finally the acting was decent overall but not super above average. Also the kills are still somewhat creative and there's some interesting body horror in it. The film does fail at a few things despite some creative kills there are definitely some that are just filler. Next the dream sequences are some of the weakest of the series. I also feel like the direction of Freddy taking over bodies in this film was a horrible one off idea, which thankfully was only in this film, unless you count Freddy possessing the stoner in Freddy V Jason, which was also bad in that film. Finally the film feels confused with where it wants to go, but luckily that problem doesn't arise again in the series until later in the films. Overall you should see it, especially of you're a completist or can find it for cheap, which is easy and it's included in a few different Nightmare box sets.

The original 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' is still to me one of the scariest and best horror films there is, as well as a truly great film in its own right and introduced us to one of the genre's most iconic villains in Freddy Krueger. It is always difficult to do a sequel that lives up to a film as good as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' let alone one to be on the same level.

'A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge' is not to me the dreadful film as reputed, but, while its attempts to do something different is admirable, it should have been much better than it turned out to be. It is very difficult to not feel disappointed when you inevitably compare 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' to its first sequel and find that the drop in quality is so significant and hard to ignore. Whether 'Freddy's Revenge' is the worst of the series is debatable, to me and many others it is one of the weaker ones.

'Freddy's Revenge' is not a complete waste of time. It starts off very promisingly, with the bus scene is thrillingly unsettling. Easily the film's scariest moment and the scene one remembers the most. Robert Englund is still very freaky and shows why Freddy is so iconic as a villain, he may not be quite as terrifying but the material isn't as strong here and he is still highly effective.

It's not a bad-looking film, there is a slickness to it and there are some nightmarish effects. There are some eerie moments, though none of the rest of the film lives up to the bus scene, and some amusing dark humour. The music is suitably haunting.

However, there are also a fair share of problems. The scares don't come enough, and while there are effective ones there are also just as many that are perfunctory and pretty tame by 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' series standards. Credit is due for trying to do something different and there are parts that do intrigue. A tighter pace and less pedestrian direction would have made the execution better, as well as trying to do less and focus more on the quality of the scares and how the story is told.

Jesse is such a dull damp squib of a character who lacks a quick-thinking or logical brain let alone any kind of presence. The one-note expressionless acting of Mark Patton accentuates this. The rest of the cast are nowhere near as bad, but when it comes to the acting the only one to properly rise above the material is Englund. Lastly, the ending is a slap in the face and really undoes Freddy's character, he would never do what he does at the end and it doesn't make sense for him to do it.

Overall, not that bad but could have been much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985), oh boy. It is not the worst movie in the series but is not the greatest sequel either. It is very Underrated which I understand why because the film has a lot of problems. It is my at least favorite film. Even tough it is a bad sequel it still follows the roots from first movie with a different story, different idea,different cast and that is good. The first time that a boy was a main hero in A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. In the rest of the sequels was always some girl as a hero. 4,5,6 and the remake (2010) are seriously the worst ones in the movies, the best one is Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Freddy was still serious - not as much joking around and you feel for the main character - plus his girlfriend was smoking hot - didn't know he was bisexual. What can I say? I don't hate the film and I like it for a bit but that's it.

I like the film because it follows the roots from the first film, It is mentioning Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) yes I am a Nancy Thompson fan! I love her very much and this film has respect to Nancy Thompson! While showing the diary and the telling the story's about her. Walsh family moved in to Thompson's house. That's what I like a bit this film. It is a horror film, Freddy kills a doesn't people, specially in the pool that was just awesome. Kim Myers as Lisa Webber was really smoking hot and she cared about Jesse. I like this film for it. Freddy stripped the coach down and killed him in that gay overtone because the coach was into some freaky sexual stuff, because I remember the coach being in leather and bondage looking clothes when he runs into Jesse.. So yeah Freddy killed him in an extreme version of what the coach liked. From the looks of the coach's bondage like clothes he had on you can assume he likes to be whipped and stuff like that. So his death scene was very fitting and that was awesome, I like that a lot. The love scene between Jesse and Lisa conger and defeating Freddy was amazing! The nightmare on the bus was just really extremely awesome even the ending scene was awesome.

The film has major problems that I just don't like that. For most of the movie Freddy's Glove was missing and they had to use the blades on his fingers. Reportedly it was stolen after filming and they had to scramble to make a replacement. They should have watch for that glove. Wes Craven refused to work on this film because he never wanted or intended A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) to become an ongoing franchise (and even wanted the first film to have a happy ending), and also because he didn't like the idea of Freddy manipulating the protagonist into committing the murders. I agree with that, why the main hero has to get him self into been manipulated and go murdering people around? That's just not right and it is wrong in my opinion. The film was too short and it become a little boring by time to time. I didn't like the gay scenes including the couch who was a molester and a gay in this film. I am glad Freddy killed him. The story had potential, but it just failed. The part where Jesse runs into gym teacher at the s&m bar and then he brings him back to the school and has him do laps and makes him take a shower, after he was tired. Looks like he was prepping Jessie for ass rape. That was the worst gay scene in the movie ever and it hurt the film so much!

Anyway with all the problems in the movie, the story did work well. Freddy in this film is at his darkest plus the make up FX by Kevin Yagher on Freddy made him look more and scary then I ever seen him look in any of the films after this one. It had a very good cast and effects and you finally saw Freddy's whole face it was a nice sequel. I think Jack Sholder did a great direction debut I don't think, he did a terrible job which he didn't. Robert Englund did a great job in this film, that is one of the reason the film isn't the worst than other sequels are. It is at least my favorite horror slasher film because it really did had a potential and it failed. It was OK sequel tough, but still a bad one and I have a lot of respect for Mark Patton cheers for him!!! Anyway I am giving this film a 7. rating even tough it deserves less.