FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHTS: A Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) “You Are All My Nerds Now.”
I have a theory that the first introduction you have to a long running film series typically will wind up becoming your favorite installment. It may not be the best one but it was your initial experience. This is the reason that Temple of Doom is my favorite Indy, Return of the Jedi my favorite Star War, E.T. my favorite E.T. and whatnot and so on and so forth, etc. What’s crazy is that as you get older, taste normally develops and totally shifts around, but not here though. No. A Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy’s Revenge was my first taste of Freddy Krueger’s adventures and time has only poured concrete on it as the towering gold standard of the entire series for this particular fan.
Let’s do this thing.
As mentioned in last week’s podcast about Dream Warriors, I spent a lot of my childhood being scared to death at every opportunity by my Aunt Teresa. She was a teenager when I was born and naturally wound up often keeping an eye on me. She was like an older sister, and like any older sister was an introduction to many things that I probably wasn’t supposed to be doing: Including turning off all of the lights and plopping down on the couch as a 6 year to watch this thing together on HBO one late Saturday night. I have very vivid memories of the movie beginning with that opening school bus scene, eating butter soaked popcorn and having no clue what I was in for. When it was over, my Aunt spent the rest of the night screaming from down the hallway and jumping out at me from dark corners.
I loved it.
The basic plot of this one is pretty unique in that it is an entirely new story with Freddy himself being the only returning character from the first film. This time he’s got his sights set on Jesse, a kid who’s just moved to Elm St., with the intention of using his body as a vessel to enter the real world. Not exactly having a formula for the series in place yet, It marks a very interesting evolution in what was about to become a franchise. The most obvious being that we’ve got a male protagonist and not your typical final girl, I believe the actor who plays him (Mark Patton) even refers to himself as “The first male scream Queen.” That’s great!
There has been a lot said about this movie’s *ahem* interesting approach to body horror. Specifically the homoerotic elements which I certainly didn’t catch as a kid but definitely became shall we say…more blatant as I grew older. From lines of dialogue to Freddy’s overall plan (not to mention a scene taking place in a leather bar), it’s kind of hard to deny that it isn’t all there. I’m not going to go into all of that stuff here but it does make for a movie that is seemingly unafraid to take lots of big swings, serious chances and I love it for that. There’s such a charm in seeing a sequel doing so many things different from the first installment, mixing up the horror as well as the humor, this one at times almost feeling like a Jon Waters feature. I mean c’mon, check out the infamous dance scene where Jesse cuts a mean rug: The dude’s got moves.
As for Freddy, this is by far my favorite overall design, with him displaying more of a “witch” like look (complete with a hook nose and more evil looking contact lenses). He looks great, still rocking that gritty, creepy, lo-fi quality from the first movie and far from the slick, rubbery look that would soon take over. This is also probably my favorite performance by Englund as the character. He’s clearly becoming much more comfortable in Krueger’s burned up skin and that confidence shows with his personality rapidly developing right in front of us. He’s given much more memorable dialogue this time out too. This is one quotable movie.
A Nightmare on Elm St. 2 has only risen in my estimation over the years. To Hell with all of the “rules” that it breaks from the first one. It instantly carved its own identity into a legendary franchise and completely works as a standalone installment. It is a movie that I’ve grown up with and is never quite the same experience every time I watch it. It carries the distinction of being the horror movie that made me love horror movies.
And for that alone, Freddy’s Revenge is butter knife glove down, my favorite Nightmare of them all.
