Five years have
passed since Freddy Krueger was sent howling back to hell. But now, a new
kid on Elm Street is being haunted every night by gruesome visions of the
deadly dream stalker. And if his twisted soul takes possession of the boy's
body, Freddy will return from the dead to wreak bloody murder and mayhem
upon the entire town!
Nightmare
2 is often regarded as one of the weaker entries in the series, and
it's easy to see why. It's the most different of the Nightmare films,
with more emotional baggage than fans prefer, but the effort should be
applauded.
For one, the film is very stylish, the atmospherics owing a lot to Dario
Argento's work and a host of other modern horror films. The colors are
rich and expressionistitc, most notably Freddy's boilerroom in the climax.
Composer Christopher Young's score is a serious contribution and helps
to lift the film beyond the usual stalk-and-slash cliches. His later Hellraiser scores would raise the stock of those films immensely.
Freddy's
Revenge is not too original a title, but it's accurate as we pick up
five years after the original Nightmare. Sombody has finally moved
into the original Nightmare house, and soon teenager Jesse is having
Freddy Krueger nightmares and waking up with night terrors. He finds Nancy's
diary from the original (left behind by a dim real estate agent) and he
slowly learns the Freddy story. This time Freddy needs a human body to
do his killing out in the real world (though it's never explained why).
Horror movie sequels (particularly from the 1980s-onward) usually take
elements of well-known films and weave a story around the main attraction
(Freddy, Jason, Michael Meyers, Pinhead) since their duty is to satisfy
the fans. But like many films of its time Nightmare 2 is saved by
atmospherics. There's also a little bit more going on here than in most Nightmare films in terms of thematic content, including a creepy homoerotic element
to the proceedings that is not appealing per se, but does indicate that
the writers were already trying to do something different with the character.
The lead actor is bit too intense, like he's on some serious Method technique,
but who can fault anyone for trying? As for Freddy, he's creepy for sure,
and he continues his cheap 'boo' scares--jumping out of dark corners, appearing
in front of people running away from him, etc. Also, Freddy's ability to
exit dreamland and enter reality seems to hinge mostly on plot convenience
so that there's usually little point in thinking about it too much.
By the end Nightmare 2 resembles an updated old-fashioned horror
film where love conquers all, hence the disdain series fans look at this
movie with. It's understandable, but I found Nightmare 2 a welcome
change that would not have been possible later in the series when Freddy
became a wise-cracking parody of himself. Credit to the makeup and effects
crew here as well; Freddy looks downright nasty, and his brain-exposure
bit ('You've got the body', etc.) is very well done. Also, the film makes
liberal use of the 'It's only a dream' device so that we don't know when
Jesse is dreaming and when he's going nuts. They're making some kind of
statement here on homo-eroticism, including the S&M gym teacher (!)
that most viewers would rather not think about, and for good reason. Oddly
enough though, it also gives Freddy some kind of social angle. In the end,
there isn't a lot of followthrough, however, the filmmakers need to satisfy
genre addicts while at the same time trying to keep things fresh.
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- Special-effects
man Rick Lazzarini created a "demonic parakeet" puppet for the scene in
which the Walsh's pet parakeet flies around and explodes. His puppet was
not used because they wanted a regular-looking bird.
- Brad Pitt, John Stamos and Christian Slater all auditioned for the role of Jesse.
- This is the only film in the series not to use Charles Bernstein's original theme, or a variation of it.
- The
original glove from A Nightmare on Elm Street was stolen during filming.
- The
song "Touch Me", which is being played in Jesse's room is an early, and
slightly different version, of Kathy Dennis' top 40 hit from the late 1990's.
- Joann Willete is one of the girls seated in the back of the school bus driven by Freddy at the beginning of the film. She would later go on to star in the ABC sitcom “Just the Ten of Us”, a program which not only featured numerous references to the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise, but also co-starred Heather Langenkamp and Brooke Theiss.
- In the opening sequence, the bus driver is Robert Englund without the heavy "Fred Krueger" make-up and his signature clothing.
- Nightmare series creator Wes Craven refused to work on this film because he never wanted or intended “A Nightmare on Elm Street” 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.
- Producer Robert Shaye has a cameo as the S&M bartender.
- Has the highest body count out of the entire "Nightmare on Elm Street" series.
- When
"Freddy's Revenge" was released in 1985 there was many articles
printed in gay magazines saying that, "Freddy's Revenge is the premiere
homo-erotic film of the year."
- Kevin
Yagher, (the films special effects artist) concentrated on making Freddy
look more witch like for Freddy's Revenge.
     
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