| Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, A Released: 1985 MPAA Rating: R Genre: Slasher Nuts and Bolts: Nightmare man Fred Krueger is back and this time he wants to take control of the body of young Jesse Walsh. As murders begin cropping up in Springwood, Jesse begins to question his own sanity. Is Freddy Krueger committing the murders, or is Jesse himself committing them? Summary: It is five years after the first Nightmare and the Walsh family moves in to 1428 Elm Street, the house once owned by the Thompson family. The air conditioning doesn’t work and the agonizing heat plays havoc with teenaged Jesse Walsh’s dreams. His first night in Nancy Thompson’s old bedroom, Jesse has a nightmare in which his school bus is hijacked by a hideously deformed madman wearing a red and green sweater with a set of razor claws. The following day he gives his potential girlfriend Lisa Webber a ride to school. During gym class, Jesse gets into a fight with the local jock Grady. The two aren’t really enemies however, and they spend a lot of time bonding as Coach Schneider puts them through their paces. We also meet Lisa’s best friend Kerry, who constantly inquires whether or not Lisa is fucking Jesse. Before long, Jesse and Lisa find the diary of Nancy Thompson. Its contents describe not only her relationship with Glen Lantz, but it goes into detail concerning her dreams of Freddy Krueger. That night, Jesse begins having even more intense nightmares. Krueger addresses him and declares that he needs Jesse to become his extension to the outside world. He hoarsely whispers in Jesse’s ear, “Kill for me.” In the days to come, Jesse’s behavior becomes more erratic and he cannot shirk the influence of Krueger’s persona from his person. On one particular evening he goes down the Springwood High gymnasium to vent his frustrations on Coach Schneider. Unwittingly tapping into the powers of Freddy Krueger, Jesse assaults Schneider with a barrage of sporting equipment. He then straps Schneider’s naked ass to the shower wall and begins popping his butt with a wet towel. (????) Finally Freddy’s claws rake down Schneider’s back finishing him off. Jesse is found wandering the streets naked and the police take him home to his parents. Papa Ken instantly thinks that his son is on drugs. The following day, Lisa takes Jesse down to the boiler room of the power plant where Freddy used to work. It is her belief that Jesse might pick up some kind of psychometric reading from the place. This fails however and the two return home. More bizarre things begin occurring in the Walsh home that no one can explain. The air conditioning continues to fail, parakeets explode and an unplugged toaster catches fire. Freddy exorcises his influence over Jesse once again, and it takes all of the young man’s resolve to keep from murdering his sleeping sister inside of her own bed. Now it comes time for Linda’s big pool party. The Webbers have a large back yard and many kids from Springwood High come over for water games and hot dogs. The Webbers finally decide to go to bed leaving Lisa in charge of the party. Lisa tries to calm Jesse down and the two begin to make love. Jesse freaks out when he notices his tongue turn into a long black Freddy tongue that begins licking at Lisa’s cleavage. This completely freaks him the fuck out. Leaving the party early, he seeks out his pseudo-pal, Grady. He begs Grady to let him stay over his house and asks him to wake him up if he starts to act strange. Grady reluctantly agrees and Jesse falls asleep. Grady however had no intention of staying awake and only said as much to humor Jesse. In Grady’s dream Freddy appears inside of the bedroom. The door is locked and Grady is trapped. Jesse is nowhere to be found. Freddy pins him to the bedroom door and impales all four of his claws through Grady’s chest. Jesse wakes up to find Grady dead. He breaks out of the house to race back to Lisa’s. Jesse is covered in blood and he explains to Lisa that he is responsible for the deaths of Schneider and Grady. With so many young little piggies floating around, Freddy takes complete control of Jesse’s body. Freddy bursts into the back yard and begins hacking away at the revelers. He brings the water in the pool to a boil forcing the teens out of the water. Everyone is running rampant in an attempt to escape. Mister Webber comes downstairs with a shotgun, but this proves ineffective against Krueger. Happy with the carnage he is wreaking, Freddy leaves the scene. Lisa knows where he’s going however. She tracks Freddy down to his old boiler room and from there uses her love for Jesse to coax Freddy’s influence out of the boy. Jesse’s persona dominates Krueger’s body and he literally rips his way out from under Freddy’s skin. Freddy’s remains dissolve into muck and Jesse is now free of his control. That Lisa sure is one special kinda gal. Acting/Dialogue: Mark Patton does a really solid job as Jesse Walsh. Despite his effeminate qualities, he does is extremely effective at portraying raw terror. Robert Englund probably does his best version of Freddy Krueger in this film. He’s probably creepier and more menacing in this installment than he is in any of the other films combined. The rest of the cast does an adequate job. Robert Rusler plays his usual obnoxious jock character to a T. Kim (Lisa) Myers’ acting needs a bit of work here, but she’s pretty easy on the eyes so I’ll forgive her. Gore: The Gore is pretty effective here. Used sparingly, there’s enough of it going to inspire just the right amounts of intensity but there’s not so much that it distracts from the rest of the film. Freddy is burnt and charred to just the right consistency and we also have some gooey moments where he comes ripping out of Jesse’s body (And visa versa). There’s also a really great scene where Freddy pulls his skullcap back revealing his brain. Guilty Pleasures: Nothing really here for the guys, but the ladies might take delight in seeing three different male asses (One of which is reddened by the wet end of a towel). On the non T&A side of guilty pleasures, there’s one particular death scene, which I love. When Freddy attacks the kids at the pool party, a large throng of them begin to climb over the fence to escape. One of the slower kids falls down and rather than helping him, the other teens just use his body as a stepping stool to get away. One of them steps down on the poor prick’s neck snapping it like a twig. In the immortal words of Eric Cartman, “That’s Hella-Cool!” The Good: This is a fairly forgettable film, which is a shame because there is a lot of good stuff in here. A whole new dynamic to the Freddy mythos is explored and for better or worse, it DOES succeed in generating some genuine creeps. I’ve always liked stories where a character has to fight for control of his own sanity. But in this one, Jesse has to fight for control of his whole freaking body! This is the last time that we are treated to the ‘scary’ Freddy. His voice is deep and full of venom. Every word he delivers is brimming with icy hate. This is Freddy just the way we like him. Tough as balls and he ain’t fucking around. A really vivid scene involves Freddy at the pool party. One of the slick-dick teens decides to play guidance counselor to Krueger and Krueger just stands there and lets him finish speaking. Leaning back he takes in all of the teen’s words before silently running him through. No impish antics and no corny one-liners here. Freddy looks powerful and cunning. Director Jack Sholder does a good job at keeping our attention. Everything is paced fairly well, and even though there’s not a very high body count, the suspense is maintained throughout. There are a lot of foreshadowing elements especially when we see Jesse emerging from the steam wearing Freddy’s glove. There are also some other eerie points where he begins to speak in Freddy’s voice. The Bad: The largest detraction from this film is that it moves away from what we have come to accept as canonical dogma in regards to the Krueger mythos. In this, he doesn’t really torment his victims by way of dreams; but rather, he chooses to incarnate himself upon the physical plane by taking control of the body of Jesse Walsh. Through Jesse, victims are chosen at random and they really don’t feed into the back-story behind Krueger’s initial motivations (That of avenging his own death by killing the children of those who murdered him). In a really disjointed sequence, we see the death of Coach Schneider. This whole scene plays havoc with thematic continuity as it shifts the point of view from that of the dreamer to that of the victim. The very-much-awake Coach Schneider is attacked within his office by flying pieces of sporting equipment. Neither Jesse nor Freddy are present during either of this. Then he moves on to the shower where his clothes are stripped off and he is whipped across the ass with a wet towel. I’m sorry, but that’s just a little too cheesy for Freddy I think. (At least at this stage of the game) It is only during the last part of his overall torment that we see Jesse appear. The Walsh family are a bunch of fucking goobers. Mom and Pop are like something straight out of an episode of Leave it to Beaver. The sister is your typical annoying brat and we are disheartened to learn that she actually lives through all of this. I can appreciate moments of levity in a film, but the father is just way too over the top. Clu Galagher really hams up the role of the All-American father. For reasons that I can’t explain, director Jack Sholder seems to go out of his way to make us question the sexuality of Jesse Walsh. His gestures and mannerisms are extremely effeminate and he is constantly found emitting these ear-piercing shrieks that sound like an eight-year-old girl that just had a broken broom handle shoved up her dress. We are made to endure this embarrassingly painful sequence where Jesse is prancing around his room shaking his ass and snapping his fingers while he puts his clothes away. Then there’s the homoerotic innuendo found in the Coach Schneider death scene. Since the character of Jesse is obviously meant to be involved with Lisa Webber, I’m curious as to why the director decided to make so many overt allusions to possible homosexual tendencies. I don’t think I’m really looking all-that deep into this either. I’m just wondering what Sholder was aiming for. Lastly, I really really HATE these power-of-love endings. Lisa does a lip-lock with Freddy in the hopes of sparking Jesse’s love for her. Blechh! Keep that shit for the Meg Ryan flicks. Besides, the director already clued us to the fact that Jesse isn’t really in to chicks anyway. Freddy’s Revenge is largely ignored by the rest of its surrounding films, but it succeed in being a fun flick with a halfway decent creep factor. It’ll never crest anyone’s Top-10 list, but it’s certainly worthy of multiple viewings. Great Lines: “Why can’t Jesse wake up like everybody else?” --Angela Walsh after hearing Jesse waking up with a blood-curdling shriek. “Grady, do you remember your dreams?” “Only the wet ones.” --Jesse talking to Grady on the high school track field. “Kill for me.” --Freddy commanding Jesse. “Hello dirt bags.” --Coach Schneider “You’ve got the body. And I’ve got the brains.” --Freddy’s first confrontation with Jesse. “You are all my children now.” --Freddy posturing at Lisa’s pool party. Overall Rating: 6 out of 10 severed heads. |
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