A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge is now 35 years old. Directed by Jack Sholder and written by David Chaskin, the sequel is the first to bring back Freddy Krueger for what would become a long line of sequels. Everyone has their personal favorites, and although Freddy’s Revenge has gotten more love in recent years, it had served as a black sheep of the franchise for decades. For me, however, the second Elm Street film.
For the sake of full disclosure — Freddy’s Revenge is the first horror film I’ve ever seen, so I do carry some heavy nostalgia for the classic sequel. I’m not sure how a VHS copy of the film wound up in my possession at such a young age, but when I first watched that movie, I was hooked on the horror genre. This was the film that first gave me my love for horror and it will always have that special place in my heart for it.
With that being said, there are many films I used to love as a kid that really haven’t aged very well. When I revisit Freddy’s Revenge decades later, I don’t get that same vibe. With its excellent practical FX, classic quotes, memorable possession scenes, and some highly-amusing moments, I find the second Elm Street film to still be tons of fun to watch. Maybe the sequel doesn’t quite scare me as much as it did when I saw it as a kid in the early ’90s — but I still consider Freddy’s Revenge to be highly entertaining.
Freddy’s Revenge is set five years after the events of the original movie, with the Walsh family now residing at 1428 Elm Street. This time, Freddy has targeted the family’s teenage son, Jesse (Mark Patton), apparently terrorizing the boy in his sleep every night. I can’t tell you how much I absolutely love the film’s opening scene, set in one of Jesse’s nightmares. Revealing himself to be Jesse’s bus driver, Freddy Krueger drives the school bus off-road, suspending it high atop a cliff as the clawed killer slowly makes his way towards the students at the back of the bus. It makes for one of my favorite camera shots in all of horror history.
Oddly, one of the creepiest moments of the film comes fairly early on, though it seems to often get overlooked. After Jesse awakens from his nightmare that served as the opening scene, his younger sister finds clawed fingers in her cereal box. When she puts them over her own fingers, it reminds Jesse of the man he saw in his dreams. It’s a fairly innocuous moment, and yet there’s something about it that just feels so unsettling, perhaps because it’s using the innocence of a small child to tease the bloodshed that’s soon to come.
Freddy’s look in Freddy’s Revenge should also be commended. Headed by Kevin Yagher and Mark Shostrom, the makeup is phenomenal in the sequel, featuring the freakiest-looking Freddy from the entire franchise. Appearing as if he just arrived straight from Hell, he looks downright evil, made all the more horrifying by Englund’s spot-on portrayal. It definitely haunted some of my own dreams after first seeing Freddy exposing his brain to a terrified Jesse, uttering the classic quote, “You’ve got the body. I’ve got the brain.”
As the nightmares increase, Jesse’s girlfriend Lisa (Kim Myers) tries to help him make sense of it. They find Nancy Thompson’s diary detailing her strange nightmares, observing the similarities to what Jesse’s been experiencing. Things go from bad to worse when Jesse is forced to run laps by Coach Schneider (Marshall Bell) after hours. With Freddy seemingly taking control of Jesse’s body, the killer murders the coach in the showers, and that’s when Jesse realizes just how serious the situation has become.
Knowing that he’s dangerous, Jesse retreats to the home of his friend Grady (Robert Rusler), explaining the situation with Coach Schneider. Jesse demands that Grady watch him as he sleeps to prevent him from harming anyone else. Unfortunately for Grady, Freddy finds a way to break through to the real world once again through Jesse’s dreams, emerging from the teenage boy’s body to slaughter Grady.
Lisa surmises that Freddy grows stronger the more Jesse fears him. It’s through his fear that the dream demon can take full control, going so far as to carry out a massacre upon many teenagers at Lisa’s pool party. In what is certainly one of the most memorable moments from the franchise, Freddy stands above a large group of frightened partygoers, spouting the classic line, “You are all my children now.”
When it seems as if Freddy has finally taken complete control of Jesse’s body, Lisa seems to break the hold by confessing her love for Jesse. Freddy seems to be vanquished in that moment, similar to Nancy turning his back on him in the first film. However, also like with the original, it turns out that Freddy has not been defeated at all, reemerging in the end to once again take control of Jesse’s school bus. It looks like Freddy is back in action in the dream world just as the closing credits begin to roll, presumably killing Jesse in this dream rather than going through the whole song-and-dance routine again to try and take control of his body.
Freddy’s Revenge has been criticized for “breaking the rules” established by the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. That is, Freddy was only able to attack teenagers in their dreams in the first movie, while the pool party massacre has him dicing them up when they’re awake. I’ve never really subscribed to this complaint, as we’re dealing with a fictional dream demon with supernatural powers. For me, it’s never been a stretch to imagine that there were other ways for a resurrected demon like Freddy to make his way to the “real world,” with possession serving as another one of those routes. Because this way was much more difficult, Freddy may have merely gone back to the “dream world” strategy — where his abilities were stronger — starting with the next installment.
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Perhaps I was too young to understand the “homoerotic subtext” in the film, so these things never made a difference to me one way or another. However, it is something that is explained at length in the fantastic documentary Scream, Queen!: My Nightmare on Elm Street, which is now streaming on Shudder. I highly recommend checking it out if you want to learn more about the film and the effect it had on Mark Patton and his career.
In any case, Freddy’s Revenge remains one of the most enjoyable installments of the Elm Street franchise for me. Jesse’s iconic dance scene alone makes the sequel worth revisiting, though I find the film to be very entertaining from beginning to end. It may have taken some time, but it’s wonderful to see Freddy’s Revenge getting more love in recent years. Happy 35th anniversary to a true cult classic!
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