A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge is perhaps the most reviled slasher sequel ever made, generally considered among horror fans to be a complete and utter abomination. The followup to Wes Craven’s 1984 classic has been criticized for its nonsensical plot and its departure from the rules established in the original, while the homoerotic subtext is also the subject of much derision. But while Jack Sholder’s film is certainly flawed, it’s far more interesting than it receives credit for, and it’s about time we give it a second chance.
Freddy’s Revenge should be commended for being a rare horror sequel that does not feature a storyline nearly identical to the original. Friday the 13th Part 2, for example, involves a new group of counselors coming to Camp Crystal Lake to be murdered just like before, except this time Jason is responsible for the slaughter. Freddy’s Revenge, on the other hand, does not exist merely to grow the villain’s body count. Hell, it’s barely even a slasher at all. While the last movie was about Freddy coming after the protagonist and her friends as she tries to figure out what’s going on, the sequel is instead about Freddy getting inside the lead character’s mind and driving him insane.
Indeed, the second film is more psychological, and Freddy doesn’t have a set of specific targets this time. The title is perplexing considering Freddy is not getting revenge on anyone. After all, none of these people had anything to do with his death. What appears to be happening is that Freddy has been weakened thanks to Nancy’s efforts five years ago, and so now his spirit has become attached to the Elm Street home itself. Presumably, this why the house is constantly scorching hot, with Freddy’s spirit taking the form of fire. For whatever reason, Freddy can seemingly only enter Jesse’s dreams and no one else’s. He needs to feed on fear in order to become whole again – an idea we will see revisted in Freddy vs. Jason – so the plan is to possess Jesse’s body, commit a series of murders, inspire terror in the townspeople, and use that terror to return to his old self.
It’s a wonky plot, and it gives Freddy powers that we don’t see him exert in any of the other Nightmare movies, such as the ability to kill in the real world. But it works if we accept the premise that Freddy is growing stronger thanks to his plan with Jesse paying off. It’s not that the filmmakers simply threw the rules out the window; it’s that now, Freddy has gained a new ability by inhabiting a person’s body rather than just their dreams. His actions are bizarre in the context of the entire franchise, but when we consider that in 1985, this was only the second Nightmare film to exist, it’s not as out of place.
Besides, even if it’s sort of dumb, wouldn’t we rather see Sholder do something a bit different with Freddy rather than the same old schtick? This is arguably the only Nightmare sequel to bring something completely unique to the table, even if many feel it began to take the series in the wrong direction.
References to the events of the original are few and far between. Lisa discovers Nancy’s diary, and knowledge about Freddy is gained from that, but otherwise, Freddy’s Revenge is pretty much a brand new story. Even the soundtrack stands out; in place of the typical piano medley, we have an eerie score from Christopher Young that makes use of whale songs to create a dreamlike atmosphere. As great as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors is, it would have been cool to see a Freddy franchise where all of the sequels are as disparate as these first two are. It’s as if Freddy’s Revenge is Halloween III: Season of the Witch all over again. Both are considered the series’ black sheep, and in both cases, straying too far from the opening installment did not work out too well.
Freddy’s Revenge’s originality also extends to its handling of dream sequences. A Nightmare on Elm Street is sort of an ensemble piece for the first half, and we spend time inside the heads of characters other than Nancy. But here, it’s Jesse and Jesse alone the whole time, allowing us to empathize with this young man who is going increasingly crazy. We are presented with his warped perspective of reality and are never quite sure if what we’re watching is a dream. There’s a great moment playing off this where Jesse falls asleep in class, and this clearly mimics the scene in the original where Nancy dozes off at her desk. The camera pans into Jesse’s face and the music grows sinister as we wait for Freddy to pop up. Suddenly, a snake appears out of nowhere and begins crawling all over Jesse, but in an unexpected twist, it’s revealed that he wasn’t sleeping, and all of this genuinely happened.
This kind of fakeout keeps occurring as the story progresses, and the line between reality and the dream world is even blurrier than in Craven’s film. By the end, it’s still not 100% clear what was imagined and what wasn’t.
While Nancy had trouble finding anyone who understood her, here we have a character, Lisa, who believes our lead and isn’t a complete idiot like Johnny Depp’s Glen. Lisa is instrumental in helping Jesse get through his dilemma, especially during the Freddy transformation scene, in which she pleads for her boyfriend to fight and not give in. At the end, to our surprise, she’s actually the hero! How many slashers have we seen where the climax involves a helpless guy being saved by a brave young woman? Not a lot.
Though Freddy’s Revenge doesn’t boast as many kills as the other sequels, the gore that is present is some of the series’ best. The highlight has got to be when Freddy begins taking over Jesse’s body; blades grow out of his fingers, his skin bursts open to reveal Freddy’s sweater, an eye moves around in Jesse’s throat, and in a gross-out effect on par with Alien, Freddy bursts right out of Jesse’s stomach. The mold of Jesse’s body falls away as Freddy rises up, now reborn. This is one of the nastiest and most effective sequences in the Nightmare franchise, and it alone justifies the movie’s existence. That’s not all, though: there’s also Freddy peeling off his skin to reveal his brain, Jesse sprouting a demon tongue, and dogs with human faces that only show up for a few seconds but are impossible to erase from memory.
This version of Freddy is fantastic all around. We’re in this nice middle ground here where he is slightly more amusing than in the original, and he talks more often, but he’s still scary as hell, not yet cracking jokes and losing his edge. He’s particularly haunting in the initial nightmare. Freddy appears as Jesse’s bus driver, taking the kids into the middle of the desert. The sand below them sinks away and the bus rocks back and forth upon a pillar of rocks, its interior filling with smoke as Freddy menacingly strolls down the aisle, knowing full well his victims have no hope of escaping. He’s got them right where he wants them. With all the weird physics, the scene perfectly captures the outlandish logic of a dream, as well as that sense of helplessness we get as that monster is chasing us and we realize we’ll never get away. At the same time, Freddy has a few moments of levity like with his “help yourself” quip during the pool party. This is the incarnation of the character that should have continued for the remainder of the franchise.
The film has a lot of intriguing subtext, more than we would anticipate from a slasher sequel produced mainly to cash in on the success of the original. The most famous interpretation of the plot is that it’s about a young man’s struggle with homosexuality: Jesse trying to keep Freddy from getting out represents his repression of his sexual identity. Note that later on, he’s unable to have sex with his girlfriend because of this thing inside him, and afterwards, he immediately goes to see his male friend, who jokes about them sleeping together. Jesse’s embarrassing dance and the leather bar detour don’t help dissuade viewers from reading the movie this way.
The undertones are definitely there, even if Jesse isn’t meant to be taken as actually being gay. The film could just as easily be read as a metaphor for drug addiction. All throughout, Jesse experiences hallucinations, he’s constantly sweating, he grows more and more paranoid, and he does things while “high” on Freddy’s power that he would not normally do. This thing inside him is negatively affecting all of his personal relationships, but he has a very hard time banishing it from his system. Jesse’s parents even become convinced he’s on drugs, although to be fair, that’s kind of a requirement for every parent in an ‘80s movie. But really, in what other slasher sequel can the audience leave with multiple interpretations of the plot and its subtext?
The ending is a bit of a letdown: Freddy is defeated by the power of love, only to return in the final scene for no explained reason. So yes, it’s clear that Freddy’s Revenge has plenty of issues, not the least of which is the fact that the antagonist’s powers and motivations are muddled. We can extrapolate and form theories, but the text itself should offer more in the way of an explanation. And even if Freddy entering the real world doesn’t betray the series’ logic, it’s just not quite as scary to see him out in the open rather than hidden behind shadows.
But viewers who skip from part one to part three, as is a common recommendation, are missing out on one of the few slashers out there that shakes up the formula, and which offers spectacular dream sequences, impressive gore, and a phenomenal depiction of Freddy to boot. In spite of its faults, the movie should not be shunned from the Nightmare canon like a racist uncle who isn’t invited to Thanksgiving dinner. Freddy’s Revenge deserves a place at the table.
