Nightmare 2 - Die Rache

The first of the Elm Street sequels is a bit different than the other films of the series, but it's not nearly as bad as some critics say.

Young man (whose family has moved into the Elm Street house) is terrorized by chuckling Freddy, who wants to use him to do his dirty work.

'Elm Street 2 is a fairly entertaining sequel directed by B movie maker Jack Sholder. The movie's possession theme is solidly played out with some tight direction. Sholder gives this movie some well-done moments of shock and dark humor. The opening sequence on the bus is a memorable thrill ride. The film boasts some bloody FX. Charles Bernstein's theme music is missed, but Bing Crosby's song 'Did You Ever See A Dream' makes for a nice touch. Many say that this movie has homosexual themes and granted star Mark Patton does spend much of the movie semi-naked, but the theme is a bit of a stretch.

Robert Englund makes a welcomed return as Freddy, while the rest of the cast does decent performances.

All around, a good sequel that hasn't really gotten critical justice.

Followed by the superior Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987).

*** out of ****

The opening scenes of this film are very promising. The title music has a very sinister, menacingly calm quality to it and there is an excellently nightmarish sequence in a school bus which is driven by Freddy.

But generally the film is a might-have-been. True, it has its moments, such as the discovery of Nancy's diary and the scene at the party, but things are pretty tame compared to the first film. Jesse is the new teenager living in Nancy's old house and haunted by nightmares, but apart from the opening sequence there are very few dreamlike effects. There are some nightmarish animals but they are too briefly seen and are in such total darkness that they're barely visible. The film is more of a cliched haunted house yarn than a story about nightmares. There are some interesting homosexual undertones but they are never really developed properly. There are also gaping plot-holes. After Freddy tears his way out of Jesse's body, the remains somehow return to life. The next time Freddy appears Jesse seems to be inside him. Can anyone work out what's going on?

What really lets this film down is its weak ending. Freddy and his boiler room suddenly burst into flames because Jesse's girlfriend tells him she loves him. Utterly feeble. Surely the script-writers could have come up with a better ending than this.

Not an unwatchable film by any means, but just not the sequel it should have been.

Now that Nightmare is up to seven or eight sequels, while Friday The 13th is up to ten (and counting), it must be hard to look back on the days when horror films tried to be vaguely original or even different. With all the Screams and I Know What Your Breasts Did Last Summers, making Freddy's Revenge in these "enlightened" days would be just about impossible.

But culture, and particularly youth culture, in the 1980s was considerably different, certainly far less conservative and anti-creative. In those days, The Cure were a big thing, and even the most basic of pop sludge was far more creative than what we have today. Not to mention that it was far easier to make dodgy films and get them released theatrically.

A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2 picks up five years after the original, although it was a rush-job filmed less than a year after said original was out of the theatre. The film company, at that time the independent startup known as New Line, saw a quick and easy meal ticket that only required them to convince Robert Englund to submerge himself in what looks like three tons of multi-coloured latex. So the idea of a decent script, decent actors, or decent photography, went right out the window.

Which is kind of sad, really, when you consider that this is the only Freddy film in which an original premise is used. You might want to skip the rest of this paragraph if you have yet to see it. In it, a young man (whose behaviour is consistent with repressed homosexuality, in one of those hilarious plot coincidences) has just moved into the house from which Nancy originally dealt with Freddy. With the help of the sort of girlfriend any other male (and even some females) of this age would want to climb atop of at every opportunity, our hero attempts to fight off Freddy (and his own gayness), which in turn creates some very interesting plot devices. The moment when our heroine is holding up a carving knife at Freddy, who gives her a graphic and terrifying demonstration of the fact that she'll kill her (confused) lover if she kills Freddy, could have been one of the most horrific moments in the entire series. I am not quite convinced that it isn't, given that the only other episode in the series that was vaugely adult after this point was Part 3.

Unfortunately, the actors hired for these roles cannot act their way out of a wet paper bag. The only cast member with acting skills that even compare to Robert Englund's would be Marshall Bell. I am convinced that his turn here as the (gay) gym teacher was what got him hired to be in Total Recall and StarShip Troopers. Mark Patton (no relation to the Mike Patton who leads Mr. Bungle or the Mike Patton who was an early cast member in You Can't Do That On Television) is terrible - his only talent, as such, is to scream like a seventy-year-old woman. The actors who play his family look as if they belong on a cheap knock-off of Family Ties. The best actor in the whole piece was the budgie, who seemed to decide he would rather explode than be in this idiotic film a second longer.

When all is said and done, Robert Louis Stevenson said it much better in The Frightening Tale Of Doctor Jekyll And Mister Hyde (although there are no shortage of adaptations to that work which suck more than this). Normally, I would give this effort a three out of ten, but it gets two bonus points because it is like no other episode in the Nightmare canon, and that is a damned good thing when you put it alongside episodes four through seven.

Freddy is back, but wants to use a teenager's body to kill for him. Why? Freddy is a killer in his own right, having his vengeance on the Elm Street parents who burnt him alive, so what does he have to gain by using a teenager's body?

The teenager in question is the nerdy, insecure Jesse (Mark Patton). This is probably why Freddy chose him as his vessel, because he is vulnerable and susceptible. Jesse also lives in the house on Elm Street Nancy used to live in. Freddy says he needs Jesse because Jesse has the body, and he - Freddy - has the brains. Jesse never kills anyone, though; it is always doing Freddy doing the killings, so I guess he uses Jesse to lure his victims. It still didn't entirely make sense why he needed a host, but it does allow for some excellent scenes in the form of make-up and prosthetics.

Jesse is seeing Lisa (Kim Myers - who, by the way, looks so much like Meryl Streep in this movie!). I found her a really nice character, who was caring and considerate. She is also a very strong character, who stands by Jesse.

This sequel might not be as good as the original, but it is a worthy entry in the series with some great kill scenes, a constant creepy atmosphere, excellent makeup, an awesome party scene, and a great performance once again from Robert England as Freddy. I also thought Mark Patton was really good portraying the troubled and confused Jesse. In general, this is a highly entertaining supernatural horror slasher.

When the Walsh's move to the Elm Street, the teenager Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) has a creepy nightmare with a burned man wearing a glove with blades called Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) that tells him that Jesse has the body and he has the brain. Jesse becomes close to Lisa Webber (Kim Myers), who also has a crush on him, and befriends his school mate Ron Grady (Robert Rusler), who tells him that his house had remained closed for five years since the former dweller Nancy Thompson that went to a mental institution after witnessing the death of her boyfriend on the other side of the street and her mother in the living room. Lisa finds the diary of Nancy hidden in a locker while Jesse is possessed by Freddy Krueger that uses him to kill his victims.

This sequel to the classic "A Nightmare on Elm Street" is underrated in IMDb. The story about possession is more romantic with the love of Lisa for Jesse, has plot holes but is also entertaining, with the use of great special effects. This movie is also the debut of Kim Myers, who has an impressive resemblance with Meryl Streep, in the cinema in a lead role. Again there is an open conclusion to give a sequel to the saga of Freddy Krueger. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Hora do Pesadelo 2 – A Vingança de Freddy " ("The Hour of the Nightmare 2 – The Revenge of Freddy")