A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

Dec 4, 2017 7:22:19 GMT kingkoopa said:

I liked it. Interpreted it as being sort of a coming-out allegory upon seeing it for the second time...way back when. This never bothered me at all or felt too forced for the most part (maybe the infamous dance scene...maybe just a little more subtle on the choreography). For me it did a great job of building on the age-old struggle of finding yourself in your teenage years.  The possession aspect was well-handled and fit what (I thought) the story was trying to tell.

Freddy looked great at times. He was horrifying in the pool party.  Incidentally, pool parties are nightmare scenarios for teens who are lacking confidence.  Plus you get Freddy (fire's his identity) around water.  Is Jesse 'fire' or 'water?'  This movie grew on me...I think it's really pretty smart at its roots.

Part 2 was going to be hard to make any way you look at it. Freddy didn't have "rules" yet (like are more consistent in the later sequels).  So they were flying a little blinder than would appear in hindsight.  A lot of fans of the series don't rank this one too high, but I think it's better than it is said to be.

While Freddy might look scary in parts, the film just isn't that scary overall, but it is a bit creepy. That of course is highlighted with Coach Schneider's character, but creepy in a different way. It does have oodles of that 80's horror movie atmosphere though and it was even an original attempt at blending horror, slasher and teen angst sexuality\confusion drama into the mix. What does work in it, works quite well. The thing is, it wasn't exactly better than the sum of it's part.

If they had a better actress for a leading lady, a reshot sequence when Lisa takes Jesse to the steelworks for the first time, that doesn't make her look so pathetic at the cute rat in the metal cabinet, a climax that contained a few more nightmarish horror elements—Lisa seeing the dogs with human faces, and the illusionary bite injury on her leg with insets crawling on it weren't enough—and perhaps a bit more of a bold attempt to bring to the fore Jesse's sexuality, it might have made more of an impact on audiences. If Jesse had admitted to Grady that he was gay and Grady gives him an adverse reaction before he turns into Freddy and then kills him, that would have been so much more potent. I can't see someone like Grady being accepting and cool with it, he was too much of a jerk. Or lets be even more brazen, and have Grady come out to Jesse too and they sleep together and then Jesse wakes up and turns into Freddy and kills him. It would have made Freddy even more madder, because he wanted Jesse to be in conflict with himself and not succumb. That is how he feeds of fear and anxiety.  That would have been way too shocking for the simpleminded herd at the time, perhaps even today.  

One flatmate of mine years ago, commented he didn't like it because it was kind of gay. Well yeah! That was the point.