Halloween Marathon: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

Moving right along with the next movie in this year’s highlight Halloween series, I’m going to take a look at A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.  I’m a little lukewarm with the first of the series but let’s stay optimistic for the second one.  What could they do with Freddy Kreuger? A very nice concept for a villain and slasher flick character but somehow still lacks the scares I’m looking for because of the campy aspect.

Let’s go!

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

Director: Jack Sholder

Cast: Robert Englund, Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange

A teenage boy is haunted in his dreams by Freddy Krueger who is out to possess him to continue his murdering in the real world.-IMDB

It took me two times to get through A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2.  I don’t know if its because I’ve been incredibly tired due to all the wedding planning or not but its been a little nuts to say the least when I planned this in advance.  Whatever the reason is, the second time I still dozed off for a little portion but I’ve realized that its the pacing of this movie that doesn’t work so well for me.  Freddy’s Revenge lacks something that the first one had that kept we watching.  I’m not sure if its the cast or the characters or just the story isn’t compelling enough.  Maybe its just so predictable.  Funny part is, in all the campy glory it carries, I appreciated that the most in this one because everything else wasn’t able to keep me into the movie long enough.  Let’s just say, by the middle part, I couldn’t help but want to fall asleep when I shouldn’t want to especially because of what Freddy Kreuger’s character is all about.

The initial feeling of Freddy’s Revenge is that its weird.  The main character Jesse, played by Mark Patton feels particularly incoherent right from the first scene.  He seems like a guy that isn’t quite a loner but in the first sequences he is portrayed that way.  His dad is on his back about moving to the new house and then he gets tempted into killing for Freddy Kreuger eventually.  Except it doesn’t make sense because he sees a strange man next to fire and pulling out hands with claws or something and he doesn’t even question it.  Something about how the characters react probably had to do with how I didn’t feel very intrigued.  It can’t be because they already think they are in a dream.  On that note, the dream world and real world sequence is very much meshed together here.  Maybe I’m confused since I did doze off but it seemed like a lot of times, it was confusing to follow what was going on.

Its funny to say that even Freddy Kreuger didn’t have the effect I wanted him to have.  I don’t like to compare to other series but while Halloween and Friday the 13th had its low moments, their slasher villains, be it Michael Myers or Jason, they still shone with who they were supposed to be.  Freddy in this one seemed to lose the meaning of why we feared him because of a flawed story.

Although not much of a boost, the character I did like the best was Lisa (Kim Myers) who played the girl that the main character Jesse liked.  She was pretty fun and had a lot more to offer in terms of thrills than anyone else.  Her character was one I wanted to make it through all this.  She was smart and made up for a lot of the lacking aspects in this story.

With that said, more negatives than positives in this one, I’m going to end this little write up and keep going with the series.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that its going to be better than this one.

What did you think of Part 2 of A Nightmare on Elm Street?