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

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.

Director:

Jack Sholder

Writers:

David Chaskin, Wes Craven (characters)

Stars:

Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mark Patton	...	Jesse Walsh
Kim Myers	...	Lisa Webber
Robert Rusler	...	Ron Grady
Clu Gulager	...	Ken Walsh
Hope Lange	...	Cheryl Walsh
Marshall Bell	...	Coach Schneider
Melinda O. Fee	...	Mrs. Webber
Tom McFadden	...	Mr. Webber (as Thom McFadden)
Sydney Walsh	...	Kerry
Robert Englund	...	Freddy Krueger
Edward Blackoff	...	Biology Teacher
Christie Clark	...	Angela Walsh
Lyman Ward	...	Mr. Grady
Donna Bruce	...	Mrs. Grady
Hart Sprager	...	Teacher

Storyline

A new family moves into the house on Elm Street, and before long, the kids are again having nightmares about deceased child murderer Freddy Krueger. This time, Freddy attempts to possess a teenage boy to cause havoc in the real world, and can only be overcome if the boy's sweetheart can master her fear.

---

Plot Keywords:

elm street | teenage boy | nightmare | freddy krueger | neighbor | 

---

Taglines:

The first name in terror returns...

---

Genres:

Horror

---

Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 November 1985 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2

Filming Locations:

Charles Evans Hughes Jr. High School - 5607 Capistrano, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$2,200,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$30,000,000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

New Line Cinema, Heron Communications, Smart Egg Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The eye in Jesse's throat was Kevin Yagher's girlfriend's eye.

---

Goofs

When the first basketball launches at the coach after the rack has moved round, it is orange. When it strikes the coach on the head it is white, and then when it hits the ground it is orange but a different ball from the first ball that was launched.

---

Quotes

Do-Gooder: Just tell me what you want, all right? I'm here to help you.
Freddy Krueger: Help yourself, fucker!

---

Connections

Referenced in Entrei em Pânico ao Saber o que Vocês Fizeram na Sexta-feira 13 do Verão Passado Parte 2 - A Hora da Volta da Vingança dos Jogos Mortais de Halloween (2011)

---

Soundtracks

"Did You Ever See A Dream Walking?"
Performed by Bing Crosby
Courtesy of CBS Records
(Song plays during end credits)

User Reviews

At least it had the guts to be a bit different...

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.