"Do you remember in the diary... when Nancy said she kept finding herself in a boiler room? Fred Krueger worked here. It's an old power plant."
With "A Nightmare on Elm Street," Wes Craven gave us what has to be one of the creepiest movies, and one of the most iconic characters, and movies of all time. With "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge," this legendary series continues. However, this was not one of the better installments of the series. While I enjoyed it, I can't help but feel the loss of that creepy and eerie feeling that "A Nightmare on Elm Street" had. This could be for many reasons, but I think the main reason for me, was the way the went with the story. While I love the fact that they came up with a brand new twist, that utilizes the storyline of Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street," and gave it a nice twist, it just felt different. That's not the main concern, though. What I wanted to know, is how the storyline worked. How did Freddy's powers work when he was in the real world. Freddy isn't supposed to have power in the real world. And if this was true for this movie, then the fact would remain that it was a dream, but if it was a DREAM, how the hell did everyone at that pool party experience the nightmare of Freddy? I get that the movie is supposed to fuck with your mind in this manner, but some of these things just didn't add up, and it kind of bugged me. That's not to say, however, that this wasn't a fun movie because it was. It gives us some new psychological scares to keep us occupied, and it does a great job of creating a way for Freddy to, as the title claims, get his revenge. I like the fact that Robert Englund has returned for this sequel, too. Since Wes Craven took Slashers to a new step, and decided to introduce one that could talk, and one that didn't wear a mask, it's a little more delicate a situation to have to handle. It's not like Jason Voorhees where you could get any giant dude to wear a hockey mask and stalk around after children in camp. Freddy Krueger has to look the same and sound the same in all of his sequels, and since it's a slasher series, then he's definitely going to be there for a long time. Overall, "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge" is an interesting and fun introduction into the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series.
Jack Sholder takes the directorial reigns from Wes Craven, and manages to create a really fun sequel to one of the most creepy films of all time. Sholder has directed other films, too, like "Arachnid" and "Beeper." Since I've never seen either of these movies, I'll be reviewing the movie as I saw the movie, and not compared to anything else that he's done. Sholder manages to add his own blend of horrific angles for the kills in this movie. One in particular that I thought was pretty awesome, was the opening sequence in the blood. The way it looked while the bus was teetering on the edge of a neverending abyss was incredibly awesome. Sholder also manages to give us some interesting looking filters for different scenes. One incredibly awesome visual was during the same opening sequence. It's a desert like place with lightning cracking the sky, and the overall visual is just awesome to watch. These angular and filtrated visuals really offer up some awesome and interesting kills, while at the same time adding an eeriness to it that is quite different from Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street," which is not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, its' a very fun film. David Chaskin writes for this movie. Chaskin is known for his hand in the writing of a few other, lesser known films. This was his first forray into writing, and for his first forray, I'd say he did an excellent job at creating a story. The only problem was with his design for Freddy's return into the realm of dreams and Elm Street. But like I said before, it raises some questions. What I liked most about the design of what Chaskin wrote, was that he used the same aspect of Freddy, even mentioning the characters Nancy, Glen, and Tina from the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street" movie. Chaskin just creates some errors that contradict what is supposed to be Freddy's limitations, and it raises some questions. He does direct some new and interesting characters for the series, though, to me his lead character was kind of annoying. Chaskin manages to create a feasible and fun entry into the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series, and make it fun, fresh, and new to watch as well.
The visuals of this movie are handled just as excellently as they were in the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street." One thing that you need to be able to count on with movies like "Halloween," "Friday the 13th," and "A Nightmare on Elm Street," are fun and interesting visuals. The kind of storyline that they have, especially with "A Nightmare on Elm Street," you need to have interesting visuals to keep the audience entangled. That's where this movie excels. First of all, I like how this movie continued what the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street" movie did with the point-of-view that they used to show Freddy. He was still sort of an enigma to the characters in it, and he was cast in shadow. It gave him a really creepy look. Speaking of look, Freddy is looking as creepy as ever. He's got his trademark burn scars all over his face, the freaky looking fedora, and his claws. However, his claws are different. He's not wearing his glove... The knives are coming out of his fingertips. Something relative to Lady Deathstryke from the "X-Men" franchise. I didn't really care for that, since the glove is so legendary among horror fans. Don't get me wrong. The glove IS still in the movie, it's just that Freddy doesn't wear it. That kind of made me feel jipped. Now, the blood for Freddy's kills in this looked incredibly real sometimes, but then other times, it looked rather fakey. It's sketchy, but for MOST of the movie, it's believable blood. The kills in this movie defintiely are as inventive as the kills in the first movie are, helping fans of the series, to this point at least, keep interested in the series. The one kill that really stuck out in the movie for me, was when Freddy used his dream powers to use the gym equipment to drag the gym teacher into the locker room, where he whipped him with a wet towel, and slashed his back open with his claw blades. It's an inventive kill, and it's very disturbing, but that's what makes "A Nightmare on Elm Street" so definitive, the amount that the kills are disturbing. The visuals of this movie definitely manage to make the movie as creepy as ever, which definitely goes on par with the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street" movie.
The storyline of this movie is one that was not done very well, but still manages to be an awesome one to keep the series going in force. What I didn't like, as I said, is the fact that it completely pisses on the fact that Freddy is not supposed to have any powers in the real world. This would mean that when he's using his powers over heat and to change things at the end of the movie, that everyone at the pool party was experiencing the same dream all at the same time, while dreaming everyone there at the party into their dreams. I'm not going to say that this is a completely impossible aspect of dreaming, but I will say that it is highly imPROBABLE, and for me it was too hard to swallow. Since I go with this fact, I'm going to say that somehow Freddy had his powers in reality. I don't like that. The one thing that I've always remembered about Freddy Krueger was that once he was brought out into the dreamworld. He was completely vulnerable to human death. Why then, would he be written to have these powers in reality? It just doesn't really make sense to me. What I did like about this story, though, was how Freddy was possessing the boy. It's an interesting concept, and since Freddy was defeated in the last movie, and made to be completely a figment of everyone's imagination, one of Freddy's weaknesses. This made for an interesting dilemma to put the movie's hero through. That's another thing that was interesting about this movie. In slasher movies to date, the hero of the story is almost always, if not ALWAYS, a woman. Case in point being Jamie Lee Curtis in "Halloween" as Laurie Strode, follwed by "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers" and "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers" with Danielle Harris as Jamie Lloyd. In "Friday the 13th" we have Alice, and in "Friday the 13th Part 2," we've got Ginny. In "A Nightmare on Elm Street" we had Nancy Thompson. However, here with "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge," our hero is a boy. It's nice to see them pitting a guy against the evil hero. It's so different than what everyone would expect from a slasher movie. In some ways, this movie was slightly disappointing, but in other ways this movie was done very well. All around it's a very fun and interesting movie, and is a welcome addition in the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series.
The movie begins as a school bus is driving down the street. We see a lot of kids on this bus, but most notable are two girls talking to each other, and an awkward looking boy, sweaty looking, sitting by himself. The bus, we find out, is driving the kids home from school, and letting off the kids. However, as things progress, it's just the awkward kid and the two girls on the bus. The girls look back and start laughing at the boy, and as they turn around they see the driver storm past their stop, and start shouting at the driver to stop. Soon they find that they're driving through a desert, when all of a sudden the bus stops. As the kids look out the windows, they see that the bus is sitting on two spindly rock formations, holding them above what looks to be an endless rock pit. As they look forward, they see the driver standing up, and it is a strange man in a fedora, with weird clawed fingers, and a striped red and green Christmas sweater (Played by Robert England of "Dead & Buried"). He starts advancing towards them, dragging his claws across the seats, and being very menacing. Soon the kids all start to scream. We cut then to a scene of a family, Ken Walsh (Played by Clu Gulager of "The Return of the Living Dead'), his wife, Cheryl Walsh (Played by Hope Lange of "I Am the Cheese"), and their daughter, Angela Walsh (Played by Christie Clark of "Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice"), as they're sitting around the table and enjoying breakfast. Soon, they hear screaming from their son upstairs, Jesse Walsh (Played by Mark Patton of "Anna to the Infinite Power"), as he awakens from his dream, we see that it is the awkward boy from the dream. He stumbles around his boxed room, and gets dressed, and heads down for breakfast. They ask him if everything is alright. He says it was just a bad dream, and probably from all the heat in the room since his air conditioner is fixed. His Dad says he's not going to hire anyone for it, though, because all it needs is a little free-on. His Dad then asks him when he plans to get his room unpacked, and Jesse says he promises to do it that night. His Dad says he doesn't want promises, he wants it done now. They start talking, and someone knocks at the door. His Mom goes to the door, and comes back saying that it is Lisa Webber (Played by Kim Myers of "In the Mood"), his Dad asks who Lisa is, but Jesse just says goodbye and leaves. His Mom says it's the girl that he gives a ride to school. They enter the schoolot, and head their separate ways. The day progresses, and we see all the kids at Gym class. They're playing baseball, and we see Lisa and her friend Kerry (Played by Sydney Walsh of "Point Break") talking, and Kerry asks about Jesse. Lisa says he's just her ride to school, but we can see more. Meantime, we see Jesse playing baseball, and when he gets a kid named Ron Grady (Played by Robert Rusler of "Weird Science"), who then pantses him, and the two get into a large fight about it. The coach, Coach Schneider (Played by Marshall Bell of "Seven Minutes in Heaven"), comes up and breaks up the fight. We then see the two doing push-ups, rather tiredly, obviously a few hours later. Jesse asks Grady how long he thought that the Coach would make them do this, and Grady says that they could be there all night. Thankfully, though, we see Coach Schneider come up and tell them to hit the showers. As they are getting dressed, Grady asks Jesse where he moved to. Jesse says a house on Elm Street, and Grady asks if it was the one with the barred windows. When Jesse says yes, Grady tells him about the girl whose mother locked her into the house, and she went crazy, and saw her boyfriend get slaughtered across the street. Jesse tells him to shut up, and they both go their separate ways. That night, we see Jesse call Lisa, and then he goes to leave the house for a bit. However, his Dad stops him, and says he can't go anywhere until he gets his room unpacked. He stomps upstairs, and turns on some music. As he starts to unpack he puts on a baseball cap and some weird sunglasses, and starts to dance rather strangely. Soon his mother walks in with Lisa, and he jumps off of the bed embarassed. His mother says she's just going to leave the two alone. Lisa said he'd invited her over, and that she probably should have called first. He tells Lisa he was just cleaning his room, and she says that she knows. She offers to help him, and they set about cleaning everything up. As she is putting something in the closet, she finds a diary. As they open it up and start reading, they find it belonged to the girl who used to live here, Nancy Thompson. At first she starts talking about how much she loves her boyfriend, Glen, and then she starts talking about a man named Fred, who stalks her at night under the covers, and wants to kill her. As Glen reads on, he realizes that she is talking about the same man who was stalking his dreams. Then they come to an entry that says "Tina is dead." They ponder it, and then it cuts to Jesse sleeping again, and Freddy stalking him in his dream. This time, though, the dream gets worse. Soon Freddy is stalking Jesse's every movement, and when Jesse finds Freddy's knife glove in his furnace he begins to worry even more. However, Jesse doesn't only have to worry about Freddy killing him, he's got to worry about himself killing others as Freddy starts to play mind games with him. Jesse has no idea just WHAT he is up against, but all he knows is that it's got to stop. All of the actors and actresses in this movie manage to deliver their roles very well. They get down each of their character's feelings, emotions, worries, and other characteristics very well, and making them characters that help the story along. Robert Englund once again delivers a powerfully creepy performance as the Springwood Slasher, Freddy Krueger. He's always creeped me out in this role, and you just have to watch him to understand why. He just brings the whole character to life, even the knife glove. The one actor that I did have a problem with in this, however, was Mark Patton as Jesse. He wasn't as powerful a character as Heather Langenkamp's Nancy Thompson character was, and he was kind of whiny. He annoyed me sometimes. He wasn't awful, but he wasn't amazing, either. He was just kind of there. All of the characters, however, manage to help the movie along nicely. Definitely a great job on the casting of this movie.
All in all, this was a pretty good sequel to "A Nightmare on Elm Street," however it leaves a lot to be desired. It's a fun film, and makes an honorable entry into the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series, however, there were a few things that didn't add up, like how in the hell Freddy Krueger had powers in reality. The Director of this movie does a great job at utilizing angles and filters to make the scenes more interesting and creepy to really bring out the spookiness in the kills, and the movie overall. DEFINITELY a great job at the Directing of this movie. The Writing of this movie was done pretty good, and offers an interesting spin on the goings on of Elm Street, however a few things didn't add up, especially with Freddy's powers over the dreamland. DEFINITELY an alright job on the Writing of this movie. The Visuals of this movie manage to do an excellent job of creating a sense of eeriness to the movie. They get the point of view for the killer down excellently, and make it really creepy looking. Freddy Krueger's look in this movie was as creepy as it ever was, but I don't like how they did his claws in this one. He's supposed to have a glove, not Lady Deathstryke fingernails. The looks of the blood are a little bit shakey in some parts, but for most of the movie it looks VERY real, and really makes the kills, which are done VERY interestingly and inventive to make things even more disturbing, look incredibly freaky and disgusting. DEFINITELY a great job on the Visuals of this movie. The Storyline of this movie is done relatively well, as I said, however, some of the things in it do not really add up. It does a nice job of adding an excellent twist to the storyline of "A Nightmare on Elm Street," though, and I give it definite points for that. DEFINITELY a pretty good job on the Storyline of this movie. The Acting ties everything about this movie together. All of the Actors and Actresses manage to deliver performances as characters that are PRETTY Convincing, PRETTY Believable, and PRETTY Realistic, as well as delivering performances as characters that you can really FEEL FOR, though I'm not sure how well you'd be able to RELATE to them, on MANY different levels. DEFINITELY a great job on the Casting of this movie. So if you really liked "A Nightmare on Elm Street," then I really suggest you give this movie a try. It's actually not that bad, and offers a fun new story for the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series to go on. It's not the best of the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series, but it's not terrible either. It's actually a VERY fun movie. So give it a try. I'm almost POSITIVE that you will not get disappointed with it at all. I know I didn't!!!!!
THIS CONCLUDES PART 2 IN MY REVIEW SERIES FOR THE "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET" SERIES!!!!! STAY TUNED FOR PART 3, "A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS!!!!!"
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