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A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge is the second film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series of slasher films. It was released in 1985 by New Line Cinema. The film was directed by Jack Sholder.

Plot

It has been five years since the events of the first film. A new family, the Walshes, have moved into the former home of Nancy Thompson. The Walshes son, Jesse (Mark Patton), happens to move into Nancy's old room. He eventually begins to have nightmares of Freddy (Robert Englund) demanding that Jesse kill for him and using Jesse as a host body to come back to life in the real world.

Lisa finds Nancy's old diary in Jesse's closet in which she had been keeping track of her nightmares and her encounters with Freddy, which struck a chord on Jesse as he is experiencing similar nightmares himself. He goes to his parents in a panic, but they argue and Jesse storms out. Jesse finds himself walking the streets late at night. One night, he walks into a bar where he runs into his gym coach, who takes him back to the gym to run laps. The coach has Jesse hit the showers, while he goes back to his office. While he is in his office, the shelves begin to come alive, hurling balls and other sports equipment at him. Two ropes grab him by the wrists and drag him into the shower. The shower fills with steam and we see Freddy's silhouette in the background, clawing the coach's back. As everything comes into focus, Jesse is the one with the glove on his hand.

Jesse's girlfriend Lisa begins to do some digging and uncovers information about Freddy, including the location of the factory where he brought his victims. Meanwhile, Freddy visits Jesse's younger sister, but when she wakes up, it's actually Jesse standing there, with the glove on his hand. Jesse enlists his other friend, Grady, to watch over him while he sleeps. Once Jesse falls asleep, Grady turns out the lights for himself. As soon as Grady is asleep, Jesse awakens and begins to scream in pain - Krueger is coming out and Jesse cannot stop him. With the door jammed, Grady is helpless against Krueger, who impales him on his own door with his glove. When Krueger looks in the mirror it turns out that it was Jesse, with Krueger staring back at him from the mirror.

Jesse runs to Lisa's house where she is having a pool party. However, Freddy takes control of Jesse and attacks Lisa. Lisa is able to fight off Freddy, who runs from the house and out to the party. Most of the kids run for the fence, only to be confronted by scorching hot metal. Everything begins to heat up, including the pool, burning anyone that is near. Some of them try to take Freddy down, but are killed immediately. Freddy has them all cornered against the back fence; he exclaims, "You are all my children now!" After Lisa saves him from being shot by her father, he vanishes into a fiery wall.

Lisa runs to the old factory, thinking she might save Jesse there; she finds him and tells him that she loves him and that he can fight from the inside. Freddy begins to lose control. As the factory begins to burn to the ground, Freddy himself starts burning. After he dies, the rest of the factory suddenly extinguishes. Just when Lisa thinks it is all over, Freddy's burnt corpse begins to move. Jesse begins to crawl out of Freddy's ashes.

The following Monday, Jesse goes back to school. He climbs the bus, finally relieved that it is all over. But something is wrong: The bus is traveling too fast. Jesse panics and jumps up, only to find out there is nothing wrong; the bus is coming to its regular stop. As he and Lisa rest at ease, Freddy's glove bursts through their friend's chest and the bus speeds off the main road and into the open land, just like in Jesse's nightmares.

Production

Nightmare series creator Wes Craven refused to work on this film because he never wanted or intended A Nightmare on Elm Street to become an ongoing franchise (and even wanted the first film to have a happy ending), and also because he didn't like the idea of Freddy manipulating the protagonist into committing the murders.

Christie Clark is seen in an early role as Angela Walsh.

Joann Willete is one of the girls seated in the back of the schoolbus driven by Freddy at the beginning of the film. She would later go on to star in the ABC sitcom Just the Ten of Us, a program which not only featured numerous references to the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, but also co-starred Heather Langenkamp (from the first, third, and seventh films) and Brooke Theiss (from the fourth film).

Trivia

If you look closely, when Jesse goes down to the basement, a photo of Amanda Wyss, Tina Grey, from the first movie, is hanging on the wall above the stairs.

Reaction

The film opened in just 614 theaters, making $3.3 million in its opening weekend. Domestically, the film has made $30 million, making it another huge success on a budget of only $3 million. It made $29,999,213 at the domestic box office, a little more than the first Nightmare film. Much of the criticism, from both film critics and fans, was aimed at the fact that the film, while continuing the storyline of its predecessor, it takes on a completely different direction. Rather than just stalk the teenagers and kill them in their dreams, Freddy would commit random acts of violence in the real world and be a mysterious protagonist into committing murders, using the lead character to these crimes until eventually coming out in the real world by his own. Some fans of the series consider it a low-point, preferring part 3 as a more befitting follow-up since it continued Wes Craven's original storyline (Craven co-wrote the third installment) and saw the return of two main characters from the original, "Nancy Thompson" (Heather Langenkamp) and her father (John Saxon).

Film commentators often remark on the film's perceived homoerotic theme. Some people have argued that a subtext exists about Jesse's alleged repressed homosexuality (never clarified in the movie), and they point out the encounter that he has with his gym teacher in a bisexual S&M leather bar, and his flight to a hunky male friend's house after an aborted attempt of making out at his girlfriend's pool party. During the latter scene, Jesse, shirt unbuttoned, states that he's scared that "something is trying to get inside my body"; his shirtless friend replies, "Yeah, and she's female and waiting for you in the cabana, and you want to sleep with me." Director Jack Sholder claims that he never intended for there to be a gay subtext to the film, but has subsequently admitted that he does see it in the film, according to the "Nightmare Encyclopedia" included on the DVD box set. Mark Patton, the actor who portrays Jesse, is in fact gay. Rumors even have been spraid that Mark Patton and Robert Rusler, who plays Grady, had a relationship a little time after the ending of the movie.