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

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

IMDB rate: 5,1

Genre: Slasher

Today I watched the second movie of the 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' series. I'm trying to watch a 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' movie everyday this week. At least, if it's possible to watch. I'm also writing a review about it the same day. First I'm watching part 1 till 7, then I watch Freddy vs. Jason and after that I will watch the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

I hoped that A Nightmare on Elm Street would have been explained a bit better in this movie, but instead the movie became a lot weirder instead of clearer. Well, I still have a shot on understanding the movies with the other 5 parts but I don't have much hope for it to be honest.

Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) and his family have moved int Nancy Thompson's old house on Elm Street. No sooner are they moved in than Jesse begins to have horrific nightmares - ones that feature a burned man in a dirty red & green sweater, with knives on the fingers of his right hand. His neighbor and new sweetheart, Lisa (Kim Myers), discovers the truth behind Fred Krueger and his horrible murder spree. Freddy vows to take over Jesse's body to continue his vile crimes against the Elm Street residents. Soon, people close to Jesse start dying violently. Will Lisa's love for Jesse be enough to help him overpower the demonic presence inside him?

What a weird movie.... that was my first thought when it ended. I didn't really get this movie. First thing to say is that the kids from A Nightmare on Elm Street definitely died. I wasn't sure about it, because at the ending the kids were all suddenly alive again, like it was all one big dream. But they did die, because that's said in this part. So, I think the ending seems even weirder to me now than it did yesterday.. 

The reason why I didn't get this movie is because of many reasons. For example, how is Freddy capable of taking over Jesse? I'm not even mentioning how Freddy can kill in a dream, because that's his whole thing, but I would like to have some sort of explanation for it. And how can Freddy first crawl out of Jesse tummy (the tummy heals in no time), and then suddenly be Jesse? There were so many confusing things going on in this movie.

Another thing, when Lisa's in the factory, WTF is up with the dogs?! What was the point of the human faces? 

What's certain is that Freddy is the main character in this movie, instead of the teenagers. Freddy is being shown more clearly, with details of his burned face, his knife hand and he even showed emotions. But this might is probably because Jesse was inside him. The success of A Nightmare on Elm Street was probably enough to realize that Freddy could become a slasher hero, but they went a bit over-the-top in this movie making him scary. Because it had an opposite effect I think.

The acting was very good in this movie, even though Mark Patton screams like a little girl, it was good. It's amazing to see how much Kim Myers resembles a young Meryl Streep. I kept thinking that it was her, she really looks a lot like her. She also acted very well. The one thing that bothered me in her acting performance was the fake sounding crying in the ending. 

The music was terrible. The first Nightmare on Elm Street had amazing fitting music, but the well known theme song was nowhere to be seen. At least, not in any scene where it was noticeable.

The special effects weren't not even that bad, how Freddy crawled out of Jesse was kinda fun to see, of course it looks a bit fake, but it was good enough for a low budget movie. The camera work is not good, it's annoying. There is too much zoom on some points, even when it's not needed at all.

It was not as gory as A Nightmare on Elm Street. That's actually kinda sad, because the gore was the most amazing thing in the first one. The scripts were kinda cheesy: "Hey driver, that was my stop!" It was all a bit lame. Also, how Freddy was banned from Jesse's body by Lisa's love? Hmm, that was a bit cheesy. Not really Freddy's style I guess. I've read a lot that this movie is the worst of all the movies, so I'm still looking forward to seeing the other ones. I also heard that part 3 was one of the best ones, so we'll see tomorrow!

I can't really recommend watching this movie, in my opinion it was terrible. But there are many people that liked this movie so for the die hard Freddy Krueger fans it might be something good. 

My personal rate: 3/10