Rejected By Rod(?): Part Sixteen - A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:

Rejected By Rod(?)

A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

(1985)

Jesse (Mark Patton) has been having terrible dreams since his family moved into their new house on Elm St.  Each night he is confronted by Freddy Krueger, the steel-clawed maniac who haunts the dreams of Elm Street’s children, but this time Freddy isn’t looking for a victim, he’s looking for a partner—someone who can set him loose into the real world.  Will Jesse succumb to the dream maniac’s desire to be a real boy or will he be saved by the love of a girl (Kim Myers) who looks a lot like a young Meryl Streep?

If you ever hear a genre fan refer to Freddy’s Revenge as the “gay” Nightmare, don’t immediately dismiss them as one of those tiresome assholes who ignorantly use the term as a synonym for lame.  Truthfully, the movie is pretty lame, but it’s also really, really gay.  That is to say the homosexual subtext of the film (intended or not) is about as subtle as a Tennessee Williams play. 

And that’s not a criticism, since that subtext really is the only thing that significantly sets the film apart from other 80s horror movies.  Directed without much tension or suspense by Jack Sholder (The Hidden), this first sequel to Wes Craven’s landmark original manages to completely forget that as a character Freddy only works as the master of his own dream domain (*cough*).  When you bring him out into everyday reality, as this film does (albeit rather incoherently) it just makes him seem like another run of the mill slasher with a fedora fetish.