A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

Five years after Freddy Krueger's apparent defeat, the Walsh family has moved into Nancy Thompson's former home. Their teenage son, Jesse, has a nightmare about Krueger. Jesse and his friend Lisa Webber discover Nancy Thompson's diary in his room, detailing her nightmares, which are strikingly similar to his. Small fires occur around the house, culminating in the spontaneous combustion of the Walshes' pet birds. Jesse has another nightmare where Freddy tells him to kill for him. The dreams grow more intense, and he unsuccessfully attempts different measures to keep himself awake. He eventually begins wandering the streets at night. One night, he is caught by his gym teacher, Coach Schneider, in a gay bar and is made to run laps at school as punishment. In the gym showers, Freddy emerges and kills Schneider. Afterward, Jesse is horrified to see the glove on his hand. He is escorted home by the police after being found wandering the streets naked. Lisa takes Jesse to the abandoned factory where Freddy Krueger worked, but they find nothing there. The following night, Jesse attends Lisa's pool party and kisses her, but his body begins to change, and he leaves in a panic. He goes to his friend Ron Grady's house, confesses to killing Schneider, and instructs Grady to watch him as he sleeps. When Grady falls asleep, Freddy emerges from Jesse's body and kills him. Freddy then changes back to Jesse, who flees back to Lisa's house. Lisa realizes that Jesse's terror is giving Freddy his strength, but he cannot stop fearing him and transforms again. Freddy attacks Lisa but realizes he cannot harm her due to Jesse's influence. He goes outside instead, where he slaughters the partygoers before escaping. Lisa drives to the abandoned factory, having to control her fear before confronting Freddy. She pleads with Jesse to fight Freddy, confesses her love for him, and kisses Freddy. After this, Jesse begins to fight back. Freddy combusts and turns to ash, from which Jesse emerges. Later, as Jesse, Lisa, and Lisa's friend Kerry are taking the bus to school, Jesse notices similarities to his original nightmare and panics. Kerry insists it is all over before Freddy's clawed arm bursts through her chest. Freddy laughs as the bus drives into the field, just as in Jesse's first nightmare. ==Cast==

• Mark Patton as Jesse Walsh • Kim Myers as Lisa Webber • Robert Rusler as Ron Grady • Clu Gulager as Ken Walsh • Hope Lange as Cheryl Walsh • Marshall Bell as Coach Schneider • Melinda O. Fee as Mrs. Webber • Tom McFadden as Mr. Webber • Sydney Walsh as Kerry Hellman • Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger • Edward Blackoff as Biology Teacher • Christie Clark as Angela Walsh • Lyman Ward as Mr. Grady • JoAnn Willette as Girl on Bus • Steve Eastin as Policeman • Brian Wimmer as Do-Gooder • Kerry Remsen as Girlfriend • Robert Shaye as Bartender == Production ==

Development Pre-production for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 began in April 1985. Screenwriter Leslie Bohem pitched the producers with his idea of using pregnancy and possession as a plot device for the second film: "My concept was a homage to ''Rosemary's Baby''. I came up with a plot that had a new family move into the house, a teenage boy, his pregnant mother and a stepfather the boy didn't get along with. It was a real bloody, scary idea, much more physical and realistic because the dream reality stuff was less central to these movies then. My story was more of a possession scenario with Freddy getting inside the mother's womb, controlling the fetus. But New Line passed on it because [executive] Sara Risher was pregnant at the time, and I understand the idea upset her. So they went with David Chaskin's concept instead." Though both films ended up using the spirit possession concept, the pregnancy idea would eventually be used in the sequel A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, which Bohem would write the script for. Robert Shaye offered Wes Craven the chance to direct again after helming A Nightmare on Elm Street, but he turned down the offer since he had many problems with the script, such as the "possessed parakeet" that seemed very ridiculous to him, and of Freddy Krueger merging with the main character and manifesting in real life at the pool party to kill scores of teenagers of which many are bigger than him, which Craven thought would diminish Freddy's scare factor as Robert Englund is not very tall in stature. Jack Sholder, who had previously written and directed Alone in the Dark for New Line was offered to direct. In a 2020 interview he explained that he had "no interest in making horror films" and that his initial feeling was to turn Robert Shaye down. After realizing that ''A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge'' could put him on the map as a director, he said yes. The character of Lisa Webber was named Lisa Poletti in the script. On Wes Craven's suggestions, Chaskin put more emphasis on Lisa in the film than he originally intended; he explains that Craven "suggested that we shift the focus from Jesse the male lead. In the script the focus was on Jesse for 90% of the film, then suddenly it shifted to Lisa, his girlfriend. I pretty much added some focus on Lisa, and now it's like 50-50." Casting New Line Cinema originally thought to save money by not hiring Robert Englund to reprise his role as Freddy and instead simply use an unnamed extra in a rubber mask to play the part - as had been the case for masked, mute, impersonal killers like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers - but reconsidered when they realized that the man had the gait and posture of "a dimestore monster" or "Frankenstein's monster" as opposed to Englund's classically trained physical acting. Footage of the extra as Freddy does appear in the film, during Coach Schneider (Marshall Bell)'s death scene in the shower, though obscured by excessive water steam. Realizing their mistake, the producers quickly brought back Englund for the rest of the film and series. ==Music==

The film's score was composed by Christopher Young. The song "Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking" performed by Bing Crosby plays over the film's end credits. The songs "Touch Me (All Night Long)" by Fonda Rae, "Whisper to a Scream" by Bobby Orlando, "On the Air Tonight" by Willy Finlayson, "Move It in the Night" by Skagarack, "You Can't Hide from the Beast Inside" by Autograph and "Terror in My Heart" by the Reds are also featured in the film. ==Reception==

Box office The film opened on 522 screens in the New York, Washington, D.C., Detroit and Texas areas. An advert in the following day's Weekly Variety claimed it had grossed $3,220,348 placing it third behind To Live and Die in L.A. and contemporary websites such as Box Office Mojo report it grossing exactly $1 million less than the initial Daily Variety figure, with only $2.9 million, coming in fourth place. (which New Line also reported in an advertisement), which indicates that the initial figure reported by Daily Variety was overstated. In the US, the film eventually made $30 million on a budget of $3 million. Critical response Critical reaction of the film was mixed upon release, with some criticism in comparison to its predecessor. Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised the film, saying that it has "clever special effects, a good leading performance and a villain so chatty he practically makes this a human-interest story". The review also gave the lead performances positive reviews, noting, "Mr. Patton and Miss Myers make likable teen-age heroes, and Mr. Englund actually turns Freddy into a welcome presence. Clu Gulager and Hope Lange have some good moments as Jesse's parents, and Marshall Bell scowls ferociously as the coach who calls his charges dirtballs and who is eventually attacked by a demonic towel." Variety gave the film a positive review saying, "Episodic treatment is punched up by an imaginative series of special effects. The standout is a grisly chest-burster setpiece." In a negative review, People called the film a "tedious, humorless mess". On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 47% based on 36 reviews. The site's critics consensus reads: "An intriguing subtext of repressed sexuality gives ''Freddy's Revenge some texture, but the Nightmare'' loses its edge in a sequel that lacks convincing performances or memorable scares." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 43 out of 100 based on six critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Homoerotic subtext Film commentators have often remarked on the film's perceived homoerotic theme, claiming its subtext suggests Jesse is a repressed homosexual. They note, in particular, the scenes where he encounters his gym teacher Coach Schneider at a fetish club, and his flight to his male friend Grady's house after he attempts to make out with his girlfriend Lisa at her pool party. Further, actor Mark Patton, who plays Jesse, played a role so often written as female in the subgenre (such as in the first film) that it has become known as the "final girl". At the time of its release, one publication referred to it as "the gayest horror film ever". In the 21st century, it has become a cult film for gay audiences. On Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, David Chaskin refers to a 2009 list on Cracked.com which lists "The 5 Most Unintentionally Gay Horror Movies", with ''Freddy's Revenge'' as number one, and states that "There is nothing logical that can explain the level of homoeroticism in this movie". The book ''Welcome to Our Nightmares: Behind the Scene with Today's Horror Actors'' elaborates on the film's homoerotic subtext, stating that: "The film suggested an undertone of homosexuality, starting with the protagonist's gender-neutral name. Jesse's rarely fully clothed. He and a tormentor have a sweaty wrestling match. His coach, clad in leather, basically hits on him in a gay bar, then gets killed by Freddy, including a bare-ass spanking. Freddy emerges from Jesse's stomach in the same forced-birth technique that made the Alien films legendary." Mark Patton has claimed the film's gay subtext was increasingly emphasised through script rewrites as production progressed. "It just became undeniable" he told BuzzFeed in 2016. "I'm lying in bed and I'm a pietà and the candles are dripping and they're bending like phalluses and white wax is dripping all over. It's like I'm the center of a [...] bukkake video." He has felt betrayed since he knew the filmmakers were aware he was gay, but closeted. They had considerable leverage over him in having him perform a role that, combined with his performance as a gay teen in Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean the year before, led to him being typecast as gay. The role called attention to what he was trying to avoid discussing and would have forestalled him getting any significant roles in 1980s Hollywood. In an article written by Brent Hartinger for AfterElton.com, he notes that a "frequent debate in gay pop culture circles is this: Just how 'gay' was 1985's ''A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (the first Elm Street sequel)? The imagery in the movie makes it seem unmistakably gay — but the filmmakers have all along denied that that was their intention." During his interview segment for the 2010 documentary film Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy'', David Chaskin admitted that the gay themes were intentional, something he had denied until that point. In a 2020 interview director Jack Sholder said he never had any discussions with Chaskin or anybody at New Line about a gay subtext in the script during production. He did add that in his view the movie was about "repressed sexual angst that every teenager experiences" and that "that angst can express itself in the question: Am I gay?". He also pointed out that Mark Patton did not pick up on any gay subtext when he read the script, but that it was pointed out to him by one of the crew members. Sholder concluded by saying: "Looking back on it, there were a whole bunch of decisions, starting with casting Mark that really... If you look at some of the exegeses as to why it’s the gayest horror film of all time, some of it is people reading stuff into things, some of it was intentional and some of it was stuff that people added that fed into that idea." Others in the cast and crew have said that they were unaware of any such themes at the time they made the film, but that a series of creative decisions on the part of director Jack Sholder unintentionally brought Chaskin's themes to the forefront. In an interview Sholder said, "I simply didn't have the self-awareness to realize that any of this might be interpreted as gay". Now-out Mark Patton said, "I don't think that [the character] Jesse was originally written as a gay character. I think it's something that happened along the line by serendipity". Patton also wrote ''Jesse's Lost Journal'' about Jesse's life after the film and dealing with his homosexuality. In 2019, Patton produced and starred in the documentary film Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, which focuses on the legacy of ''Freddy's Revenge'' and how it affected him. ==See also==