30 Days of Fright - 16: A Nightmare on Elm St. Pt2: Freddy's Revenge

The eighties were great weren’t they? In the movies they seem excellent but as someone who counts the 1980’s as the first full decade they lived through I can tell you first hand that, as a period of human history, it really wasn’t as good as it may seem. If nothing else, there were loads of supernatural killers running around the place, probably left over from the seventies.

Nightmare 2 (1985) picks up the action five years after the events of the first film. A new family move onto Elm Street and into the same house that belonged to the family of the heroine from part one. The eldest son begins to suffer terrible nightmares about a strange, horribly disfigured geezer who wears Indiana Jones’s hat and has knives for fingers. In his dreams the young lad, Jesse, is being pursued by this evil figure who wants him to kill on his behalf.

As Jesse continues to unpack his stuff he and his new friend from school, Lisa, find a diary that belonged to Nancy (from the first film). The diary details what was happening to Nancy (which I won’t divulge here so as not to spoil the original film) and outlines who the killer is: Freddy Krueger!

Freddy keeps up his efforts to get Jesse to do his bidding and after a series of acts of violence Jesse begins to believe that he’s having more than just bad dreams so he and Lisa try to deal with bad ol’ Freddy the only way they can...

Funny hat and strange glove...

Funny hat and strange glove...

Nightmare 2 is not as good as the original, no surprise there, but what is surprising is that it’s still an enjoyable movie. Nightmare 2 shows the lives of 80’s teens in the idealised way that only Hollywood ever can; driving cars to school and partying hard when the parents go to bed, and having cool bedrooms. This vision of teen life is what makes Nightmare 2 fun to watch – it’s like a really bloody Halloween episode of Beverly Hills 90210, where the annoying kids you’d love to see carved up by a psycho killer from beyond the grave are carved up by a psycho killer from beyond the grave!

On top of that there’s the sense of humour that carries over from the first film. Freddy still gets the best lines and makes you smile the most, but the funniest thing in Nightmare 2 is the sadistic gym teacher, if his punishing the kids by putting them into stress positions you’d normally associate with an Iraqi prison wasn’t enough then his secret second life will make you laugh out loud!

One Thumb Up and One Thumb Down for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge.


To learn more about this psycho killer from beyond the grave (unless you’re too frightened and afeared) then check out:
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089686/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nightmare_on_Elm_Street_2:_Freddy%27s_Revenge