Sunday, July 10, 2005

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge

Five years after the events of the first Elm Street movie, Fred Krueger (Robert Englund) is back. Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) and his family have moved into the house that was previously owned by Nancy’s family. The legend around school is that Nancy went crazy after seeing her boyfriend murdered across the street. These are, of course, the events of the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street“. Jesse has horrible nightmares where his classmates are being killed and he is being terrorized by a guy with a burned face, a striped shirt, and a metal claw for a hand. We know this villain as Freddy Krueger. It seems that after being vanquished by Nancy in the original, Fred has been waiting to haunt the dreams of another teenager on Elm Street. With Jesse it begins again.

It starts at nightmares, but slowly Freddy Krueger is influencing Jesse’s actions and when Jesse goes to sleep, Fred Krueger comes out to play. Jesse’s friend Lisa (Kim Meyers) is concerned and wants to help, but Jesse won’t fully explain what is going on inside him. But as Jesse’s behavior becomes more erratic, a teacher is killed, and he can’t trust himself to sleep, it is clear that something is wrong. Freddy Krueger may get his revenge.

Directed by Jack Sholder this sequel (the first of many) of “A Nightmare on Elm Street “ is a disappointment. The original movie could be considered just a “slasher flick”, but it was also a good movie. I was surprised by that. But this sequel is nothing more than a cheap slasher flick, though not with as much slashing as one might think. It is missing the psychological games that Fred Krueger played in the first movie and even messes with some of the “rules” that the first movie seemed to have set up. Fred Krueger could kill in dreams, but here he is possessing Jesse. But this isn’t really the problem. The problem is that the movie isn’t scary, suspenseful, creepy, or even just good. Robert Englund, when he gets the chance, is able to play Krueger as this creepy boogieman who can rightfully frighten anyone, but this movie doesn’t give Englund much to do and when the camera is off Krueger the movie is worse. My last problem with the movie is the ending. I won’t spoil it in case anyone wants to find out for themselves, but while it does make a little bit of sense, it is incredibly weak and anti-climactic.

Hopefully Part 3 will be better. Part 2 wasn’t the worst movie ever, but it was a disappointing sequel to a good movie.

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