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

A decidedly inferior sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge picks up five years after the events of the first film and follows high schooler Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) as he’s tormented by Freddy Krueger in a series of increasingly vivid nightmares. Rather than just kill Jesse, however, Freddy is determined to possess the progressively frantic teenager’s body and resume his killing spree in the real world. It’s a rather underwhelming premise that’s primarily employed to lackluster effect by director Jack Sholder and screenwriter David Chaskin, as the latter’s reliance on an almost oppressively repetitive structure – Jesse has a nightmare, wakes up screaming, goes to school, has another nightmare, etc, etc – results in a lack of momentum that’s nothing short of disastrous. The far-from-enthralling atmosphere is compounded by Patton’s aggressively bland work as the central character, with the actor’s fruitless efforts at turning Jesse into a wholeheartedly sympathetic figure ultimately preventing the viewer from working up much interest in his ongoing battle with Freddy. It’s worth noting that even the movie’s nightmare sequences manage to disappoint, as they have, for the most part, been infused with a lack of creativity that seems to be par for the course within the entire production (although, to be fair, it’s difficult not to get a kick out the interlude in which Jesse violently transforms into Freddy). And while the film is never unwatchable on the level of, say, the original’s 2010 remake, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge primarily comes off as a weak retread of its marginally superior predecessor (and this is to say nothing of the hopelessly anticlimactic boiler-room finale).

** out of ****