A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
Director: Jack Sholder
Writer: David Chaskin, Wes Craven
Cast: Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, Marshall Bell, Robert Englund
Overview
A misbegotten sequel, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge not only fails to be as good as the original, it's an awful and amazingly homophobic film to boot.
Synopsis
Freddy Kruger (Robert Englund) is back and this time he is no longer content to simply invade peoples dreams, he wants to recruit a someone in the real world to continue his evil work. That someone turns out to be teenager Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) who is struggling to adapt to a new neighborhood. When Jesse starts having nightmares and acting strangely, his parents think he is on drugs, but they have no idea for the nightmare that is in store for their boy.
The Queering
The original A Nightmare on Elm Street managed to effectively blur the lines between reality and waking nightmare. A Nightmare on Elm Street is an entirely pedestrian effort that I don't even think was trying to capture the nightmarish qualities of the original. I am being kind when I call sequel is a pale imitation of its predecessor. In the original, Freddy Kruger haunted peoples' nightmares. Here Freddy is going for the more prosaic, and less interesting path of simply taking over a surrogate in this world and having him do the dirty work. Boooooring...
There is however both a queer subtext and a queer text, neither or which lead to anyplace good or interesting. The explicitely gay character, the sadistic Coach Schneider, is the first to die horribly. The other, the films protagonist, Jesse, is coded, but in a rather obvious way. As I talked about in my review of the original, I wondered about the connection between the AIDS crises and the popularity of slasher films. Here, that connection is affirmed by having Jesse waking up with night sweats in imitation of one of the AIDS/HIV diseases better known symptoms.
In addition to waking up with night sweats, Jesse also displays a lack of interest in having sex with his girlfriend, ends up in a gay bar, and in one critical scene rejects the advances of his girlfriend to go hang out with a guy. However, Jesse being coded gay puts a disturbing twist on the ending. If we read Jesse as struggling with his sexuality, and I'm pretty sure the filmmakers intend for him to be read this way, then the climax of the film becomes about the superiority of heterosexuality triumphing over the disease of queerness.
Furthermore, due to Freddy's attempts to "recruit" Jesse the filmmakers end up invoking some of the most disturbingly false attacks on gay men. While Freddy in the first film simply served as a warning against promiscuous sex, here he becomes a sexual predator of a much different nature. Not only is Freddy attempting to recruit a teenager to the gay lifestyle, but his newly established queer nature puts an entirely different spin on the fact that he was an established child murderer in the first film. For no child murderer is just a murderer in Hollywood, there is almost always the implication of sexual violence. This too is alluded to by Freddy's disturbing tendency of leaping onto his victims as if preparing to commit sexual violence.
What I am getting at, is that in A Nightmare in Elm Street 2 Freddy Kruger has been sub-textually reinvented as a gay pedophile, thereby creating a film with more homophobic overtones than Cruising.
That is an accomplishment all filmmakers should have nightmares about even the possibility of achieving.
Recommendation
It is a nightmarish thought that a film this bad and homophobic was able to get made. No matter what street one lives on, A Nightmare on Elm Street is to be avoided.
The Rating
ZERO out of ****
Trailer
Want to find a review of a particular work? Check out the Title Index, the archive of all reviews posted listed alphabetically.
Showing posts with label A Nightmare on Elm Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Nightmare on Elm Street. Show all posts
October 30, 2012
Classic Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Wes Craven
Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Charles Fleischer
Overview
An effective examination of the lines separating reality from dreams and dreams from nightmares, A Nightmare on Elm Street remains one of the best of the 1980's era slasher flicks. Overall this is well made flick with plenty of memorable and gruesome imagery designed to cause nightmares whether or not one is awake or asleep.
Synopsis
When teenager Tina (Amanda Wyss) is brutally murdered, the police finger her boyfriend Rod (Jsu Garcia) as the main suspect. But Tina's friend, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) suspects that Rod is innocent for both she and Tina had been sharing similar dreams of a man with knives for fingers who has been haunting their sleep. When Nancy investigates, she begins to realize that this man is Freddy Kruger, a child murderer who suffered a horrific fate after he was acquitted of his crimes in a court of law.
The Queering
The 1980's was the era of the slasher films (started in 1978 by Halloween) and like it's sibling series, A Nightmare on Elm Street started out on a high note before quickly descending into dreck. Well, actually, I have not seen that many of the sequels of either series, but between what I have heard from others and having viewed A Nightmare on Elm Stree 2: Freddy's Revenge, I am not going to be running out to view the subsequent films of either series. Ultimately, both series would be dragged out unnecessarily, thereby undermining the reputation of the originals.
As for A Nightmare on Elm Street itself, Wes Craven effectively toes the line between harsh reality and waking nightmare. The murders are presented in such a way, that the refrain of "don't fall asleep" will not be difficult for many of the more sensitive members of the audience. The first kill is particularly brutal with the victim being dragged up a wall and across the ceiling by invisible forces. Later, another character meets an equally gruesome fate that a responding paramedic talks about "needing a mop, not a body bag". Obviously, this is not a film for the faint of heart or the overly sensitive.
One of the cardinal rules of slasher films is that those who have sex are the first to die. A Nightmare on Elm Street follows this rule, but not strictly. Virginity it turns out is no guarantee of survival here, the characters who have sex simply get offed sooner rather than later.
However, the theme of burgeoning teenage sexuality begetting monsters that this pattern eludes to, is hammered home in a shot of Freddy's hand coming up from between Nancy's legs when she is taking a bath. In a way almost, while aimed at teenagers, slasher flicks appear to be mostly a reflection of parental anxieties about the dangers of adolescence. One wonders how much of the AIDS epidemic in the 80's helped propel the popularity of the slasher films or it was mere coincidence that this genre simply ended up paralleling the reality of sex that could literally kill people by coincidence. Granted, the idea of killing the sexually promiscuous started in 1978 by Halloween well before AIDS was pushed to the forefront of the national consciousness. What I want to know, is if there had been no AIDS crises, would the cheesiness of the genre have caused slasher films to die out earlier?
Recommendation
A Nightmare on Elm Street is worth seeking out for anyone, whether they live on Elm Street or not.
The Rating
***1/2 out of ****
Trailer
Want to find a review of a particular work? Check out the Title Index, the archive of all reviews posted listed alphabetically.
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Wes Craven
Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Charles Fleischer
Overview
An effective examination of the lines separating reality from dreams and dreams from nightmares, A Nightmare on Elm Street remains one of the best of the 1980's era slasher flicks. Overall this is well made flick with plenty of memorable and gruesome imagery designed to cause nightmares whether or not one is awake or asleep.
Synopsis
When teenager Tina (Amanda Wyss) is brutally murdered, the police finger her boyfriend Rod (Jsu Garcia) as the main suspect. But Tina's friend, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) suspects that Rod is innocent for both she and Tina had been sharing similar dreams of a man with knives for fingers who has been haunting their sleep. When Nancy investigates, she begins to realize that this man is Freddy Kruger, a child murderer who suffered a horrific fate after he was acquitted of his crimes in a court of law.
The Queering
The 1980's was the era of the slasher films (started in 1978 by Halloween) and like it's sibling series, A Nightmare on Elm Street started out on a high note before quickly descending into dreck. Well, actually, I have not seen that many of the sequels of either series, but between what I have heard from others and having viewed A Nightmare on Elm Stree 2: Freddy's Revenge, I am not going to be running out to view the subsequent films of either series. Ultimately, both series would be dragged out unnecessarily, thereby undermining the reputation of the originals.
As for A Nightmare on Elm Street itself, Wes Craven effectively toes the line between harsh reality and waking nightmare. The murders are presented in such a way, that the refrain of "don't fall asleep" will not be difficult for many of the more sensitive members of the audience. The first kill is particularly brutal with the victim being dragged up a wall and across the ceiling by invisible forces. Later, another character meets an equally gruesome fate that a responding paramedic talks about "needing a mop, not a body bag". Obviously, this is not a film for the faint of heart or the overly sensitive.
One of the cardinal rules of slasher films is that those who have sex are the first to die. A Nightmare on Elm Street follows this rule, but not strictly. Virginity it turns out is no guarantee of survival here, the characters who have sex simply get offed sooner rather than later.
However, the theme of burgeoning teenage sexuality begetting monsters that this pattern eludes to, is hammered home in a shot of Freddy's hand coming up from between Nancy's legs when she is taking a bath. In a way almost, while aimed at teenagers, slasher flicks appear to be mostly a reflection of parental anxieties about the dangers of adolescence. One wonders how much of the AIDS epidemic in the 80's helped propel the popularity of the slasher films or it was mere coincidence that this genre simply ended up paralleling the reality of sex that could literally kill people by coincidence. Granted, the idea of killing the sexually promiscuous started in 1978 by Halloween well before AIDS was pushed to the forefront of the national consciousness. What I want to know, is if there had been no AIDS crises, would the cheesiness of the genre have caused slasher films to die out earlier?
Recommendation
A Nightmare on Elm Street is worth seeking out for anyone, whether they live on Elm Street or not.
The Rating
***1/2 out of ****
Trailer
Want to find a review of a particular work? Check out the Title Index, the archive of all reviews posted listed alphabetically.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)