With the sheer atrociousness of some of this franchise’s later entries (most notorious “A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child”), I always remembered “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2” as a decent entry into the series. A recent re-watching of the film unfortunately renders it in a worse light, especially compared to the near-perfection of the original. While it does render up some frightening moments, and ends in a spirit akin to the original, it suffers in the hands of little-to-no buildup, lack of an authentic atmosphere, and its scattered plot.
I wasn’t shocked to learn that horror master Wes Craven had nothing to do with this film, and in fact criticized its plot of releasing Freddy Krueger out of dreams and into the real world. This is the way the movie begins, following Jesse (Mark Patton) and his family, who move into the house on Elm Street previously occupied by Nancy and her mother from the original film. Before not too long, Jesse begins having bad dreams – except this time, Krueger doesn’t want to kill him, but instead wants to use his body to exit the dream world and kill again, bringing the scope of the movie to a much wider lens.
The acting in this film is, surprisingly, not bad, which says something. The original, despite its brilliance, and which boasted the introduction of Johnny Depp, was brilliant because of its atmosphere and decisions – mostly minimalist performances. A scene in that film, where Heather Langenkamp screams “How you can you say I don’t take Tina’s death seriously??!” is so over the top it would have threatened to spoil the film, were it not limited to that one scene.
In “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2,” we don’t see any histrionics, but acting par for the course. Patton is believable as Jessie, and rightly afraid as Krueger’s plan is actualized. Likewise, a love interest for Jesse, the beautiful Lisa (Kim Myers), is capable, as are Jesse’s parents (Clu Gulager and Hope Lange). And honestly, the film’s inclusion of a jock/unlikely ally for Jesse, Ron Grady (Robert Rusler) is one of my favorite characters in the film. No, the problem with this film is that none of these characters are given any depth or development at all. Toward the beginning we see a sort of bonding between Jesse and Grady, but that is limited to only two scenes. And the relationship between Jesse and Lisa is barely given a chance to shine – worse, as Lisa is tasked with the awesome purpose of saving Jesse from Krueger as the villain attempts to overtake the awkward youth.
Cinematically, there a few frightening moments, but are sadly few and far between. Jesse’s dreams seem to revolve around a boiler room, seen only in darkness in the solitude of his parent’s house. There’s also the sinister effect of Jesse finding Krueger’s glove in a fireplace in the basement. But even this is modernized; the original glove, worn, flimsy, and crude has been replaced by something that looks more like a prop than a murder weapon.
And then, of course, there’s the decision to make Kruger, gasp, funny. Krueger barely spoke in the original, and the film was all the better for it. But here, the horror of the situation is lost amidst laughable comments such as “try it on for size,” as Jesse holds his glove, or “you’ve got the body, I’ve got the brains” (the latter spoken as Krueger begins to peel away his burned skin to reveal his cranium). And while the effect is meant to be scary, it just isn’t. The low, droning, suspenseful score of the original has been replaced by the shrill sound of musical chords sandwiched between the sound of metal clanging.
The film also cuts from one scene to another, attempting to be horrifying, but they seem too unrelated, to cookie cutter, to be scary or be given the attempt to build an atmosphere. In “A Nightmare on Elm Street” we knew what happened when a character dreamed, and knew, in fact, that they were dreaming. Here, Krueger appears, we assume the person is dreaming, but in fact have no real idea of what is going on. And as the film reaches its ending (which is actually good), we are left with a movie that begins and ends, but one which we sadly never feel.
Despite how hard I’ve been on “A Nightmare on Elm Street 2,” it is certainly better than the rest of the films that followed, and may be the last Freddy film that actually has scary elements. It’s simply too bad that the film didn’t latch onto the ethos the first one left behind to make it a more engrossing picture than what it ultimately brings to the table.
