| Plot: Jesse and his family move into the same house where Nancy fought Freddy Kreuger in the first Nightmare. Freddy decides that the best way to continue his child-killing ways is by possessing Jessie's body. A disappointing follow-up ensues. Review: Part 2 isn't the worst film in the series, that title goes hand's down to Freddy's Dead, but I can safely say that this had no punch to it even though you can tell real effort was put into its production. Part 2 still maintains that dark vibe from the original even though it's essentially a slasher flick with mediocre acting from the cast of disposible teens. It's not cheesy and tries earnestly to give us a scary atmosphere along with scary happenings, but it feels boring more than anything else. A bloody bird, oh, scary. Also the movie has a bad habit about covering all the plot bases covered in the original movie. At least give the audience some credit here, do we really need everything spelled out for us yet again? The biggest problem I have with Freddy's Revenge is that it just tries too hard to be different from the original instead of capitalizing on the series' strength. Nightmare fans are going to feel very alienated by this entry. Get this, Freddy is now a kind of ghost that can possess weak teens via mediocre mind tricks. What happened to all those cool dream kills? The entire point of the series is that Freddy kills them in their dreams, if you take that away then what the hell does Freddy have working in his favor? Nadda, although there are still some cool effects (Freddy coming out of Jesse's gut has to be one for the books). The only real cool kills we get is in the finale when Freddy slices all the teens at a pool party. Pretty cool stuff, but it feels very out of place in a Nightmare movie. I'd personally take dream kills over that any day of the week. The acting is fairly mediocre and you'll be wishing everybody gets clawed. Jesse's parents are complete twits who seem to blame him even when the odd occurances are obviously supernatural. How the hell can anyone chalk up a bird spontanously exploding as a prank? Then there's his equally annoying sidekick Grady (who thankfully gets a richly-deserved gloving). I don't know what is it about him that really gets on my nerves, probably because of his "buddy-buddy" attitude with Jesse. Jesse is a decent enough character, but screams like a complete wimp (really destroys the mood). Lastly there's Jesse's love interest Lisa, who looks exactly like a young Meryl Streep. The both of them don't have very much chemistry, but hey, this is a slasher so who cares? Lisa plays the token "sweet, supportive virgin" just fine, but not as good as Nancy in the first movie. Thankfully Robert Englund's Freddy is still on the ball and just as much of a badass as he was in the first one. As to why he chose such a wuss to possess is beyond me. Freddy is still a creepy child killer (he doesn't get corny until at least 3 or 4). At least he gets a little more screen time. Freddy's Revenge answers the eternal question: if you put in a bunch of homosexual overtones, will it make your movie better? The answer to that question is no. To make the audience forget they're watching a very mediocre horror movie, the makers decided that adding all these overtones would make it seem clever. It doesn't. Freddy is towel-whipping a gay S&M gym coach in the ass. Christ, could they be any more obvious? But wait, maybe the viewer is too dim to get it, so let's hammer it into their skulls at every turn! Jesse would rather spend time sleeping in Grady's room than making out with Lisa (because Freddy is starting to possess him, but this is still a pretty obvious overtone). It's not clever and just plain annoying to me. We get it, Freddy symbolizes Jesse's sexual frustration, can we move on to some actual horror here? The bottom line is that Freddy's Revenge isn't without its own few merits, but in the end the bad outweighs the good. The homosexual overtones become obnoxious rather than interesting, Freddy's new ability to possess people isn't explained or makes much sense (or is even entertaining for that matter), and it lacks the creepiness and surrealism the first one had. If you're a Nightmare fan, don't worry if you haven't seen this one, you're not missing anything. |
| Rating: *1/2 |
| Review by Jim |
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