- Directed by Jack Sholder
- Written by David Chaskin, Wes Craven
- Stars Robert Englund, Mark Patton, Kim Myers
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iqNVyjwLFA
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
After the huge success of the first movie and popularity of the Freddy character, of course they had to make a sequel. This one is pretty good, taking a little different path this time. More of a possession tale, with less of an emphasis on appearing in dreams. The acting is good, Robert Englund is still great, and most of the effects still hold up.
Synopsis
We start out on a school bus being driven by normal-looking Robert England. They miss a stop, but the driver doesn’t slow down. Soon, they head cross-country out into the desert. Suddenly, it’s Freddy driving the bus. The bus is soon dangling over a deep pit with lava and lightning. Jesse screams.
“Mommy, why can’t Jesse wake up like everyone else?” Asks his sister as she eats her “Fu Man Chews” breakfast cereal. Lisa comes over and the two drive to school. Jesse hears from Grady that the house they just moved into had some weirdness there not too long ago. A girl watched her boyfriend get butchered just across the street. Yes, it’s on Elm Street.
That night, Jesse dreams of Freddy again. At school the next day, Jesse dozes off in class and is attacked by a snake, although this one is real. Lisa comes over, and they clean his bedroom together. They find Nancy’s diary from the first film— it’s five years old. They read about Freddy; Jesse recognizes the character from his own dreams.
Jesse goes down to his basement and looks inside the furnace. He finds Freddy’s glove. Freddy appears and tells him to try them on. “Kill for me!” Freddy shouts.
Everyone in the house complains about how hot it is in the house, and then their birds explode into flames.
That night Jesse goes out in a near-sleepwalking daze, Jesse goes to a gay bar and runs into the coach. Now that he knows the coach’s secret, the coach has it in for him. They go back to the school so the coach can abuse him some more, but the various balls and things in the locker room start shooting everywhere. Jesse watches as the coach is tortured by an invisible force. Then Freddy comes in and finishes the job. Or is it? We see Jesse wearing the bloody glove.
Jesse’s mom thinks he needs therapy; his father wants to send him to rehab.
Lisa reads the diary, and they go to the power plant where Fred Krueger worked. This is where the boiler room was. They go inside and not much happens.
Lisa has a pool party and she and Jesse make out, but it takes a weird turn halfway through. He tells Grady that he killed the coach, but Grady doesn’t believe it. He wants Grady to watch him sleep and stop him from doing anything. Naturally, Grady goes to sleep as well. Freddy crawls out of Jesse and kills Grady. Jesse wakes up just in time to find the body.
Lisa confronts Jesse and Freddy chases her around. Meanwhile, the pool party gets a little crazy.
Lisa hurried right over to Freddy’s factory, where she encounters several weird creatures and finally Freddy himself. Jesse still has some influence over his own body, so Freddy has difficulty killing her. Lisa kisses Freddy, and he burns. Jesse gets up and peels the remnants of Freddy off of his body.
The next day, Jesse and Lisa get on the school bus, and he thinks the bus is going too fast… It’s all over, right?
Commentary
It’s a good follow-up to the first film, where Freddy was destroyed at the end, sorta. Most of this film has you wondering if Freddy is real or if Jesse is just crazy, and it could go either way for a long while. Freddy was seriously weakened in the previous film, and he’s obviously having a hard time manifesting in our world again; he’s never been weaker.
It implies that this particular house on Elm Street is haunted, even though that wasn’t the case in the first film; Nancy’s house wasn’t anything special there, but it seems to be the focus of Freddy’s spirit now.
Freddy’s not confined to just dreams any more. The whole pool party scene takes place in the real world, and none of the characters are asleep.
Some of the visual effects, like Freddy climbing out of Jesse’s body, were really well done. Others, like the human-faced dog-things at the factory, were laughably awful. All in all a decent sequel, but it wrapped everything up and it’s the last time we see Freddy. Right?