Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge(1985)

Time to fire up the hard-drive and get this homoerotic horror film over with.

Yes, Nightmare 2 has the reputation as being the gayest horror film ever made, and I'd like to say that it's fine if you're straight, gay, bi, or none of the above. If I comment on something being gay, I in no way equate it with negativity, and with all that being said, let's do it to it.

Film opens with the title, Freddy's Revenge, slamming onto the screen like it's an action film.

Credits of the main cast:

Mark Patton plays the lead character Jesse. Robert Rusler as Ron Grady, Jesse's friendly rival, and Kim Myers as Lisa Webber, Jesse's love interest.

Two little tidbits about Myers.

1. She looks like Meryl Streep.

2. She would go on to star in another sub-par horror sequel, Hellraiser 4, directed by the great Alan Smithee.

We've got Crow T. Robot on Clu Gulager alert.

Robert Englund cameos as the bus driver. The only kids left on the bus are milquetoast Jesse and two girls that are mocking him.

The bus speeds past one of the girls' stop, the music picks up too, letting us know that something's not right.

Freddy takes the bus off-road through the desert and it ends up on two rock pillars after the ground around it collapses.

New Line isn't messing around this time, having Freddy appear six minutes into the film in all his glory.

Jesse wakes up screaming and covered in sweat, which is apparently becoming the norm for how he wakes. After a quick chat with his family, Lisa comes over and Jesse takes them both to school in his beat up car.

During pe that day, Jesse and Grady get to grappling while playing baseball. Grady's first move is to pull down Jesse's pants, he must be an Australian dick wrestling champ.

Their punishment is to stay in a push-up position until coach Schneider says otherwise. Grady tells Jesse that Schneider is a sadist and likes to hang around  gay S&M bars.

Jesse's nightmare that night is Freddy telling him that he needs him! Jesse has the body and Freddy's got the brain!

The next day, Jesse planned on going see Lisa, but Clu lays down the law and wants him to finally finishing unpacking his room as they've been living there for some time. 

This all leads to the rare dance montage in a horror movie.

His popgun goes pop right when his mother and Lisa come through his door. Lisa helps him unpack and finds an old diary of Nancy's right next to a board game called probe.

I would talk about them reading Nancy's diary and whatnot, but I have to point out that Jesse has a "No out of town chicks" sign on his door. You can tell it was checks and he covered the e with an i. Jesse either doesn't want girls in his room or just ones from out of town?

Jesse's third nightmare is "waking up" in The Persistence of Memory. He heads down to the basement and finds Freddy's glove in the furnace.

After an uneventful day at school, Jesse comes home to find the family birds going apeshit. One dies and the other goes on the attack against Clu, eventually com-busting. 

Instead of a nightmare, Jesse sleepwalks to Don's Place for a beer, getting stopped by leather-clad coach Schneider. Coach makes him run laps in the school gym, but he gets killed shortly thereafter by various sports balls and a getting his bare ass whipped.

After being brought home by the cops, Jesse starts to look rough and tired, drinking a big cup of coffee in the morning. He presses his dad about the history of the house and the toaster goes up in flames to end the argument.

Later that day, Lisa has Jesse take them to an abandoned power plant, the one where Freddy Krueger use to work at, it's also where he killed all his victims.

In what I consider the best, and maybe only, good scene in the movie, we get a first person Evil Dead camera work. Starting from the furnace and ending above Jesse's sleeping sister.

Freddy tells her to wake up, but it's Jesse standing over her, telling her to go back to sleep.

Bringing us to the last act.

It Lisa's weekend pool party and Jesse would rather leave than be there, making me wonder why go in the first place?

Lisa does manage to get Jesse alone and they start making out.

While rounding the bases with Lisa, Jesse gets a Gene Simmons tongue and runs off to go bunk with Grady.

At Grady's, Jesse wants him to watch him sleep in case something Freddy like would happen. I don't know what good Grady is and if Jesse didn't come over, Grady's death scene wouldn't have followed.

Freddy burst through Jesse's body and quickly deposes of Grady, then Jesse is back in control and bolts back to Lisa's to confess what's been happening to him.

"He's inside me and he wants to take me again."

The eerie music kicks in and shit starts going weird:

The pool starts to boil, hot dogs catch fire and explode on the grill, and the most horrifying of all, the beer brand beer cans pop and spray everywhere.

Freddy full takes over Jesse and starts wrecking shit at the pool party, causing the place to become an inferno with random fire shooting up.

Freddy leaves after Lisa's shotgun-wielding dad shows up and Lisa goes after him. She heads to the power plant from earlier, passing a pair of human-faced dogs and later, some mutant rats.

Finally confronting Freddy in a lame duck finish, she loves Jesse and this causes Freddy to start bleeding.

So, if Freddy Krueger posses someone you know, you just need to express your love for that person in order to defeat Freddy.

They share a kiss and it causes the damn place to go up in flames.

Jesse climbs up from the ashes of Freddy and the power of love defeated evil, score one for Huey Lewis.

Ending almost like the first Nightmare film ended; Jesse walks out the door of his house, his mother behind him, he gets on the school bus from the beginning, and sits by Lisa. Why not take your car?

CAUSE THIS IS A BUS TO HELL!!!!!!!!!!

Join me next time for the best movie in the series and the return of Nancy Thompson in.......

A Nightmare on Elm Street-1984

It only took me over a year, but I'm finally cracking down and reviewing everything Nightmare on Elm Street.

Film opens with a man( who we now know as Freddy Krueger) crafting brass tubing and steak knives together to make a razored glove.

Cut to a girl named Tina being chased through a boiler room. We only get glimpses of Freddy or views of him in the shadows, building up the suspense for his reveal.


Freddy, still with his face concealed, pops up behind Tina, scaring her awake. This was ground breaking in the horror genre; a killer that can only get to you while you sleep. 

The next day, we meet Tina's friends: Nancy Thompson, played by Heather Langenkamp, Rod Lane, played by Nick Corri, and Glen Lantz, Johnny Depp in one of his earliest roles.

Rod, by the way, woke up with a hard-on that morning and it had Tina's name written all over it.

All four spend the night at Tina's because her mom is away. Tina and Rod end up having sex, sealing their faiths, as horror movie history has shown.

Freddy presses against the wall above a sleeping Nancy. In reality, it was a man pressing against a huge sheet of spandex.
Tina goes outside and gets chased by Freddy, finally getting a clear view of his face.

She manages to get back to the house and meets her end in a death scene that still holds up today as one of the best.

Nancy's divorced parents are introduced at the police station in the next scene. Her father is a police lieutenant played by John Saxon, who also played a lieutenant ten years prior in Black Christmas.

Nancy's mother is played by Ronee Blakley, her occupation is never revealed, but I'm guessing she doesn't work as the movie shows her descending into alcoholism.

Lt. Thompson uses Nancy as bait, arresting Rod when he stops Nancy on her way to school the next day.

Nancy's English teacher is played by Lin Shaye, sister of producer Robert Shaye. She's become a character actor since, mainly in comedies and horror films, most recently, the Insidious series.

Nancy doses off, "waking" to a body bagged Tina calling out her name. A trip to the boiler room later and Nancy wakes herself up by burning her arm on a pipe.

Later that day, she visits Rod and puts together that they've all been having nightmares about Freddy.

Back at home, Nancy falls asleep in the tub and gets dragged down into the water. She breaks free right before her mother breaks in.

That same night, Freddy kills Rod by making it look like he hung himself.

Some time after Rod's funeral, Nancy goes to a sleep disorder clinic with her mother. The doctor played by the voice of Roger Rabbit, Charles Fleischer.

After being attacked again the dream world, Nancy wakes with a streak of white in her hair and she also pulled Freddy's hat through with her.

Nancy's mother bars all the windows of the house and begins heavily drinking. She finally tells Nancy why Freddy is after her.

Freddy Krueger was a child murderer, he was caught but released on a technicality, so Nancy's parents and others got together and burned Freddy alive. The only logical thing to do.

That night, Nancy devises a plan to bring Freddy into the real world, but she needs Glen's help, but he fails, falling asleep and dying in an eruption of blood.

Realizing that she's alone in this, Nancy booby traps the house, sets an alarm on her watch, and goes to sleep to face Freddy.

An ultra-violent Three Stooges act ensues when Nancy pulls Freddy through to the real world. She smashes a vase on his head, rigs a sledgehammer to hit him in the gut, and sets him on fire.

While Nancy's dad breaks into the house, Freddy gets revenge on Nancy's mom.

Freddy tries to attack Nancy again, but he is powerless now, as Nancy no longer fears him.

She walks out of the house and her mother is right behind her, she gets in a car with her previously dead friends. The top of the convertible is Freddy-colored and the car drives off on it's own.

Freddy's arm snatches momma Thompson through the front door window and cue the credits.

Freddy Krueger will be back in Nightmare 2: Freddy's Revenge!

SAW-2003 short film

In 2003, two Aussies got together to write and direct a short horror film that they would use to pitch a full length film based on the subject of their short film.

The short film was called Saw and it was directed by James Wan and written by Wan and Leigh Whannell. The music was composed by Charlie Clouser, a touring member of Nine Inch Nails.

The short opens in an interrogation room, a man in handcuffs named David is telling a detective what "happened" to him.

David works at a hospital as an orderly and was abducted during his last shift.

He wakes up strapped to a chair in an abandoned building, the now iconic reverse bear trap on his head.

 

Saw's now mascot, Billy the Puppet, appears on a tv, demonstrating what will happen to David once the timer on his trap reaches zero.

The key to David's trap is in the stomach of a near by dead man.

Surprise surprise, the dead man isn't really dead, just paralyzed.

David gets the trap off right before the timer goes off.

Billy wheels in on his tricycle  and congratulates David on winning.

The short ends with David sobbing in the interrogation room while the detective asks him if he is grateful to be alive.

From an eight minute film with a $3000US budget to a franchise that spawned seven films, with an eight film in development with a release date slated for October 27,2017. 

Saw is the second highest grossing horror franchise, behind Friday the 13th.

Masters of Horror- "Jenifer" (2005)

Masters of Horror was an anthology tv series created by director Mick Garris for the Showtime Network. Garris is best known for adapting Stephen King stories, like Sleepwalkers and The Stand.

Directors known for their contributions to the horror genre, the "Masters", would each direct a 60 minute stand-alone story. One of my favorite episodes was episode four of season one, Jenifer.

It was director by Dario Argento, the Italian giallo master, who's greatest film is arguably 1977's Suspiria. The episode is an adaption of a comic book story by the same name. Written by Bruce Jones and illustrated by Bernie Wrightson, it appeared in Creepy Comics #63 (July 1974)

Episode opens detective Frank Spivey and his partner eating lunch in their patrol car under a bridge. Frank decides to talk a walk and witnesses a man dragging a woman down to the water side.

This unknown man was ready to hack her to pieces if Frank didn't interfere and shoot the man.

"Jenifer" His last words.

Frank Spivey's partner eventually shows, exchanging words about what the hell happened and Frank jumps back at the sight of Jenifer's big, black, pupil-less eyes.

At the police station, Spivey goes over the ordeal with his superior and argues about having to attend psych meetings, but it's required since he killed someone. The scene ends with him sharing a distant moment with Jenifer.

We find out that Frank is married and he'd rather drink in front of his wife, Ruby, than taking his partner's earlier offer to go to a bar. He's brooding throughout dinner and snaps at his wife at one point, this moment is interrupted by their teen-aged soon coming home.

His wife seduces him, but his mind is still stuck on Jenifer. Frank tries to anally rape his wife while flashes of a tied-up Jenifer and the man he killed intercut. Ruby forces Frank off of her and calls him a bastard.

A meeting with psych reveals that the man Frank killed use to be a businessman, then he lost it all and was disowned by his family. Frank inquires about Jenifer, who's been sent to an asylum; so he takes her home.

Jenifer can't speak, only making dog like whimpers, until she comes across the family cat and hisses back.

Frank dreams of a normal faced Jenifer is awoken by the real Jenifer's whines. Frank's wife and son meet Jenifer shortly thereafter, each exchanging screams with her. Ruby wants her out and Jenifer answers with a kiss.

The next day, Frank tries to leave her on the side of the road, but she convinces him otherwise by his licking is hand. Frank gives in to her and they have sex in the car.

They go back to Frank's house and Ruby gives him an ultimatum: Jenifer goes or she goes. Ruby doesn't need an answer cause they catch Jenifer eating the cat, even offering some to Frank.

The next day, Jenifer meets the little girl next, the girl is throwing flowers into a kiddie pool and I imagine this scene is an homage to Frankenstein.

Meanwhile, Frank spirals into alcoholism as evident by the background blues music and the use of Dutch angles. He happens upon a flyer for the circus and stumbles home.

Frank hears a rumbling when he gets in and we see that the little girl suffered a faith worse than drowning.

Frank pays a visit to that circus the next day, paying off a worker to abduct Jenifer. This plan goes as you would expect; the circus man ends up in Frank's fridge.

In a panicked rage, Frank flees the city with Jenifer to a shack in the woods, and of course, they have sex again.

Frank gets a job at a general store that's ran by a single mother. Jenifer spies on Frank one day, not liking the woman talking to Frank.

Jenifer takes "revenge" by leading the woman's son on a chase through the woods after he spotted the back of her at a party.

Frank finds them at the shack, Jenifer eating the boy penis first.

The episode ends like it begins.

Frank drags Jenifer out to the woods, axe in hand. A hunter comes upon them and shoots Frank right after telling him to drop the axe. The hunter frees Jenifer and the cycle begins again.