Nightmare 2 was a mediocre film, but viewed as a standalone film and it isn't as bad as it's made out to be.
It was a financial success though, grossing $30 million on a $3 million budget.
New Line didn't like the critical response the film received and sought to rectify this problem; Wes Craven was brought back in to provide a screenplay.
Craven and writing partner Bruce Wagner's treatment for Nightmare 3 was re-written into the version we now know by Frank Darabont and Chuck Russell.
Darabont would go on to direct The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Mist, and helped develop and produce The Walking Dead on AMC.
Chuck Russell would direct and co-write The Blob remake the following year in 1988 and has only helmed a select number of projects: The Mask, Eraser, and The Scorpion King.
"Sleep.
Those little slices of Death.
How I loathe them."
-Edgar Allen Poe
Film opens with Patricia Arquette as our lead, Kristen, making a paper mache model of Nancy's house.
She's desperate to stay awake, cranking up Dokken on her tape player and chasing a scoop of Maxwell House instant coffee grounds with diet coke.
If only New Line went after Jolt Cola to be used instead, it had "all the sugar and twice the caffeine."
Kristen's mom comes in the room, back from a night out on the town. She and Kristen's now absent father were some of the parents that set Freddy on fire.
While her mother forces her to go to sleep, we learn that Kristen has been having bad dreams, but Kristen's mom has a man to entertain downstairs and doesn't want to hear any of it.
Kristen falls asleep and wakes in front of the mache house she made. She runs after a little girl that went inside, eventually catching up to her and gets chased by Freddy.
After barely avoiding a swiping Freddy, Kristen bumps into a hanging body filled in a room of hung bodies, then looks down to see the little girl is a skeleton.
Fortunately she wakes up from her nightmare..........into another nightmare. Freddy slices one of her wrists, while in reality, Kristen took a razor to herself.
Youth suicide was on the rise at the time and considered a taboo subject to make any mention of.
Cut to the Westin Hills Psychiatric hospital. Max the orderly, played by Laurence Fishburn, is listening to the local news on the radio, reports of two more teenage deaths, suicide determined to be the case.
Max shares a theory he has on this with Dr. Gordon. It's fucked up chromosomes, according to Max; the kids parents dropped too much acid in the 60s and now it's effecting their children.
Dr. Gordon shares colleague's, Dr. Simms, theory: too much sex,drugs, and rock n'roll, which Max thinks is the only reasons to live.
Dr. Gordon passes some of the patients in the hallway; Taryn, who doesn't say anything and hurries away, Jennifer, who shares her variety of cigarette burns, and Philip, who runs past Gordon and Jennifer.
Gordon and the aforementioned Dr. Simms look in on Kincaid, a patient in the rubber room.
Kristen's intake to the hospital is going fine till they try to sedate her. The standoff ends with the reintroduction of Nancy Thompson.
Nancy is the hospital's new resident and she trades pleasantries with Dr. Gordon outside in the hospital's grounds. Gordon spots a nun after Nancy goes back into the hospital and the nun disappears as people walk by her.
Back inside the hospital, Max gives Nancy a tour and proper introduction to Philip, a sleepwalker who likes to make marionettes, and Kincaid, who makes it a habit of getting tossed in the quiet room.
Joey is another patient; a mute who has the hots for one of the nurses and a drawn-on teardrop under his eye.
Whilst in a nightmare, Kristen pulls Nancy into her dream with her, but not before being half way eaten by a Freddy snake.
Nancy stabs its eye and she escapes with Kristen, they talk about Kristen's apparent power the next morning.
Group that day introduces Will, who's wheelchair bound after a suicide jump, and Taryn is a junkie, probably heroin.
Freddy's first victim is Philip. Freddy becomes one of the marionettes and then turns Philip into one by stringing up his veins.
Philip's death gets written off as an accident and then a suicide when the kids claim that Philip was awake. This doesn't sit right with Kincaid and he gets put in the quiet room again.
Night falls and Jennifer is the next victim, well I guess Zsa Zsa Gabor is actually next.
Freddy welcomes that bitch, Jennifer, to prime time and the mystery nun appears again at Jennifer's funeral the next day.
Mystery nun says some jazz about cleansing the unwanted spirit to Gordon and disappears again.
Nancy holds a group session and tells the remaining kids why Freddy is after them, that they're the last of the Elm St. children.
They try a controlled hypnosis experiment next, resulting in Joey going after hot nurse lady, Will standing up and declaring himself Wizard Master in his dreams. Kristen does gymnastics, Kincaid bends a chair, and Taryn becomes a punker.
Meanwhile, hot lady nurse seduces Joey and tongue-ties him to a bed.
Freddy goes after the rest of the group, but Dr. Simms barges into the room, ending the hypnosis session. Gordon and Nancy are fired because of the recent events, and the disappearing reappearing nun appears once more to Gordon.
Mystery nun gives Freddy's origins to Gordon: He's the abomination of a nun being raped by a 100 maniacs, just 9900 short of a 10,000.
Nancy and Gordon go to meet Nancy's dad, the only person who knows where Freddy's bones are buried. He's an alcoholic now and a security guard and doesn't want to help.
Gordon is able to convince him and they head off to the junkyard where Freddy's bones are, while Nancy goes back to the hospital to lead Taryn, Kincaid, Kristen, and Will in the dream world and rescue Joey.
Kristen has deja vu of the first scene, but this time around, Freddy wants to know where the fucking bourbon is?
She backflips her way out of her room and into Nancy's old house.
Cut to Taryn getting into a knife fight with Freddy, but she succumbs to a lethal dose of "drugs".
Will gets offed next, but I don't really care.
Meanwhile, Gordon and Poppa Thompson fight a Ray Harryhausen skeleton at the junkyard, with John Saxon not using any of his Enter the Dragon skills.
In dream world, Nancy, Kristen, and Kincaid rescue Joey and escape from Freddy. Joey starts talking again after yelling and breaking the hallway of mirrors that Freddy was appearing in and snatching his friends into.
Freddy pulls a Darth Helmet, fooling Nancy with an illusion of her father.
She isn't dead yet and holds off Freddy from attacking Kristen, while in the real world, Dr. Gordon pours holy water on Freddy's bones, defeating him.
Dr. Gordon sees the nun one last time at Nancy's funeral. He follows her till she disappears at a headstone, the headstone of Amanda Krueger, Freddy's mother and the nun's real name.
The movie ends after that revelation, no stinger or tease of a sequel. Freddy was laid to rest, for now at least.
