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A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: The Gay One
Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is revered by horror fans the world over. Each of the films in the series has scenes that are remembered as classics or contributed something to the legacy of Freddy Krueger. Each of them, that is, except for this first sequel.This particular film is largely forgotten at best and deliberately overlooked at worst. Although it’s doubtful that it was ever the conscious intent of anyone involved in the filmmaking process, Freddy’s Revenge has come to be known as the one where the villainous Freddy Krueger serves as a metaphor for the hero coming to terms with his own homosexuality. I swear to god that isn’t a joke.Having been ostensibly killed at the end of the first movie, Freddy needs somebody to resurrect him; enter our hero, a fairly feminine guy by the name of Jesse. Jesse’s family has just moved to Elm Street and, wouldn’t you know, they’ve moved into the very house where Nancy had all her trouble in the previous picture. Jesse finds himself tormented by horrible visions of himself as Freddy, and the line between what he dreams about and what he may actually be doing gradually blurs. But who cares about that. What we’re all really interested in is the whole being gay thing, so let’s talk about that.
Our Fruity HeroThe thing about these slasher-type movies is that they usually have a heroine in the lead role rather than a hero. The audience likes to see a damsel in distress. For this movie, it’s almost like everyone involved realized that after they’d already committed to having a male (Mark Patton) in the starring role. So, first they gave him the ambiguously-gendered name of Jesse. Not sure if this would be enough, they then decided to have him act like a damn little girl all the time. He awakes from the nightmare that opens the film with a scream far,
far girlier than anything Heather Langenkamp did in the first picture. He rides to school each day with a girl named Lisa. Lisa very obviously wants to jump all over Jesse’s junk, but he’ll have none of it. “No girls for me, please” that is Jesse’s rallying cry. Whenever she comes onto him, he makes an “eww, icky” face and fumbles away. Odd choces all for a movie like this, aimed at your teen crowd. When Jesse and Lisa find the diary of Nancy from the first movie, there’s this exchange.Lisa [reading]: Sometimes when I’m lying here in bed, I can see Glenn in his window across the way getting ready for bed. His body is slim and smooth and I know I shouldn’t watch him, but that part of me that wants him forces me to. That’s when I weaken. That’s when I want to go to him.
Jesse: Can I see that?And let’s none of us forget about the part where Jesse’s father demands he clean his room and, to make a game out of it, Jesse turns on some super gay music and dances around. And I don’t mean like when I tap on the desk along with the Shirelles. I mean a
super gay dance to a
super gay song. He puts on sunglasses and a weird hat, bumps his ass into his dresser drawers and simulates masturbating with every phallic thing he can find. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
Freddy as HomosexualityRunning through the whole film is this undercurrent that Jesse struggling against what Freddy’s doing to him is really Jesse struggling to keep supressed the homosexual urges raging through his young, gay body. At one point, Lisa throws a pool party with all the cool kids in attendance–you know, the kind I never got invited to even though all the hot rich girls always said “Ha, Eric you’re so funny, we should invite you next time we have a swimming party” except of course they never did and I spent my Friday nights at home reading Isaac Asimov and eating Domino’s while listening to somber music and bitterly wiping the tears from my blubbery face. But, anyway, there’s this awesome party going on with babes in swimming suits and Jesse spends the whole time alone in the poolhouse moping. Lisa comes in to see what his deal is, they have a bit of a conversation, and she moves in for the kiss. She starts macking on him pretty good, and just as things are about to take a turn for the sexy…WHAMO! A big gross Freddy tongue manifests itself and comes popping out of Jesse’s mouth. He scampers off like a frightened rabbit to his best guy friend Grady’s house and jumps into his bed. Grady is lying there all undressed, and Jesse hops on into bed with him, begging to stay with him that night. He immediately pours his heart out to this guy, after refusing to talk about anything with Lisa, who’s been dying to help him. He tells his friend: “I’m scared…something is trying to get inside my body.” He then sits down in his barechested friend’s room and says “I’m all messed up. I’m in trouble. And I need you to help me.” And then, of course, there’s this.Grady: What do you want me to do?
Jesse: Just watch me. And if anything starts to happen–if I start to act weird or start dreaming weird or try to walk out of here, you gotta stop me. I don’t care if you have to hit me over the head, just don’t let me leave. And Grady…don’t fall asleep.You don’t exactly have to be skilled in psychoanalysis to figure this stuff out, right? There are little moments like this all through the picture, with Jesse crying all the time and saying that Freddy Krueger is “inside me, and he wants to take me again” and how he can’t fight it anymore, all of which adds up to one bizarro evening in front of the TV.
The Biggest Gay Scene of AllAs Freddy starts manipulating Jesse more and more into doing his bidding and killing for him, Jesse’s first act of violence is to wander out of his house in the middle of the night and head straight for a gay S&M bar where he encounters his leather-clad gym teacher. I just want you to know right now that I swear to god I’m not making any of this up. The gym teacher takes Jesse back to the school where he forces him to run laps and then tells him to “hit the showers.” As Jesse showers, a supernatural forces causes the coach to be attacked by all the balls in his office (eh? get it?), after which he is dragged into the shower room and bound to the pipes with a jump rope. His clothes are ripped away and, as Jesse stands there naked and watching, towels fly through the air and
whip the coach repeatedly on his bare ass. At this point, we ostensibly see Freddy come in and deliver the finishing slashes to the coach, leaving him dead and nekkid. After Freddy disappears, we see a blood-spattered Jesse standing there wearing Freddy’s claw. He screams like a girl again, naturally, which is actually the least gay thing in the scene by an exceptionally wide margin.So yeah, it’s the gay text and subtext that is the most noteworthy thing about this movie. It’s definitely the oddest of the
Nightmare movies; that doesn’t make it bad, necessarily, but it’s certainly not good either. It’s watchable, but not really worth watching twice. It does have a couple of neat things, though. There’s a scene where a pet songbird freaks out and flies around the house attacking everyone until it explodes in midair. Jesse’s father’s sensible remark: “Animals don’t just explode into flames for no reason, do they?” Also, Jesse’s younger sister is seen eating a cereal called Fu Man Chews, which I think is pretty effin’ sweet. However, the movie also makes major missteps when it has Freddy come very much into the real world and terrorize kids at a well light and not very eerie pool party by making hot dogs and beer cans blow up. But if gay bondage films with incendiary canaries is your cup of tea, by all means go ahead. For everyone else…eh, you’re not missin’ much.If you don’t like
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