This is part two of an eight part series looking back at the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The answers to trivia questions in the Toronto Underground Cinema's Dream Date With Freddy giveaway can be found here.
Only 14 days after the original Nightmare on Elm Street had been released, New Line Cinema had enough cash to go ahead and begin production on the follow-up. For the first time in their history, New Line chairman Bob Shaye had taken out ads in Variety to trumpet the business of their most successful film and vowed to have the sequel in theatres by October of the following year. Despite not being able to stick to that vow (the film opened the day after Halloween in 1985), the news of a sequel came as a shock to no one.
Series creator Wes Craven was a bit soured on the idea of making a sequel. Craven always intended for A Nightmare on Elm Street to be a story with a firm conclusion (no matter how ambiguous it might have been). A brewing dispute over a share of profits from the original film was also beginning to brew, which led to Bob Shaye commissioning a script from a different writer. The bringing on of a new talent didn't bother Craven all that much, and New Line still extended an offer to Craven to direct the new script, but the sequel was shaping up to be a much different film from the original and he ultimately passed on it.
Due to the fast turnaround and the general lack of interest from most of the actors and crew from the first film, only three principal people would return for the sequel. Robert Englund had previously signed to do two sequels in the contract for the original film, but even without that provision, he was more than happy to come back (a feeling he wouldn't always share as the series progressed). Production assistant Rachel Talalay would return this time to work in the art department and would continue to stay with the series to eventually become the director of Freddy's Dead. Cinematographer Jaques Haitkin would also return, but would only be available for half the shoot due to prior commitments. Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon were asked about their interest to return, but they both stated that they were uninterested unless Wes Craven was involved.
With Craven off to work on Deadly Friend, his first studio based horror film at Warner Brothers, writing duties fell first time writer David Chaskin and Jack Sholder was tapped to direct. Shoulder was a good friend of Bob Shaye's who had previously directed the only other film to be produced in-house by New Line Cinema. Alone in the Dark (from 1982) was another horror film starring Jack Palance, Martin Landau, and Donald Pleasance about a group of lunatics who have escaped from an insane asylum in the middle of a blackout. At one point in the film, one of the escapees is asked by a little girl what town he is from and the answer became the name of the previously unnamed town in the Elm Street franchise: Springwood.
Chaskin wanted to play around with horror franchise conventions and opted to make the lead character in his script male. The protagonist for Freddy's Revenge would be Jesse, played by actor Mark Patton. The film would see Jesse and his family (with parents played by television icons Hope Lange and Clu Gulager) moving into the house on Elm Street formerly owned by Nancy's mother. Freddy would use Jesse as a tool of destruction by trying to possess him and allow Freddy to move about in the real world.
The production on the second film was a lot more tightly regimented this time around despite a friendly relationship between Sholder and Shaye. For New Line Cinema, Freddy's Revenge had even higher stakes than the original film. If a sequel to their biggest success could be a hit, it would make the company a real contender. If it failed, the company could be finished.
Bob Shaye was on set for 31 of the 36 days of principal photography; almost unheard of for an executive producer or studio head. Shaye would often be giving orders to people that the director should have been giving. Shaye was responsible for the hiring of make-up effects artist Kevin Yagher who would end up crafting the Freddy make-up that would be used for most of the sequels to follow. He was constantly calling Chaskin back to the set to rewrite the script on the fly; not because the script wasn't very good, but because he kept trimming scenes to lower the budget and decrease the shooting schedule. The iconic scene where Freddy and Jesse square off for the first time, wasn't actually in any of Chaskin's draft. It was constructed on the day of the shoot by Shaye and Kevin Yagher.
Shaye was also adamant that he act in the film. Described as a "frustrated actor" by Jack Sholder, Shaye heavily lobbied for the part of Mr. Grady, the father of Jesse's best friend Ron (played by Robert Rusler). When Sholder told Shaye that a trained actor was needed for that role, Shaye became incensed and demanded a part in the film. Bowing to his bosses demands, Sholder gave Bob the role of a bartender... in an S&M leather bar.
That brings me to the point that some people involved with the production like to dance around (Shaye, Shoulder) and that others openly embrace (Chaskin, Patton, Englund, anyone with a set of eyes): Freddy's Revenge may be the first openly gay horror sequel.
Jesse is being taken over by a force that he can't control. It is a force that scares him deeply. He has intimacy problems with his girlfriend Lisa (Kim Myers) that he can't explain. He awakens in the middle of the night and sleepwalks to a leather bar. Inside the leather bar, he is stopped by his sadistic gym teacher (Marshall Bell) who takes him back to the school after hours to make him run laps. Coach Snyder is killed by a possessed Jesse and Freddy by tying him up in the shower with a jump rope, whipping him with a towel, and slashing and burning him. (A scene that begins with all of the balls in the gym bouncing around and rolling every which way) Jesse doesn't want comfort from his girlfriend and instead seeks it from his best friend who responds with:
"Something is trying to get inside you and you want to sleep with me?"
Described as "the Top Gun of slasher films" by former New Line executive Jeff Katz, Freddy's Revenge is a sloppy, but not altogether uninteresting sequel. The gay subtext is actually quite exceptional and subversive, especially given how subtly feminine Mark Patton looks in the role. Patton, who is openly gay in real life, gives a genuinely good performance as the conflicted teenager who doesn't know what is happening to his body. Chaskin, who is also openly gay, admits that the subtext is entirely intentional, extending to his asking production designer Maggie Martin (who is openly bisexual and has a really incredible resume) to include little touches to heighten the material without Sholder's knowledge. In Jesse's closet there is a board game called Probe. On Jesse's door it very clearly says "No chicks allowed." Then there is the dance scene.
This doesn't necessarily make Freddy's Revenge a great film, and it is admittedly one of the lesser sequels. The main problem with the film is actually the biggest reason why Wes Craven opted to not come back. The sequel doesn't feel the need to follow the rules of the original film, and by the climax, it has thrown the original rules out almost entirely.
What made the original Nightmare so scary was that anything could have been a dream. In Freddy's Revenge, partially thanks to laziness and partially thanks to Shaye's desire to have a more profitable franchise, the killer is allowed to perpetrate random acts of violence in the real world when he previously was unable to. The death of the coach is satisfying in a "jerky guy getting his comeuppance" sort of way, but it doesn't fit the franchise. The final third of the film has Freddy attacking kids at a pool party by electrifying fences and setting fires when it is impossible that these powers have transferred over to the real world. It leads to a very cool sequence where Freddy stands in front of a wall of flames and says "You are all my children now," but the scene itself just isn't scary and it doesn't work. Then there are scenes where Freddy turns up the thermostat and blows up a parakeet. For absolutely no reason.
It's not without fun or charm, but it is in no way equal to the first film. Freddy's Revenge did, however, outperform the original by grossing almost $33 million on only just over 600 screens. Shaye officially had a franchise that could sustain his company and Englund was well on his way to becoming the icon of horror that he is today.
Next time we will take a look at Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and the rise of the cult of Freddy.
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