It is from the fest circuits of ’04 and ’05 that Paul Etheredge-Outzs’s film Hellbent is unwarrantedly announced as “the first homoerotic slasher.” However, cultists who are actually familiar with the sub-genre’s history, argue in unison, championing a film more deserving of the title and that has already existed some decades prior to the aforementioned film.
Freddy’s Revenge, the 1985 sequel to Wes Craven’s beloved original, picks up the supernatural catastrophe dealt by a scarlet-faced daemon named Freddy Kreuger (Robert Englund), a school gardener who dies after parents conspire to burn and kill him for every bit of ambiguous wickedness he has brought upon their innocent kindergarteners. Craven’s creation is an assured exercise of the sub-genre, a disciplined work by a filmmaker who has set himself on the material seemingly vehemently. And while this is the case (and charm) in Craven’s cult-favorite, director John Sholder settles for a nuisance of a sequel, making his film ultimate disservice by stripping its narrative’s requisite logic. This, however, should not discourage you in watching; film critic Tim Brayton noted that it is “better than most if not all of the Friday the 13th films.” Of the reason he mentioned this, I understand, being that the film comes from an era of ‘quickie sequels.’
Still, it is mainly schlock; but it is interesting schlock, like a stinging needle in a haystack. Conscious or not, it is suggestive of its principal character’s homosexuality, or bisexuality: Jessie (Mark Patton), a naturally awkward high-schooler who moves in to a new home which happened to be the one that Nancy–Kreuger’s previous tormentee, played by Heather Langenkamp–had lived and (presumably) died in. In the first few minutes of the film, we learn that he has a friend who is very much infatuated with her (portrayed by Meryl Streep-lookalike Kim Myers); and he also has a rough-cased dimwit for a best friend, into whose room he holes in during a situation of peril (which, quite curiously, happens to be having to have sex with that other ‘friend’ in question). We learn too that his gym teacher is an avid goer to queer S&M bars and that Jessie, seemingly dazed, comes and possibly has sex with him.
This is intriguing even if it is all flimsy. Freddy Kreuger is demoted to being a mere plot device than a menacing personification of doom—with his steel fingers, he terrorizes his victims in their sleep, a state in which the body is physically entrapped and specifically vulnerable. For some reason, however, in this film, he is equipped with psychokinetic abilities beyond his own plane of reality—which are nightmares. For this, fans and pundits have deemed the film an abhorrent sequel, turning the burnt menace into just another slasher brand, which, if production has not meddled, was not Craven’s original vision. The ending that he wrote for his film was originally Nancy walking ghostly into the mist, which, he later uses, as a big eff-you to the whole production, in an underrated ’09 spin-off, titled My Soul to Take. This explains well enough why Craven went on to finish work for The Hills Have Eyes Part II instead.
With all this being said, Freddy’s Revenge makes a rare beast: a full-on schlocker—riddled with trite scares and stomach turners—that is alternately intriguing as well as repugnant. Incidentally, among the entire series, Craven’s original, it, and his later meta-textual play Wes Craven’s New Nightmare remain noteworthy amongst its glut of catchpennies, ‘it’ being lined here only for its intentional-or-unintentional mumbo-jumbo on sexual awakening and “the first male scream queen” it deals its lead star.
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A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET:
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1985 / Horror, Thriller / US
Dir. John Sholder / Scr. David Chaskin
Cast. Robert Englund, Mark Patton, Kim Myers…
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“I’m scared, Grady. Something is trying to get inside my body.”
~Jessie (Mark Patton)
[Grady: Yeah, she’s female and she’s waiting for you at the cabana. And you want to sleep with me.]
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