Freddy’s Revenge: A Story Out of Time

Halloween is coming up, so like any responsible adult, I’m sure that you’re planning a marathon of the entire Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The first six at least. Maybe New Nightmare, just for a goof. Maybe even Freddy vs Jason to top it off with a Slash of The Titans finale. Some psychopaths may even throw in the remake for inexplicable reasons, but whatever. I’m not here to judge.

I am here to make a suggestion, however.

You see, a common complaint leveled at the epic of Elm Street is regarding its out-of-place second entry. For the longest time, Freddy’s Revenge was considered the absolute worst in the franchise. Somehow ranked even lower than Freddy’s Dead, a phenomenon which has stymied top researchers for decades now.

The reputation for Freddy’s Revenge has been salvaged in recent years, and it’s no longer outright hated as it once was, but it’s still not given the respect it quite deserves. It’s considered a bizarre side story. One which discards the mythos built in the original film. It’s a story of possession, rather than one of nightmares. Worst yet, the story doesn’t pick up where the previous left off, and none of its plot-threads are revisited in later installments. Freddy’s Revenge comes from out of nowhere and leaves without a trace.

The common advice for newcomers to the franchise is to skip Freddy’s Revenge entirely and jump straight to Dream Warriors.

My suggestion is that rather than skip the second entry you should merely shuffle the order around. The problem with Freddy’s Revenge is not in the story, but in the chronology. Jesse’s story does not belong between A Nightmare on Elm Street and Dream Warriors. Rather, to properly feel the weight of Freddy’s Revenge, it should be viewed after The Dream Child and before Freddy’s Dead.

I’m assuming that everyone has seen the films at this point, so I won’t be concerned about spoilers. If you have not seen them, get your shit together. Come back when you have your priorities straightened out.

With that out of the way, let’s have a brief overview of the franchise.

Dream Warriors establishes that Freddy was not defeated at the end of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Rather, he’s continued his dream-stalking and turned his sights onto a crew of teenagers being held in the psychiatric ward of the local hospital.

These are the last of the Elm Street Children; the innocent offspring of the mob that burned Freddy alive years prior. One of the teens, Kristin, reveals that she can pull people into her dreams. Working together, the Elm Street Children can overpower Freddy in his own domain.

In The Dream Master, the Elm Street Children have returned to normal life following Freddy’s demise. But when Freddy returns via a stream of inordinately powerful dog piss, he sets out to eliminate the survivors that escaped his clutches. As he attacks Kristin, she unwittingly pulls her friend Alice into the dream, and through the power of desperate screenwriting, Kristin transfers her power to Alice before succumbing to Freddy.

Unable to control her newfound power, Alice acts as the conduit to the dream world. Freddy uses her to access the dreams of her unsuspecting friends.

Just after everyone else is killed, Alice conveniently learns to channel her new gift and is able to defeat Freddy. It seems that he is finally put to rest for good.

That is until Alice becomes pregnant.

In The Dream Child, Alice’s unborn son Jacob also has the ability to pull people into his dreams. Freddy uses this unlikely turn of events to revive once again and terrorize Alice’s friends through the uncontrollable dreams of her child.

Alice and Jacob then join forces, and Jacob spits back the souls fed to him by Freddy, cutting off his connection to their dreams once and for all.

(NOTE: This makes more sense on screen than it does in print, however it’s also dumber on screen so pick your poison.)

This is where Freddy’s Revenge comes in. We know that Freddy can only directly invade the dreams of the Elm Street Children. Having driven them to extinction, Freddy was dependent upon Alice and Jacob to continue his attacks. With that final tether severed, Freddy has no access to the dreams of the children any longer.

But he’s not dead. He’s an undead spirit. An idea. He cannot be eradicated. So, what does he do?

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He waits.

He fumes in his rage and his impotence. His spirit form is confined to the one physical location where all his victims’ dreams tend to lead: 1428 Elm Street.

Unable to leave the property and unable to invade dreams, Freddy stews impatiently, awaiting an opportunity to arise. An opportunity that will grant him the freedom to slaughter anyone he so desires. When Jesse moves into 1428, that moment has finally arrived.

The question always asked when it comes to Freddy’s Revenge is why Freddy bothers with the possession nonsense. He’s a dream monster. Why change the methods when they worked so well previously?

Placing Freddy’s Revenge after The Dream Child answers that question: Because he has no other choice. He needs Jesse to be his vessel. He doesn’t have enough power to kill Jesse directly, and even if he did, he still wouldn’t do so as that would leave him as a stranded spirit once again.

Instead, he breaks Jesse down mentally. Gaining power little by little until he is finally able to take full control.

Where does he take full control? At Lisa’s pool party. At the party populated by the who’s-who of Springwood High School. Breaching through to the waking world, Freddy releases some of his pent-up rage, but stops short of murdering the entire crowd.

Why? He’s clearly shown to have the power to lock everyone in. He has the power to explode the precious beer. He boils an entire swimming pool through the power of Weapons-Grade-Ugly-Face alone. Freddy could incinerate everyone at the party in a moment’s notice.

He chooses not to. Because that’s not the goal.

Freddy only needed to take control of Jesse for that brief moment. He needed to show the children that he was there. The most popular kids of Springwood High would have nightmares for weeks about the man in the red and green sweater. The man with knives for fingers. Once the nightmares started, rumors would spread to the other kids. Like a virus, Freddy could infect the dreams of every single child in Springwood.

He leaves the party with one final message: “You are all my children now.”

This is not mere showmanship from a professional Party-Pooper. It’s a statement of fact. They are his children now. They are his to slaughter at his leisure.

But what about that lame ending? The one where Freddy is exorcized from Jesse with the power of love. Why does that work? How does a kiss from the Beauty cure the curse of the Beast?

That answer is simple enough: He’s a liar.

Freddy isn’t defeated by the power of love. He’s simply done with Jesse. He relinquishes his hold, allowing Jesse and Lisa to think that the nightmare is finally over. He wants them to think that he’s gone for good. Freddy wants them to think that they’re safe.

He’ll take care of them soon enough.

With his legend growing among the populace, he now has everything he wants. He’s no longer bound to only the Elm Street Children, nor shackled to Alice and Jacob, Freddy is free. There’s no pressure. No deadlines. No games. He can invade the nightmare of any child he wants for as long as he likes.

And come Freddy’s Dead, we learn that “Ten Years From Now”, he’s done exactly that. Every child but one is dead. The parents have been driven to madness. Springwood is a ghost town filled with shattered parents and empty schools. It’s the natural conclusion to everything leading up to this point.

Placed between The Dream Child and Freddy’s Dead, the second Elm Street film is no longer an odd-ball entry in the franchise. It’s the bridge between two disparate stories.

Freddy isn’t vanquished at the end of the second movie. He is unleashed. After constantly teasing his return, film after film, Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 ends with a guarantee: Freddy’s reign of terror has only just begun. He will kill, and kill, and kill until the entire city of Springwood has felt his wrath.

It is, after all, Freddy’s Revenge.