'Nightmare on Elm Street 2' picks up five years after the events of the first film. A new family has moved into Nancy's old house (Nancy herself is said to have been institutionalized). Freddy's spirit has been quitley haunting the place, but with new residents he picks the inhabitant of Nancy's former room as his special project. Freddy's plan is to get into the body of teenaged Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton), through his dreams and use him to commit murders in the physical world.
As Jesse becomes increasingly aware of what is happening to him, he enlists the aid of frienemie (and character I love and will defend) Ron Graddy (Robert Rusler) and love interest Lisa Webber (Kim Myers), who I also love and will defend; in fact, overall the characters in this film are much more interesting and developed then those in the first. The plot is more engaging, the look of the thing better, it's funner, and in everyway this is the suppior film, save the original has the better scary moments.
I really enjoyed this, it's the rare horror sequel that improves on the original, it's not lazily copy cating, rather it's expanding and further developing on ideas from the original movie and going it's own way with them. There is also a gay subtext which becomes more interesting when you learn that lead actor Mark Patton was himself closeted at the time. Lastly, while the kids largely disapproved, I fully support Lisa's dad's decision to play his Benny Goodman records at the pool party. ***
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