Brian's Review

What? Are we really back to slashers again? Didn't we get enough of those? Well, yes, we did. This is different though, that was a count down, now I'm just addressing any damn thing I am interested in. And I am interested in this, probably the gayest slasher movie ever. Yes, gayest. No, not in some Junior High way where gay means lame, instead where gay means homosexual. I present to you the homosexual Nightmare on Elm Street: A Nightmare on Elm Street part 2: Freddy's Revenge.







So yeah, this is the Nightmare on Elm Street no one likes. Why? Well, it isn't actually because we're all giant homophobes, it's because it just doesn't fit. Thing is, the first Nightmare was purposely not set up for a sequel. Wes Craven hates them. He didn't want there to be another, he thought the movie worked best on it's own. He was right. Of course, there was an argument for making a sequel. It was basically this: KA-CHING! That's pretty damn compelling. And it meant a director was left with no real idea of what to do and this was a miss for the series.



As a stand alone movie though it's actually pretty good. This is a good little horror movie about the struggles of a closeted young man struggling with his homosexuality. The issue with this is no one actually went to this movie wanting to see that. Certainly no 8 year olds picked this up for a slumber party going, "Hey, man I got the first 4 Nightmare on Elms Streets, I can't wait to watch 3 movies about Freddy terrorizing people in their dreams and a movie about a young man's struggle and concern as to if he should side with his girlfriend or give in and let a man inside of him". Well, at least no 8 year olds I knew.



So let's get on to the gayness. Yes, I know what I just said there, yes, I know someone will have a field day with that. Consider it a gift. The movie is just full of homoerotic overtones. All slashers are full of phallic metaphores but usually it's a guy girl thing. Probably the first thing it has skewing it this way is the lead. Usually we have a final girl. Here we have a final guy, played by a pretty obviously gay actor and our intro to him is him waking up shirtless, sweaty, and screaming. Pretty soon he and the hunk of the movie are playing baseball, pantsing each other, and then wrestling in the dirt with their pants around their ankles. No, I'm not making any of that up. That is exactly what happens. This guy is his rival to start but they become best friends. They... well it's hard to describe honestly, the way they react to one another reminds me of the time's I'd tease Amanda Mortal in 6th grade because I didn't know yet how to talk to a girl I liked. So you know, that's the general vibe.



Then there is the dance scene. Our main character Jesse dances around in his underwear to a very 80's son, holding a little mini baseball bat between his thighs and stroking it. Why? Man, your guess is as good as mine. Jesse has a girlfriend by the way. She is very nice and very pretty and they pretty much do nothing more than hold hands. Ah, the sad, sad life of a high school beard. His girlfriend really stands out. She would be the final girl in any other movie but here she is the resourceful girlfriend who keeps trying to help her boyfriend deal with his problem, this evil he fears is inside him and wants to come out.



Oh yeah, that's the big part of this movie. Freddy possesses poor Jesse. He even says he wants to be inside him at one point. And he is. Jesse kills for Freddy. Freddy pops out of Jesse sometimes. Most notably when Jesse and his girlfriend are finally alone Jesse freaks out when she bares her breasts. Freddy comes out and kills. Jesse runs to his hunky best friends house in fear of sex with girls and hides in his bedroom with him.



Oh yeah, and his gym teacher is gay. For some reason Jesse wanders into a gay leather club where his gym teacher finds him. The teacher drags him to the school and makes him run laps and then watches Jesse shower. Um, then the gym teacher is tied to the shower heads, stripped and whipped with jump ropes. But my entire point here isn't actually that this movie is gay, that's just something that makes it very interesting. Watching it as an adult it is impossible to see this as anything other than a movie about a kid struggling with his sexuality.



That's what makes this so good actually. Everyone has shit they fear and high school is the fucking worst for this. Jesse wants nothing more than to conform and fit in. He's the new kid in town, he feels like an outsider. The dark secret he is fighting to keep inside only makes this worse. This whole thing is about his desire to fit in and deny what he really is. The movie does well playing with what is where. It is constantly disorienting in a way that is hard to describe but it makes it extremely difficult to know what is and isn't real. We feel off balance the entire movie.



The movie certainly has it's issues and it's gay subtext isn't that forward thinking (Jesse is cured of his possession by a kiss from his girlfriend, when he finally suppresses Freddy through loving a woman). Thing is, if it wasn't Freddy and instead was say, the Night Man (3 people will get that), this would be an excellent 80's horror film. Probably one of the richest 80's horror films when it comes to layers and themes. Which is why I decided to write about it. I have had 2 people watch this movie giving them the heads up to watch it as the gay Nightmare. They both agreed that yes it is very gay and yes, it was way better than they remembered thinking it was.