High school students file into the bus as it drives through a sleepy suburban town. Then, suddenly, the school bus veers off the road and begins driving through a bizarre, desert landscape. The kids realize that none other than Freddy Kruger is driving the bus, but it’s too late, as a portal to hell opens up beneath them, Freddy approaches with his blade-covered gloves reaching out invitingly.
The opening scene of A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge has firmly remained in my head since I was a teenager. The sight of that bus balancing on two pillars over what seemed like a portal to hell, has never left me.
Freddy’s Revenge had a lot going against it. The movie was disavowed by Wes Craven, who created the franchise and directed the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. It also brushed up against topics of homoeroticism and homosexuality that a mainstream horror audience wasn’t ready for when the sequel premiered on November 1, 1985. And it took the original movie’s premise in some unexpected directions, breaking the rules established in Craven’s beloved slasher. But 40 years later, there’s no denying the staying power of A Nightmare on Elm Street II, both as a standalone cult classic and for the ways it helped transform Freddy Kruger into a pop culture mainstay.
Set five years after the original, A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge follows teenager Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton), who moves into the home of the original film’s protagonist only to discover that Freddy Krueger never left. Even worse, he’s trying to return to the real world by possessing Jesse’s body. As Freddy’s influence grows, Jesse’s grip on reality slips, blurring the line between dream and waking life as he becomes both victim and vessel for the killer’s resurrection.
Elm Street II threw out many of the rules established in Craven’s original film. For one thing, in that movie Freddy could only attack someone while they were asleep. In the sequel, Freddy’s powers escalate from stalking you in dreams to gradually becoming a real-life presence by taking control of Jesse. The shift into a possession story alienated some fans at the time, but it would become one of Freddy’s go-to tricks, returning in both A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and Freddy vs. Jason. Crossing over into the real world is also the main goal in both Elm Street II and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, considered by many to be the pinnacle of the franchise.
Freddy’s Revenge also established the character’s iconic look, redesigning his make-up to look more like a male witch, with a hooked nose and red eyes. Freddy’s sweater never had stripes on his arms before Elm Street II, while his terrifying blades went from simply being attached to his gloves to becoming a part of his actual hands. Freaky.
Craven wouldn’t get around to blended horror comedies until years later, with films like Vampire in Brooklyn and Scream, but Freddy’s Revenge took a first leap forward, transforming Freddy from a humorless killer into a violent jokester. Did Craven take some inspiration from the movie after all?
To this day, director Jack Sholder claims he had no clue he was making a gay horror film, and acts as if he’s just now catching onto this tidbit decades after the film reached cult classic status. “Jack’s an editor and he can edit in his mind’s eye,” Freddy actor Robert Englund recently told IndieWire. “But when Jack was shooting the movie, I think he was preoccupied with budget and directing young actors. So, I don’t think Jack, day to day, was involved in enhancing any of the subtext, gay or otherwise. He was just trying to get his day done.”
But there’s no denying the film’s underlying themes. From the coming-of-age story centered on a confused teenage boy to the extremely homo-erotic scenes involving Jack’s gym teacher, who he meets at a leather bar and then brings back to the school to… run laps and then hit the shower.
All of this was simply too much for a 1980s audience expecting a direct sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street. But in the years since, Freddy’s Revenge has gained a cult appreciation for its bold queer coding. In 2015, when the film turned 30, Decider called it “The Gayest Horror Movie Ever Made.”
None of this would have been possible without Mark Patton’s performance. His vulnerable, androgynous presence grounds the story, and he convincingly conveys the terror of losing control to something within. Both the plot and Patton’s portrayal transform the film’s sexual undertones into something purposeful — an expression of identity, repression, and inner conflict rather than mere subtextual flourish.
In the 2019 documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, Robert Englund highlights a “beauty and the beast” dynamic between Freddy and Jesse, with Freddy drawn to Jesse’s youth and allure, wanting his looks for himself. Co-directors Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen explore Mark Patton’s experience as a gay actor in the 1980s, navigating a Hollywood that pressured him to hide his sexuality, only to star in a gay-coded horror film that effectively ended his career as a leading man. Knowing Patton’s personal story only heightens his performance and enriches the film’s themes. While he’s tasked with portraying a straight, all-American teen, subtle nuances in his acting and certain choices his character makes quietly reveal the truth beneath the facade.
If there was any justice, we might view Freddy’s Revenge the way we do Halloween III: Season of the Witch, an ambitious sequel that ignored much of what fans loved about the franchise. And unlike that movie, Freddy’s revenge didn’t flop at the box office or get erased from canon later on.
It took a newer generation to judge A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge by its merits and embrace the themes for what they are, but there’s still plenty about this movie worth reclaiming. Because as much as people love to say New Line Cinema is the house that Freddy built, it’s A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy’s Revenge that built Freddy into that icon in the first place.
