123 - A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

    A new family moves into the Elm Street house from the first movie, and the boy starts being stalked in his dreams by Freddy, who is interested in possessing the boy as a gateway into the real world.
    After watching that documentary about the Elm Street franchise, I was interested in rewatching this one, which is notable for the remarkable gay subtext.  That is one of the most fascinating aspects of it, but the structure of the script is much more interesting.
    We focus on Jesse, the boy, as the protagonist.  But he doesn’t really behave as a protagonist does.  He doesn’t seem all that interested in researching his situation, he denies it for a long time, then when he finally comes to terms with it, he’s helpless.  At that point, the focus shifts to his girlfriend, Lisa.  Lisa becomes the protagonist.  This all happens really late in the movie like the last 15-20 minutes or so.  It’s a structural shift that I don’t think I’ve seen in any other movie.  It’s very strange, and I think I kind of like it.  It turned an ending that would otherwise be pretty predictable (something like “the power of love defeats Freddy”) into an ending that plays more fresh than it would otherwise.
    The rest of the movie is a little strange.  It seems less plot driven, and more set-piece driven.  A collection of scare scenes with a minimal thread of plot holding it together.