The first time I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge," I hated it. I'm sorry guys, I'm one of those people, and I don't even remember why I hated this movie so much. When I was in jail, they played the Nightmare on Elm Street series of movies in reverse order one day, so we started watching with part six and worked our way up to part two, and the whole time I was telling the other ladies in my cell with me that part 2 was terrible, so we were waiting for this awful movie, so part two starts playing, and about halfway through the movie one of the ladies turned to me and asked "so when does it get bad?" And you know what? I couldn't answer her, because it really doesn't, it's a solid sequel, especially when you compare it with the other sequels, and this narrative about it being the worst of the ANOES sequels needs to die, because it's just not true.
This movie is a documentary about the backlash for A Nightnare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge and how it affected the movie's star Mark Patton, and what happened to his career over the years after that movie, and how it affected his life, and how now, with people re-examining the movie in recent years, how that perspective is changing. In this movie, Patton gets to stand up and tell his story, and he gets to stand up for himself against his critics and bullies and finally, how he gets to confront the writer of ANOES 2, David Chaskin, and take him to task for blaming Patton for "making the movie gay."
I remember noticing that this movie was really gay (blind people would notice that) but that's not why I didn't like it (you know me, if anything, it being gay would make me like it more) I think I was just pissed off at it for being a sequel and ruining the memory of the first movie for me. From the first nightmare on the schoolbus, part 2 takes the dark, evil specter of Freddy Kruger and sets him loose once again to terrify and terrorize the Elm Street children. This movie has lots of memorable Freddy moments, such as when Freddy utters the line "You are all my children now." There is also a TON of gay subtext in the script (so much so that it's not really subtext anymore, it's just text) and some great gore, too. This documentary is great because we finally get to hear Mark Patton tell his story, and it touches on his early life and career, what it was like being one of the only "final boys" in a horror film, what life was like during the AIDS epidemic, and how he's enjoying his newfound fame going to conventions and signing autographs and meeting his fans. it's an epic story, and one worth telling, and I'm glad I got to watch it.
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