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The Cinema Snob looks for the hidden subtexts of Elm Street 2.
Tagged with: brad jones cinema snob freddy's revenge movies nightmare on elm street 2
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I remember a cousin of mine who was/is a big Elm Street fan. He said that Part 2 wasn’t all that good, but it at least had one redeeming feature: the leading lady was pretty cute. Can’t disagree!
I discovered this film fairly recently when it was on Netflix. I’m not a HUGE fan of this film, but I do have a soft spot for it. You ever watch a first season episode of a long-running sitcom and notice how – for better or worse – it’s different from later episodes? Personalities are little different, they hadn’t gotten into a rhythm of writing episodes (or in some cases, run out of ideas yet). That’s how watching this movie feels – and in kind of a good way.
Whot is on the painting on the wall ? Review 9:29 ?
Looks like two bloodhounds on a hunt through a desert. Perhaps foreshadowing Jesse fear of becoming of fugitive bound to be hunted for Freddy’s crimes, maybe?
At 15:08 it appears that in the Elm Street universe the nightmare of New Coke never arrived, if this is supposed to by five years after the first one and regular Coke still doesn’t say Classic!
Loved the review, and I am happy that it was able to online after that YouTube incident. Sure wish the review had the Bros, or at least the new lady Bro.
NOES 2 is still my least favorite of the movies.
You didn’t even talk about how the Dad was an idiot who blamed Jesse for the bird blowing up. He’s the worst movie Dad ever!
…And in this film franchise, he’s up against some stiff competition!
I wonder if that Death bed reference means you may be doing a review of it one day.
I’m pretty sure he did a review of Death Bed, though it is a very old one from 2008, and possibly lost from the Blip shutdown.
We’ve already got Count Jackula’s review of that anyway. We don’t need another.
Now if Brad beats Count Jackula to reviewing the Japanese horror movie, House, which is about a house that eats virgins….
He threw his grandmother down a flight of stairs!?!
I’ve watched most of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, my mom and I were on a horror movie kick, and I liked the second one….although, yeah, the subtext that beat me over the head was that Freddy progressively got more and more into the boys as the movies progressed.
Watch the doc “Never Sleep Again”. It’s on Nflix instant. Pretty much the whole cast and crew is there to discuss the gay reputation of the movie (just before the 1 hour mark of a FOUR HOUR documentary) along with the general quality of it. Most of them claim complete ignorance at the time… which really is how it was in the ’80s, by and large. Unless somebody was just ridiculously, flamboyantly, in-your-face GAY (like the black guy from Revenge of the Nerds), everyone pretty much operated on the assumption that everybody around them was straight. But… by 2010 nobody from the crew was really challenging the gay-sayers anymore. The screenwriter David Chaskin comes right out and says it was SUPPOSED to be subtext… but looking back, he agrees there’s nothing subtle about it. The production designer was gay (the one putting up the “no chicks allowed” sign and other little in-jokes). And the lead actor was gay, which he admits might be why his performance was so intense. It’s really not a question up for debate anymore. The question has been answered.
“I am Rantasmo, and Nightmare on Elm Street 2 Needs More Gay.”
*Spoilers, y’all!*
I must be incredibly dense then, because i didn’t get any ‘subtext’ when I watched it and didn’t find out it was ‘obviously a metaphor’ until I read about it on wikipedia after the fact.
I honestly think this supposed subtext might have been a product of it’s time. People thinking they see it that is. the 80’s was a time when (apparently) homosexuality was pretty loud and proud and out, so maybe possibly the critics of this movie were letting their gay paranoia get the best of them and reading into shit that wasn’t meant to be read into?
I think this is just a case of people not accepting that a painting of a pipe. Was simply a painting of a pipe.
Eh, I think they were just worn down by this point and have let the fabricated commentary from the critics shape their view of the film.
I find this all pretty silly.
Once again… watch the documentary. See if hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth affects your opinion on the matter. You don’t even have to commit to watching the whole thing. They only talk about it for like 15 minutes before they move on to part 3.
Watched this movie at The Alamo Drafthouse last month and it was pretty boring and I just kinda wanted to leave the whole time.
I hope I’m not the last commenter on this video because this was a great review and I loved it. I feel bad for grady though they need to make this movie about him for the next reboot then make the sequel(if that one is successful) about jessie). I totally didn’t get that reference at the end though but guess I’ll have to go to imdb to look that up.
Still don’t get the reference at the end(kind of!) but I’m goin for tales of the crypt. PLZ someone if I’m wrong correct me and tell me what the real thing snob was referencing at the end(PLZ and thank you!!!!)!
You know, I first watched this movie when I was 14. And yeah back when I was an immature kid my friends and I would make all kinds of guy jokes with scenes like Jesse rolling around on the ground with short shorts Grady or how Jesse screams.
But when I got older…I really didn’t get why people called this movie…well, gay.
Adam from YMS’s references the scene where Jesse runs over to Grady’s house after Freddy nearly gets out to try and kill Lisa. But I don’t get why that scene is brought up in the argument for why this movie is packed full of gay symbolism. A monstrous entity nearly got out and tried to kill a girl he has a thing for. So he ran over to his friends house for consolation and hoping that Grady could help him out.
Why is that gay?
Also I liked this movie because this is the darkest real Freddy ever got. And I liked that they were kind of making Nightmare on Elm Street into Hell Raiser with those minions at the end.
what player is this? It really doesn’t seem to like loading properly, it crashed 4 times when I tried to play the video and only loads a bit at a time. I seriously miss Blip…
Haven’t even started the episode yet and I already know it’s going to be amazing. This is gonna be another fine example of why the Snob is the best.
Is it truth about Wes Craven?
No, you’re not an expert about SYMBOLISM!!! Film Brain is.
This movie was bad, but not terrible. This actually had the movie with the most Freddy kills in it. Some deaths seemed ambiguous. Apparently he drowned some people? I had no idea they were rebooting it again. The remake did have a sequel hook, unfortunately.