A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge

A new dreamer moves into the house on Elm Street. This time it's a young man named Jesse (played by Mark Patton), and the killer from Elm Street I, Freddy Kreuger, turns him into a sort of murdering vessel. For some reason, he has to kill through Jesse. Why? It's never quite clear. (Very little in this movie is. It's very difficult to tell whether we're in a dream--and whose dream--or reality, for much of the film.) The scenarist, David Chaskin, and the director, Jack Sholder, were obviously trying to come up with some kind of sustainable plot so they wouldn't be stuck remaking the first Nightmare. So there's a lot of bad pop psychology going on of the Jekyll and Hyde/Freudian variety, and lots of hinting around that Jesse might be gay, only he just can't admit it to himself. But the characters are well-drawn, for this kind of film. Jesse is sympathetic, and the girl who's in love with him--or at least, with the idea of saving him--is likable. With Kim Myers, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, and Robert Englund. 89 min. 1985. ★

The Return of the Living Dead

In The Return of the Living Dead (1985), writer-director Dan O’Bannon treats us to a garishly funny and violent zombie spoof that seems like a strange mix of 1950’s science fiction and 1980’s punk. The production design often makes us feel like we're watching an expanded version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video. The exuberant comic-book-feel of the horror is in that kind of vein, and the humor is in-your-face, as it should be with this kind of material.

Referencing George Romero’s 1968 cult classic Night of the Living Dead early on (partly to dispel confusion that this was a sequel to that movie), Return purports to tell us the "true" story of the living dead, and how it was all the Army's fault.

The disheveled corpses, sleeping peacefully in a dilapidated cemetery, are inadvertently revived when a military-developed chemical leaks into the atmosphere and over their graves. To the horror of some unsuspecting punk teenagers (with nicknames like “Trash” and “Suicide”) who unwittingly picked the graveyard as a place to party the night away, these zombies are hungry for brains and can run—fast. They can also talk, a gimmick that allows for at least two good jokes involving police radios. Despite all the problems in store for the adolescent characters, the adults apparently have much more at stake than their safety. Clu Gulager, as the owner of a nearby medical supplies warehouse, recognizes his culpability in hiding the lost military canisters that unleashed the troublesome gas into the air (infecting two of his employees—James Karen and Thom Matthews—in the process).

Return of the Living Dead is as much a part of its time as Night of the Living Dead was a time capsule of the 1960s, and yet both films seem to be telling us something very disturbing about our culture, then and now. Instead of the Bomb coming from the Russians, it comes from within our own borders, a rather chilling concept that endures even now.

Better than most of the walking dead movies, Return of the Living Dead spews gore and humor in equal doses. Despite its deviations from Romero’s “form,” zombie fans have embraced this as a minor classic with an ending as ironic as that of Night. With Don Calfa, Beverly Randolph, Miguel Nunez, Linnea Quigley, Brian Peck, Jewel Shepard, John Philbin, and Mark Venturini. ★★★½