Every A Nightmare On Elm Street Movie Ranked Worst To Best

7. A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984
New Line Cinema

Freddy's Revenge stands out like a sore thumb when held up against the rest of the entries in the Elm Street franchise. Here, we have a film where Freddy Krueger doesn't kill people in their dreams, but instead Freddy possesses poor Jesse Welsh and uses, for the most part, Jesse to do his killing.

Considering Wes Craven refused to return to direct Elm Street 2 due to his unhappiness with the script, that's one red flag. Likewise, Craven had intended for A Nightmare on Elm Street to be a one-and-done movie rather than for it to ever receive a sequel. In fact, it was producer Bob Shaye who forcibly tacked on the final shot of the first Elm Street movie in order to leave the door open for a follow-up.

Speaking of Shaye, he also stupidly thought that Robert Englund was utterly disposable and was 'merely' your standard villain-for-hire movie monster. By that, the producer actually chose to use a stuntman in a plastic Freddy Krueger mask when Elm Street 2 started production. Of course, it didn't take long for the powers-that-be to realise the error of their ways, and thus the begging basket went out to Englund.

With Freddy's Revenge - and without Wes Craven's involvement - it's clear to see that New Line struggled to realise exactly what had made the first A Nightmare on Elm Street work so well.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.