Every Nightmare On Elm Street Film Ranked Worst To Best

Following on from A Nightmare on Elm Street was always going to be a challenge, especially given original writer-director Wes Craven's refusal to return. The decision to twist the format by centring Freddy's Revenge on a male protagonist proved to be an interesting, if divisive move, as it resulted in one of the most unabashedly homoerotic horror films ever to emerge from the mainstream - for which reason, director Jack Sholder's 1985 sequel has long been unfairly maligned by some Nightmare fans.

Mark Patton (a gay man in real life, whose experiences are chronicled in upcoming documentary Scream, Queen!) plays Jesse, a teenage boy who moves into the house where the original Nightmare's Nancy once lived, and naturally starts having bad dreams immediately. However, Freddy seems to be tapping into parts of Jesse's unconscious that reveal uncertainty about his would-be victim's sexual orientation.

Still, while it would be easy accredit the bad reputation of Freddy's Revenge to homophobia, it must be noted that there's a lot about the movie that doesn't work. It bends the established rules of the original in ways that don't make sense and often feels silly, most notably when Freddy inexplicably emerges for real in the waking world.

Even so, there's still plenty to be said in favour of Freddy's Revenge, the main plus point being that it Englund's antagonist is still first and foremost scary: the wisecracks are kept to a minimum, and the make-up FX and lighting are arguably even creepier than in the original.