TRACK #66:
Whisper To A Scream by Bobby Orlando & Claudja Barry
Lets get a Freddy two-fer going, cause your guests are still pissed…
“How the fuck am I supposed to dance to some bullshit like ‘Down In The Boiler Room’…? Are you serious right now?!”
And fair enough. I’m not sure that song’s palatable, much less danceable. So let’s look to Freddy’s soundtrack offerings for a little relief. And what better place to go for a dose of danceable 80’s synth-pop than Freddy’s Revenge.
Certainly the black sheep of the series (and with good cause), A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 is probably the worst way you could have followed the highly original and groundbreaking hit.
Every franchise has its Oddball Entry. Ya know, that one that doesn’t quite jive for whatever reason; be it overtly non-canon (Halloween 3), lacking its main character (Friday 5) or plays fast and loose with the primary mythos, as is the case with Freddy’s Revenge.
While not so out of place at the time, just a little curve ball for the sequel, the fact that subsequent Elm Streets have totally ignored this entry, its characters and its logic, makes it the strange, stand-out entry it seems today.
Basically, Freddy attempts to possess Jesse, the new teenager living in Nancy’s old room at 1428 Elm., choosing to work through the boy in the material world, as opposed to terrorizing all the children in their sleep. Granted, he does possess Jesse through his dreams, but all the kills are carried out by Jesse in the waking world, as he slowly transforms into a flesh and blood Freddy Krueger.
Needless to say, that pissed off a lot of fans at the time, and still continues to do so today. Coupled with its generalized shortcomings (acting, writing, direction, etc), its bizarre homo-eroticism and its overall weirdness, Freddy’s Revenge is not a fan favorite, and is offend cited as the series’ low-point: a rushed and lazy attempt to cash-in on the success of the original, with Dream Warriors being a much more creative and fitting sequel. True enough, I can concede.
However, I have a soft spot for Elm Street 2, cause well…
- I’m a sucker for bad movies, and this one delivers.
- Clu Gulager is awesome. I don’t care what movie he’s in, he’s always on point.
- Grady is the man (as played by Ron Rusler of The Daggers….fuck yeah Thrashin’)
- Freddy is still scary, and he retains his creep-factor before plunging into total buffoonery as per 3, 4 et al.
- Jesse is such a little wiener, it’s hard not to love him. Horror’s first male Scream Queen.
- You could write a thesis paper on its homosexual subtext. In fact, I kinda found one looking for gifs. Make that 2.
- And I appreciate the attempt to do something different. Though its failure does lead to subsequent films treading back (and back again) into more familiar waters, it’s still nice to see people trying something different.
That being said (and long-windedly at that) let’s get to Bobby Orlando’s funky beats, as heard during the pool party sequence of Freddy’s Revenge.