A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE is Getting a Documentary Focusing on Its LGBTQ Legacy
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge certainly wasn’t the best film in the horror franchise, but it certainly left an impression and has since become something of a cult classic. The film has been described as “the gayest horror film ever made,” and there’s a documentary that was just picked up by Virgil Films titled Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street that focuses on the film’s LGBTQ legacy.
It’s explained that the documentary is about “the problematic legacy of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge told through the perspective of its then-closeted gay star Mark Patton”. It “recounts Patton’s difficulties making the 1985 horror sequel, which put him through a range of salacious on-screen ordeals designed to whet the homophobic appetites (conscious or otherwise) of 1980s audiences.”
The screenwriter of Freddy’s Revenge, David Chaskin, refused to acknowledge any intentional gay subtext in his script for years and director Jack Sholder claimed not to have noticed the movie’s gayness while they were shooting it. If you’ve seen the movie, though, you can see that it’s there! I don’t know how they didn’t see it!
Virgil Films calls Patton “the first male ‘scream queen'” and the company says the film, which was directed by Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen, “follows the former actor — who says he quit show business due to the trauma of the production — to horror conventions across the U.S. He tries to make peace with the experience and confronts the Freddy’s Revenge cast and crew for the first time.”
The doc also features interviews with Robert Rusler, Kim Myers, Clu Gulager and Robert Englund, who made his career playing Freddy Krueger. You can watch a previously released teaser trailer for the doc below.
Source: Deadline