Around this time last year, the Met Costume Institute was displaying its exhibit on camp, sparking explainers and podcast episodes and angry rants (the last one from me) about just what camp is exactly. I thought about it some more while watching Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen’s Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2019), and here’s what I’ve got. Camp is the reclamation of something embarrassing or perceived by others as embarrassing. It is the amazing knack queer people have to transform shame into joy and survival. Scream, Queen! is the story of how Nightmare on Elm Street 2, once an embarrassment to its franchise and the career of its then-closeted gay star, Mark Patton, became beloved by fans and a launching pad for Patton’s activism.
The 1985 sequel to Wes Craven’s slasher smash hit, Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is the rare slasher film with a Final Boy. The hapless Jesse, played by Mark Patton, is not merely Freddy’s intended victim but his entry point into the real world as he strives to take over Jesse’s body. More a possession film than a typical slasher, Nightmare on Elm Street 2‘s Freddy functions as an unlikely metaphor for repressed homosexuality.
The first Nightmare on Elm Street 2 reunion
This is not a making-of documentary; instead, it sets up Patton’s story as a bright-eyed, good-looking young actor ready to make his big break, and then follows the reception, fall-out, and eventual reevaluation of NoES2, that gayest of slashers. The documentary skillfully interweaves the story of Patton’s rise and fall and rise with the larger story of homophobia in 1980s Hollywood, the AIDS crisis, and horror fandom’s complicated relationship with queerness.
Patton serves well as the documentary’s emotional core, with a story far more tragic than just the guy whose career was tanked by the homoerotic Freddy film. Patton had a promising start, debuting on Broadway with Cher and working with Robert Altman. But then he lost his career trajectory to Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and his lover and his health to AIDS, all under the intense scrutiny of tabloid media that made a cottage industry of outing young gay actors even as they lay on their death beds. It’s a harrowing tale, and it’s no surprise that Patton opted not only to leave Hollywood but the country entirely, disappearing so thoroughly that the franchise documentary Never Sleep Again had to hire a PI to track him down. When Scream, Queen! shows various straight people, like NoES2’s screenwriter David Chaskin and director Jack Sholder, belittling Patton’s anger or his motivations for relinquishing show business, it’s infuriating. We’ve seen how earned Patton’s rage really is.
You can Check out the trailer for Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street here:
Even as someone relatively well-versed in queer history, I was surprised at the depths of homophobia in 1980s film and television. Scream, Queen! recounts TV stars given blood tests as a condition of their contracts, actresses refusing to kiss gay actors on screen for fear of contracting AIDS, and tabloids invading the hospital rooms of AIDS patients who happened to be minor public figures. Patton is passionate that the intensity of this not-long-ago homophobia and the fight of gay activists against AIDS not be forgotten by the new queer generation. As a history lesson, Scream, Queen! is not comprehensive – that’s not its job – but it adds to the picture of a pivotal decade in queer history, and it’s a worthy introduction to any horror fan who may be learning about this history for the first time.
Dancing Queens
And then, there is the story of the film itself, so self-evidently gay that a few choice clips of leather bars, showers, and Patton’s infamous dance moves are more than enough to establish its queer classic bonafides for the uninitiated. There’s plenty of dust-up about just who or what made Nightmare on Elm Street 2 so gay. Director Jack Sholder denies any intention, never mind that he filmed on location in a real-life gay bar. Some of the actors say they never figured it out; others say they knew from the audition. Freddy Kreuger himself, Robert Englund, erudite as ever, describes leaning into the homoerotics of Freddy Krueger’s Beauty and the Beast dynamic with Patton’s protagonist. Screenwriter David Chaskin has variously claimed he intended to write a homophobic movie (yikes!), knew exactly what he was doing, or had no idea and it was all Patton. Patton, whose career was curtailed by the perception that he couldn’t “act straight,” understandably resents this and swears he was just doing what was in the script. The film sets up Patton’s long-awaited confrontation with Chaskin as its climax, but its strongest arc comes as Patton develops a genuine affection for the role that ended his career.
Jesse fans share what they love about the character
At the end of the day, it’s the fans who made Nightmare on Elm Street 2 gay, and that’s been true since counterculture presses like The Village Voice were the first to pick up on its queer vibes. Scream, Queen!’s most moving moments come as queer fans rave about Nightmare on Elm Street 2 as their first queer film, or in a montage of Patton and fans performing his iconic dance. Homophobic horror fans saw the sequel’s queerness as embarrassing and unwatchable; queer fans took that same thing, loved it, and made it their own. Scream, Queen! offers a redemption story both for Patton and his movie through the love of those fans. That’s camp in its purest form.
Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street is streaming on Shudder. You can also rent it on Amazon:
Related: Check our our podcast on queer horror and on queer spectatorship in Sleepaway Camp.
Sara McCartney, an M.A. student at Lehigh University with a special interest in horror studies and queer studies. She’s loved horror since she convinced her parents to buy her Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark at the Scholastic book fair and used the illustrations to upset her friends. Currently, she’s spending quarantine with her girlfriend, watching a horror movie every day. Her favorite horror tropes are doppelgangers, scary woods, and female monsters.
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