Saturday, June 29, 4:15 pm, Castro Theatre • Special Advance Screening •
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| Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street |
In 1985, on the heels of the wildly successful Nightmare on Elm Street the previous year, New Line Cinema put out a sequel, Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, with up-and-coming star Mark Patton in the lead role. The script was full of homoerotic elements, but more in the text than subtext. The “scream queen” character (the girl who fights back against the bad guy) was written as a teenage boy, and various scenes included elements like a gay leather bar and a very kinky shower scene in the boys’ gym. Patton, in real life a closeted aspiring movie star, was told to gay it up, which he did — exactly as the writer and director wanted. When the blatant homoeroticism of the story caused a critical and public backlash, writer David Chaskin and director Jack Sholder pointed their fingers at Patton, suggesting that the young actor single-handedly made it a gay film. Patton’s film career was destroyed, leading him to move into seclusion in Mexico until revived public interest in Nightmare 2 led someone to hire a private detective to track him down.
Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street picks up with Mark Patton around the time of the 30th anniversary of Nightmare 2. He speaks candidly about his experiences in the 1980s and since, and even has a sit-down interview with writer David Chaskin, who finally admitted a few years ago that the homosexual content in the film was intentional, but we also hear from several of the co-stars as well as historians and fans including local darling Peaches Christ. It’s a compelling look at the way the Hollywood machine can lift someone up and then turn them into a scapegoat. I’m not at all a fan of the “slasher” genre — I have only seen Nightmare 2 out of the whole 8-film franchise, for example — but its magnificent campiness won me over in spite of the gallons of blood. With the benefit of three decades of perspective, Patton is sanguine in his appraisal of the turns his life took as a result of his one starring role, and makes an engaging subject for the film, as well as being a delight in person. For that reason — even if you have zero interest in horror films — this is a MUST SEE.
• IMDb • official site: ScreamQueenDocumentary.com • trailer (vimeo) • Facebook: @ScreamQueenDocumentary •
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