‘The Gayest Horror Movie Ever’ Deserves A Remake Says Freddy Krueger Himself
Horror fans and gay film aficionados alike know that arguably the gayest scary movie, debated to be unintentional and intentional, is A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. The 1985 movie was the first of many sequels of Robert Englund’s iconic and horrifying Freddy Krueger in perhaps his last run as pure horror before the rest of the series took the serial killer character down a more comedic route. Despite being labeled as the worst sequel of the franchise, it comes with plenty of controversy – so much that the behind the scenes antics and the story of it’s star, Mark Patton, were the focus of a recent documentary available on Shudder, Scream, Queen!
If you haven’t seen the documentary, you should seriously consider putting it on your watch list. It’s fantastic from start to finish. Patton, who was gay in his private life but hiding himself professionally as an actor (although not well) was cast in the main role of Jesse Walsh, taking the “final girl” role to that of a boy – something the Nightmare franchise hasn’t done since. His character is borderline feminine, he doesn’t want to cozy up to the kind, pretty girl (Kim Myers) but instead seeks attention from the ‘80s beef-tastic bad boy, Robert Rusler, in maybe his best role to date. Not only does the main character scream (pun intended) gay, but the homoerotic subtext of the film is so… not subtext, that it’s thrown in your face. The high school gym coach flirts with his students and eventually gets killed in a nude shower scene whipped by towels and literal balls, there’s a scene in a BDSM gay bar, and plenty of male nudity. The audience reaction to the film and it’s obvious gayness during the early AIDS era and paranoia ruined Patton’s career and self-esteem. Soon after filming, he would lose his boyfriend (another actor on a popular sitcom) to AIDS and eventually become diagnosed as HIV positive shortly thereafter. Patton talks at length of his story in the documentary and it’s absolutely brilliantly heartbreaking to watch. Instinct Magazine has reached out to Patton for an interview – and we hope he circles back around to us when the time is right for him to continue the conversation.
Englund AKA Freddy himself might have watched the documentary and has the film on the tip of his tongue. In a recent interview with TooFab, he revealed he wants a remake of the original Nightmare sequel – except this time, he wants it to be very outwardly gay, with regular Midwestern kids with a wide variety of gender and sexuality, and set in modern times, not the ‘80s. Iphones, Krueger, and apps to not fall asleep?! YES! Englund tells:
“The secret of ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ is the loss of innocence and the kids need to be like Midwestern kids, they can’t be hip, chic, junkie kids. They have to be middle American kids that think they’re a little hip and they are co-opted by evil and they lose their innocence on all levels; sexual, violence, murder, death, the realization of their parents’ flaws, all of those things. But because our society now is more damaged because of the opioid crisis, because of incredibly diverse, because of the openness now with gender and sexuality, those kids now have to be different than the kids from the original ‘Nightmare’ and someone has to write a different batch of kids and Freddy needs to be a different kind of evil. His evil needs to be, he needs to toy with what they like in the culture. If they redid Nightmare 2, for instance, and really deal with the subtext, Freddy toying with that boy’s sexuality. But the fact that we’re much more comfortable with that now, I think it would be really fun to have Freddy play with one kid who’s gay. Maybe one boy is not. Play with them. Tempt them. Force him out of the closet or back into the closet and we can do that. Audiences would accept that now. Freddy would do that because he’s in your head. But it is going to take somebody very clever to do that.”
Nightmare was originally remade over a decade ago to a pitiful reception and if Englund may want to reprise his role – we could actually have a quality sequel or series reboot on our hands. Original Nightmare Final Girl and one of the original Scream Queens, Heather Langenkamp (who has stated she has many gay fans because gay men related to her original character), is still in her prime to continue her acting career. We’ve seen Jamie Lee Curtis smash box office expectation and kick some serious butt in the Halloween (Michael Myers) reboot in 2018 – so who is to say we can’t restart from the end of the first film and blast into a new era of Krueger? And one that’s unapologetically gay?! Sign me up! Let’s just make sure we include Patton in a cameo – it’s the least he deserves.
To refresh your memory, below is one of Patton and Rusler’s best scenes together in the ultra-gay sequel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuY5ONo8fYE
Writer’s Note: This is the opinion of one Instinct Magazine contributor and does not reflect the views of Instinct Magazine itself or fellow contributors.
Source: TooFab
