Is Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street Trash or Treasure?

Streamed On: Shudder / Official Website

Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street sets the records straight about the controversial sequel to A Nightmare on Elm Street, which ended Mark Patton’s acting career, just as it was about to begin. Scream Queen follows Patton as he travels to horror conventions across the U.S.

Each new city unwraps a chapter from his life that is met with equal parts joyful and bittersweet detail, as he attempts to make peace with his past and embrace his legacy as cinema’s first male “scream queen.” Scream Queen also finds Patton confronting Freddy’s Revenge cast and crew for the first time, including co-stars Robert Rusler, Kim Myers and Clu Gulager, as well as Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund.

Jimbo’s Take  (4 / 5)

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge is my favorite of the Nightmare sequels. I rented the VHS from my local grocery store in 1986 when I was 10 years old (what the fuck was wrong with my parents?!). Freddy is still portrayed as a terrifying dream demon (Part 3 began his descent into pop-culture clown). And now, as an adult, I find the film’s themes infinitely more interesting and intellectually complex.

But Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street isn’t about one of the “gayest horror movies of all time.” Not really. It’s about Nightmare 2 star Mark Patton’s rise, fall, then rise again as he goes through his own turmoils and self-discovery as a once-prominent actor and a gay man.

The documentary’s marketing campaign insinuates that Nightmare 2 destroyed Patton’s life. But that is mostly false. There are many, many life events that play critical roles in Mark’s life, like the 2010 super-documentary Never Sleep Again, which serves as a major turning point for Mark and his eventual re-emergence. But even prior to Nightmare 2, Mark was dealing with his own personal demons that lead to his vanishing from the movie industry, and world.

If you’ve seen Nightmare 2 then you know who Jesse Walsh is. Jesse, the sensitive high school boy who becomes infiltrated, physically and psychologically, by Freddy. But Nightmare 2 is only important because it serves as the focal point by which everyone can relate to Mark. And seeing it is not a pre-requisite to enjoy Scream, Queen! because Scream, Queen! explores themes well beyond the making of the sequel film. Including homophobia and the AIDS epidemic.

As a longtime Nightmare 2 fan, Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street represents a perfect addendum toward my fascination with the first Freddy sequel. But more than that, it’s a glimpse into a perspective that’s not my own.

Even if you haven’t seen Nightmare 2, or Never Sleep Again, Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street is an engrossing, moving, and inspirational story about Mark’s struggle to survive and find purpose. You don’t have to be gay or a Nightmare fan to empathize with that. And even if homosexuality brings with it it’s own set of problems not felt by straight folks, Scream, Queen! does a great job of revealing Mark’s struggles in a language that’s universal for anyone to understand.