SQIFF 2020: Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street
SQIFFAfter Mark Patton starred as protagonist Jesse Walsh in the sequel to smash hit horror movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street, he disappeared into obscurity. The film was poised to launch his already blossoming acting career, but the general reception of the movie soured and basically put a stop to his dreams of stardom. Patton returned to the public eye twenty five years later, after recording an interview for cult documentary, Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. Briefly touching on his time making the film, Patton returns to tell the full story in Scream, Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street, with some help from directors Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen.
This is very much a documentary of two halves, with neither being more interesting than the other. The first part of the film focuses on Patton’s life. Both his early acting career and life as a closeted homosexual during the HIV crisis are talked about in great depth by Patton, as he provides an incredibly interesting viewpoint of the world, before he and several others go on to discuss the impact that A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge had on the world at the time and in the present. It’s a film rife with celebrated homoerotic imagery and suspect homophobic metaphors. Both Patton and Robert Englund (Freddy Kreuger himself) claim they were aware they were making a gay film, with Englund himself confessing he tried to make it gayer. However, both director Jack Sholdar and writer David Chaskin deny any knowledge of this, with Chaskin deciding that it was solely Patton who made the film as gay as it was, specifically through his acting choices. Herein lies Patton’s largest issue with the film and the reason he has sought to avoid any association with it for so long – David Chaskin.
The second half of the film focuses on how Patton has learned to bear the weight of the film on his shoulders and help use it as a platform to promote positivity and awareness of personal topics regarding homosexuality. Seeing him flit from hotel to hotel and from comic con to comic con often evokes a sadness, but also offers an insight into the lives of some actors who have been solely remembered for one performance and continue to make a career off of it. Joining Patton at a convention celebrating thirty years of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 are a large majority of his fellow cast members, most being in small supporting roles. Yet this is their life and they choose to embrace it. There is also an uncontainable feeling of warmth seeing Patton reunite with some of these people after three decades, despite their mixed feelings on the production.
Patton is a hard man to pin down, but is hard not to like for the most part. The through line that Chimineti and Jensen work on for the documentary is Patton’s long-awaited confrontation with Chaskin about his comments on the film as well as himself. What could have been a deeply therapeutic and emotional conversation ends up feeling like a staged dialogue, with both men coming off untoward and leaving the solution still seemingly unresolved to some degree. It’s a logical ending that the movie deserved, but the way it was tackled feels tacky and tasteless. It’s a shame as it’s the one kink in a strong chain.
Chimienti and Jensen succeed in keeping this a consistent and thoroughly rewarding documentary. It doesn’t directly seek to shine a light on the misunderstandings of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge – this film already has a fanbase and the documentary is unlikely to change the minds of those who think it’s trash – but Scream, Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street is an interesting look into the life of actor Mark Patton, the first male scream queen who deserves his place in cinematic horror history.