31 Gay Horror Movi: ‘Raw,’ ‘Nightmare on Elm Street 2,’ and More – IndieWire

Contents:

• THE NIGHTMARE BEHD THE GAYT HORROR FILM EVER MA
• HOW A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 BEME AN INIC GAY HORROR FILM (AFTER YEARS OF BEG HATED)
• SCREAM, QUEEN! AND THE LEGACY OF THE “GAY” NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
• 'A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2' AT 35: ROBERT ENGLUND ADDRS HOMOEROTIC SUBTEXT OF 'THE GAYT HORROR MOVIE EVER MA'
• WAS THE SEND NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ABOUT GAY RIGHTS?
• A GAY ‘NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’ REMAKE!?
• ‘SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’ TRAILER: A GAY HORROR CLASSIC’S SAD SECRET
• ‘SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’ TRAILER: A GAY HORROR CLASSIC’S SAD SECRET
• GAY FREDDY KEGER ACTOR WANTS A QUEER NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET REMAKE
• “HE’S SI ME, AND HE WANTS TO TAKE ME AGA!” HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY FANDOM A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: FREDDY’S REVENGE

THE NIGHTMARE BEHD THE GAYT HORROR FILM EVER MA

Freddy and Jse were timate — they seemed to share a secret — and the subtext of that relatnship gave Freddy’s Revenge a homoerotic unrcurrent that eventually ma a cult classic. ”However much Englund held back, the damage was done: That scene helps tablish the lible imprsn of Freddy’s Revenge as the gayt slasher film ever ma.

Screenwrer David Chask spent years refg to acknowledge any tentnal subtext his script — a posn he has sce reversed — and director Jack Sholr claimed not to have noticed the movie’s gayns durg filmg. Watchg Freddy’s Revenge now, ’s hard to prehend that there was ever a bate over the film’s subtext, which be jt pla text the more blatantly homoerotic scen. And even though Patton has embraced his “scream queen” stat — he had jt e om signg tographs and panel appearanc at San Diego Comic-Con this July afternoon — he remas driven by a need to set the rerd straight about the film that has hnted him for the past 30 Patton, whose only major film role before he played Jse was as a gay teenager later revealed to be a trans woman (played by Karen Black) Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, the persistent cricism of Freddy’s Revenge was s own kd of nightmare: His sexual inty was exriated for g the film — and wh , his reer.

HOW A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 BEME AN INIC GAY HORROR FILM (AFTER YEARS OF BEG HATED)

At the same time, even as the AIDS crisis cimated the gay muny, Patton was forced to stay the closet, rtricted by a bs he eventually chose to leave the stigmatizatn of queer reprentatn over the last 30 years, perceptn of Freddy’s Revenge has shifted: The heavily d queerns that was once a mark agast has bee a charmgly dated relic of another time, and a sellg pot for cult nnoissrs. Inial reviews, though largely negative, did not pot out the film’s homoerotic slant, although Variety lled Patton’s Jse “strange enough to nstute an outsir prence, ” a scriptor that certaly signifi is some bate over where the first direct mentn of the film’s gay subtext appeared.

While there’s no doubtg the opprsive homophobia of 1980s Hollywood, the specific circumstanc surroundg the film are often a matter of "he said, he said. ”By ntrast, Patton sists that Chask, stead of merely stayg quiet, repeatedly placed the blame for the queer terpretatn of the film on Patton’s “too gay” performance, rather than on the script. “I don’t rell any terview where I would have ed the words ‘too gay’ but if I implied somethg like that and/or said anythg to e Mark grief, I certaly apologize, ” he wrote.

Deliberately or otherwise, Patton’s associatn wh what me to be known as the “gayt horror film ever ma” — while he was beg told to keep his sexualy a secret — left lastg srs. It had always been a fe le to walk: While gog to gay bars wasn’t somethg you had to hi 1970s New York, “you didn’t go to an dn and talk to the stg director about beg gay, ” he Patton ma his 1982 Broadway but Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean — playg the same queer character he would play the film adaptatn later that year — The Advote requted an terview wh him. ’” It’s possible that some of the addns to the film that Patton terpreted as homoerotic — and that the movie’s large queer fanbase has e to accept as such — were not directly tend to be.

SCREAM, QUEEN! AND THE LEGACY OF THE “GAY” NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

”“I mean, clearly [there’s] the gay S&M bar, and the ass-whippg and all of the other stuff, and some of the l that people have picked up on, like, ‘He’s si me, ’” Sholr said.

“This is all kd of hdsight, but may be that the fact Mark was a closeted gay at that pot, or at least as far as the film bs went, that that was part of what was g through there, ” Sholr suggted of why Freddy’s Revenge read as queer. Now that the ti has turned toward wispread acceptance of gay reprentatn, Chask is upont about the queer unrton he liberately wrote to his script. As far as his motivatn for “queerg” A Nightmare on Elm Street, he said he was rpondg to the social and polil climate for gay people the 1980s.

'A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2' AT 35: ROBERT ENGLUND ADDRS HOMOEROTIC SUBTEXT OF 'THE GAYT HORROR MOVIE EVER MA'

Whout directly brgg up the issu of homophobia and the AIDS epimic, he wanted to explore and rpond to the gay panic that was grippg the natn.

“Homophobia was skyrocketg and I began to thk about our re dience — adolcent boys — and how all of this stuff might be tricklg down to their psych at an age when ragg hormon often produce dreams and urg that make them (if only unnscly) beg to qutn their own sexualy, ” Chask wrote.

WAS THE SEND NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ABOUT GAY RIGHTS?

In a follow-up email to BuzzFeed News, Patton said, “David apologized to me the most general way about offendg me the prs and on film, but nnot rell ever havg said I was too gay. It wasn’t that he wasn’t beg offered parts, he said, but that he was emotnally draed by what happened wh A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and fed up wh the homophobic culture of 1980s Hollywood. It was through nventns and the horror muny at large that Patton realized the posive effect Freddy’s Revenge had on so many fans, particularly queer people who so rarely see themselv reprented sce Patton had purposely extrited himself om Hollywood — and distanced himself om any discsn of Freddy’s Revenge — he was surprised to learn that the movie had transned om disappotg failure the ey of Nightmare fans to a cult gay classic.

And he was even more surprised to fd out that he’d bee an unr-the-radar gay in — after all, his other major role was as a queer teenager a movie -starrg Cher.

When asked specifilly, per Patton’s claim, that he had exploed the homophobic atmosphere at the time for the film, Chask wrote, “When you put that way, sounds almost diabolil. And then there was the Never Sleep Aga documentary which wrer David Chask fally admted— a somewhat awkward way, when put on the spot—that the homoerotic unr/overton had been tentnal after took A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 thirty-one years to e out of the closet, but fally has and serv your support.

A GAY ‘NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’ REMAKE!?

" Director Jack Sholr and wrer David Chask both nied the film's subtext, and Mark Patton (who was the closet at the time), worried that the suatns of the film beg overtly gay would lead to him beg typest, as he wasn't the typil Hollywood leadg male. Some of the clu a scene where Jse enunters his ach at a gay bar, a scene where said ach is whipped to ath by towels while naked the showers, a scene wh Jse and his bt iend Grady (Rler) where Jse approach him bed, and a scene where Jse attempts to make out wh his girliend at a party before fleeg panic. Beyond that, the film's release 1985 was at the height of the AIDS epimic the Uned Stat, which ed a lot of stigma surroundg gay men and subsequent gay panic was on the rise.

‘SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’ TRAILER: A GAY HORROR CLASSIC’S SAD SECRET

Chask has sce said the subtext was always tentnal and he had wrten the script to ment on the AIDS crisis, gay panic, and the angst young men experience if they stggled wh their sexualy. While some earlier films do clu overtly gay them, thgs went unrground durg the Hays Co era, and the reverberatns of that subversive queerns rema uful to this day.

A tan of classic horror, gay filmmaker Jam Whale wove queerns to most of his films, which clu the origal “Frankenste” and “The Invisible Man. But as wh so much of Hchck, ’s hard to say that this is an outright homophobic visn, pecially when the script has the souciance of Osr Wil: “Before this day is out I fear we’ll hear that terribly old-fashned but que exprsive term ‘foul play, ’” Sanrs says, all while munchg on a chicken leg. ” The remarkable thg about all this is that Hchck mak you intify wh Perks (who was gay and closeted real life) as much as he did Marn Crane herself, to the pot that, as Hchck often did at his perverse bt, you’re kda rootg for him.

‘SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’ TRAILER: A GAY HORROR CLASSIC’S SAD SECRET

A prolific and succsful horror fictn wrer who began directg to adapt his work himself, out gay filmmaker Clive Barker is rponsible for two of the films on this list, “Nightbreed” and “Hellraiser.

Though didn’t spawn any sequels, “Nightbreed” was more crilly embraced than “Hellraiser” and is nsired a direct metaphor for gay activism. “In many ways, ‘Interview’ is the most mercially succsful gay film of all time, and most dienc didn’t even realize they were seeg a gay film. Takg the token gay iend to his rightfully sensual ends, her roommate Adrien luxuriat his sexualy, brgg boys home and flntg the pleasur of the flh that seem so out of reach to the raveno Jte.

GAY FREDDY KEGER ACTOR WANTS A QUEER NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET REMAKE

For 2019’s “Midnight Kiss, ” a sexy gay slasher set amongst a group of LA gay iends on New Year’s Eve, Blumhoe tapped out gay talent — wrer Erlgur Thoroddsen and director Carter Smh, who also hired all queer actors for the queer rol. As longtime gay horror fans, workg wh Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge star Mark Patton to tell his story was a no-braer for filmmakers Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen.

"It was like there was a movement, where everyone cid this was the [Nightmare on Elm Street] that sucked, " explaed Jensen, who remembers revisg the movie 2010 when the ter grabbed hold of s gay subplot. " Years later, like Jensen, Chimienti disvered ter culture llg Freddy's Revenge the anchise's "gay" chapter and he, too, had mixed feelgs: "It's great that 's regnized for beg gay, but also ma me fensive....

Isn't about dg a B-rate horror movie sequel or who's to blame – or cred – for the film's gayns (after years of nyg any tentnal gay unrton, wrer David Chask recently admted: "There was certaly some tentnal subtext, but was tend to play homophobic rather than homoerotic. As far as famoly homoerotic sequenc seemgly “straight” ’80s movi go, nothg will ever top the sweaty and shirtls fighter pilots bouncg around the sand to Kenny Loggs’s “Playg Wh the Boys” Top Gun’s unfettable beach volleyball as Robert Englund — the man who donned Freddy Keger’s murro razor-claw glove to torment teens for eight stallments of Nightmare on Elm Street — remds , the anchise’s first sequel, Freddy’s Revenge (1985), belongs the same nversatn. He's clearly a gay teen tryg to figure out his sexualy, yet bee the film was ma the '80s, a time when beg openly homosexual Hollywood, whether movi or on movie sets, wasn't culturally acceptable, Freddy’s Revenge never acknowledg that.

“HE’S SI ME, AND HE WANTS TO TAKE ME AGA!” HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY FANDOM A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: FREDDY’S REVENGE

More than jt makg-of doc or a fan-servicg love letter to '80s horror, Jensen's film aims to dig eper to the issue and e Freddy’s Revenge as the gateway to larger discsns about homosexualy the movie bs, particularly the biz back 1985, when movi like Carol and Tangere never would’ve stood a chance of beg mercially embraced. Obvly this has left many fans wonrg…did the creators of the send Nightmare On Elm Street movie purposely lace the script and movie wh gay subtext to help bat or explo the wispread homophobia of the era? Ultimately, sadly, uld have been makg fun of Patton, who at the time was choosg to rema ‘ the closet’ regardg his homosexualy durg the productn of the film.

Rumors had surfaced nearly stantly about a nspiracy to riddle the plot wh gay subtext that would be acknowledged by the dience, but still be niable. Ultimately Chask admted to havg long thoughts about the homophobia stigma at the time and how he uld work a script that would e the st, and ultimately the dience, to qutn their sexualy. Although the actual real life actor who played Jse is gay, the character Jse also seems to be troubled as far as his sexual orientatn is ncerned.

Still, anyone who watch A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) nnot ny the very obv homoerotic vibe prent flamboyantly nearly every other scene. The film’s gradual progrsn to beg the gayt horror movie of all time, was probably a batn of the ma protagonist himself beg a closeted gay real life, as well as the st, crew and creators alg wh the homophobia of the time. Viewers often note the homoerotic subtext to the film’s story: Freddy tri to sce Jsie, rather than kill him; one scene tak place a leather bar; the high school ach flirts wh his male stunts.