Virgil Films & Entertainment is releasing Tyler Jensen and Roman Chimienti’s new documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street about the classic fright fest film The Advocate dubbed as “the gayest horror film ever made”; 1985’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. The film is playing select theaters now and a DVD and digital release is scheduled for March 3rd.
For the film’s closeted young star, Mark Patton, such a tag was a stark reminder about the homophobia rampant in Hollywood at the time—and the painful experience he had making the high-profile film and living through the polarizing critical aftermath.
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 the 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.
The film also discusses Freddy’s Revenge ‘s status as an LGBTQ cult classic, and illustrates how the career turbulence experienced by Patton—whose résumé includes stints on Broadway and a regarded role in the 1982 film Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean—wasn’t out of the ordinary for the time. “There were plenty of gay actors like me,” says Patton. “They starred in one movie and just disappeared. A whole generation just vanished.”
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