Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street dir. by Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen (review)

A campy and revealing romp, this documentary centers on actor Mark Patton, who starred as Jesse Walsh in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, following the ending of Patton’s 27-year self-imposed exile. As he returns to the new world of Elm Street fandom, Patton discovers a very different cult following for his character. Following some voice-overs discussing Patton’s disappearance from Hollywood, the viewer is introduced to a Patton who is much older than the sylvan Jesse we are introduced to in Freddy’s Revenge. Patton spends the early part of the documentary expounding on what his life has been like since the film’s release. In particular, he is open about his suspicion that his career—and by proxy, his life—was compromised by of the film’s reception in 1985. Shortly after being contacted by a private investigator in 2010, he discovered just how famous he had become in his absence from Hollywood as the only male “Scream Queen.” In the present, he glides through convention spaces like someone unaccustomed to stardom, occasionally making astute commentary—which Patton claims comes directly from Cher—that runs counter to the shy performance he gives the viewer.

Moving to the past, Patton’s journey to the world of Elm Street is detailed, starting with his early life in Missouri. His departure to New York perceived as “running away,” it was in New York that Patton’s fortunes begin to shift. Within five years, he is opening on Broadway, alongside Cher and Kathy Bates in Robert Altman’s 1982 Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Next, the documentary takes a turn and follows Patton’s life in Hollywood where he became a successful commercial actor and Patton’s introduction to fellow actor Timothy Patrick Murphy. The two would become lovers and move in together in the Hollywood Hills, where they shared a home as neighbors to Madonna.

A strength of this film is that it makes clear the inescapable truth about the nature of Hollywood in the 1980s: gay and closeted actors were everywhere. Patton discusses the reality of the working environment and that because there were only a few actors in the town at any time who could get work for a style of role, much of his time was spent hiding his sexuality in public. Further, Scream Queen! does not shy away from the way AIDS affected Hollywood, gay men, or Patton himself. In addition to detailing the panic following the death of Rock Hudson, the viewer is treated to Patton’s recounting of how he found out his lover had HIV and that he most likely was positive, too. During one moment with screenwriter Robert Chastin, the complex symbolism of Freddy’s possession of Jesse and the transformation sequence as an allegory to the painful and bloody deaths of gay men across the world is addressed in a very human and profound way. However, in a small bungle, the documentary misses an opportunity to note that the re-closeting of most (quietly) openly gay actors during this time created a situation that continues to this day: there is a dearth of openly gay and queer actors in Hollywood who nevertheless fear for their careers if they cannot be perceived as straight.

In more subtle moments, the film does provide an excellent glimpse inside the lives of gay and bisexual men who came of age during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The film discusses Patton’s relationship with his father, who Patton claimed resented him for his freedom from having children. The cult following of Freddy’s Revenge and its significance as an early opportunity for queer viewing, both as part of the franchise across time and as a box office release in 1985, is also addressed. Some interviewees comment in the film that Jesse was their first “crush” and that seeing male nudity on...