The Revenge of April Showers
Tuesday, April 3, 2018 at 11:00PM Seán here, full of the joys of spring and delighted to be helming the reboot of a franchise we all love here at the Film Experience... April Showers! Kicking off the month is a healthy dose of heavy-handed homoerotic horror, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - what else!
There has been plenty written about the deep homoerotic subtext in the maligned sequel, directed by not-then-out gay director Jack Sholder. And while I'm not one to nit-pick the verisimilitude of a film about a dead child killer who seeks revenge in teenagers' dreams, Elm Street 2 didn't seem interested in following any of the rules outlined in the first film. If you're looking for an actual sequel, check out A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, for the original Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) and future Oscar Winner and Nominee, Patricia Arquette and Laurence "Larry" Fishburne.
But back to the shower: Mean old leather daddy Coach Schneider has been unloading on poor fit-boys Jesse and Ron. Jesse does... something - does it matter? - that merits him having to stay behind and hit the showers all alone. Unfortunately, Jesse has been possesed by Freddy Kruger, and to enact the aforementioned Revenge, strips Coach Schneider down, shackles him up and partakes in some Advanced BDSM.
The result... well, take a look.
P.S. to add to the queerness, Jesse was played by Mark Patton, who is now openly gay and living with HIV. When doing the horror conventions, he donates his fees to LGBT charities, which makes him an all round sound guy.
Reader Comments (13)
Oh, I saw a documentary about this! I'm gonna screw this up, but here goes: Patton and the screenwriter understood all of the homoerotic subtext, and the actor playing Ron and the director were making a regular horror movie.
Mark Patton is also in one of the all time great films for actress lovers, Come Back to the Five & Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean. Has this site ever covered that movie?
Does that documentary "Scream, Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street" come out this year? Is it playing at festivals?
The film is terribly underrated... OK, it's no masterpiece but easily #4 or #5 in quality in the series, thanks to subext and a couple of iconic moments (both bus sequences, and the shower's) save it from being a waste... I'd say the rank of the good/amuysing would be...
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street
2. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
3. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
4. A NIghtmare on Elm Street 4
5 A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
6. Freddy vs Jason
5 and 6 were utterly forgettable and easily forgotten.
As a teenager seeing this in the theater back in 1985, this probably was an influence on my attraction to Alpha Male Daddies. Hellloooo, Marshall Bell!!!
Can we talk about how the leading lady in this (Kim Myers) is a total dead ringer for La Streep?
I introduced my girlfriend to these films over the weekend, I skipped this one lol!
Andrew Carden, in the documentary about the film series, Never Sleep Again, I believe it's mentioned that part of the reason she got the role was her resemblance to Streep.
As much as Freddy's Revenge is maligned, at least it's more thematically cohesive than a couple of the films which followed it.
Ah yes, the infamous Gayest Horror movie of All Time. I just find it fascinating that general audiences of the time never saw what was right under their noses all along. You watch it today and it's unbelievable what the filmmakers got away with. It will always have a place in my heart.
BTW, the 4 hr-long documentary NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: THE ELM STREET LEGACY is really quite good. I recommend it to anyone who is an Elm Street fan. The segment on Freddy's Revenge is particularly illuminating!
With Ronee Blakley in the first, Hope Lange in the second, and Patricia in the third, this has more Supporting Actress players than one could ever hope for.
@zig: Gasp, you're right! I'd forgotten about Elm Street's triple BSA connection! It's funny, I think Ronee Blakley is actually pretty bad in ANOES but she's sublime in Nashville and I think she probably should have won the Oscar (no disrespect to Lee Grant, however, who has her own sublime moments in her winning performance in Shampoo).
I'm still surprised how they manage to film such a gay script for a mainstream horror movie
That's what he gets for making his wife rush her Oscar speech!