Jack Sholder (director)
New Line Cinema (studio)
87 mins (length)
21 March 2014 (released)
23 March 2014
Shown at the BFI for the London LGBT Film Festival, the second opus of Freddy Krueger’s bloody and revengeful killing spree turns into another film, with a whole new level to it. Who would have thought that the burned-face murdered could be so gay?
It is well acknowledged by the Elm Street fans that this sequel is one of a kind. This time, Freddy does not attack a community but focuses on one teenage boy named Jesse. Freddy tries, for the whole film, to possess him and to get inside his body. You could read it as the story of a traumatic coming out.
The whole movie is full of gay insights and hints: when Grady, the alpha male of the high school, takes Jesse’s pants down and fights with him, bare butt, on the grass. Or when the coach is savagely murdered in the school showers: he is attacked by balls, then has his clothes ripped off by invisible hand before being slapped on the buttocks by gym towels and dying by the steel claw hands of Freddy, acting through Jesse’s body.
There is also the gay vibe sent by Mark Patton, who plays Jesse. When the teenage boy unpacks his bedroom, he starts dancing along to music, holding objects in front of his crotch as if they were his penis and shaking his behind.
There is also that scene, just before Jesse kills his friend Grady, where Freddy is actually physically inside of Jesse and he comes out of him in a scene that has nothing to envy to the Alien series.
It is well known that horror and sexuality are intertwined. Think about that next time you watch “A Nightmare on Elm Street, part II” and you will realize that this movie if full of gayness, which makes it more fun than scary. You will be in for a good laugh and you might not see Freddy as a scary murderer anymore…, promised!
Tickets to this screening were courtesy of American Airlines who sponsor the BFI.
