How
does Jack Sholder’s A Nightmare on Elm
Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) queer the template of the Slasher
Movie formula?
In the 1980’s, a new sub-genre
of horror sprang to prominence becoming the dominating force of American box-office
for most of the decade. The Slasher Film, as it has been dubbed, focusses
primarily on a group of teens or young adults being stalked and killed by a
weapon wielding maniac. The weapon of choice tends to be a blade or metal
cutting implement, such as the machete, used by Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th series, a
chainsaw, used by Leatherface in The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, or an overly large kitchen knife, as used by
Michael Myers in the Halloween
movies. It is no accident that the victims are young teens, in the midst of
their sexual emergence, and that the weapons used to dispatch them are all
flesh penetrating, phallic objects.
The repetitive, formulaic
template used for most of these films originates from the urban legend of The
Tale of the Hook. “The primary assumption… is that teen slasher pics obey a
very rigid set of rules and conventions in which, for example, if you have sex,
you die. And that moral template pre-dates the slasher films themselves and can
be found in the most enduring of modern legends… The Tale of the Hook.” (Scream
and Scream Again: A History of the Slasher Film, 2000) A tale of two teens about
to have sex in a car in a secluded area. The radio news reports that a
psychopath with a hook for a hand has escaped a local mental asylum. Before
they have sex, the young girl is spooked by a sound outside and persuades the
boy to drive her home. Leaving the car, the girl discovers a hook stuck in the
door, the end dripping with blood as it was ripped from the assailant. The story’s
moral is that they survived because instead of having sex and becoming victims
of the Hook, they remained pure and went home.
The slasher movie replicates
this formula by using a slew of disposable characters - the majority of which
are promiscuous or drug users - as cannon fodder throughout, before the one virginal
heroine dispatches of the monster. It is also, by design, a heteronormative
sub-genre, as the protagonist is almost always a heterosexual female character,
and going by the rules of sex equals death, camp and overtly sexual gay
characters are usually always victims to the antagonist.
In 1984, Wes Craven took the
standard hook formula and reinvented it with his film A Nightmare on Elm Street. In this film, the antagonist is no
longer a faceless, silent assassin hiding behind a mask, but a charismatic child
murderer, turned undead demon, who stalks his prey within the world of their
dreams. In this dream world, Freddy Kruger (Robert Englund) is all powerful and
able to manipulate his victims towards their inevitable demise. However,
elements of ‘the hook’ still shine through. The protagonist is a teenage girl
(Heather Langenkamp), who when wooed by her hormonal boyfriend, turns him down
and sleeps alone in a bed underneath a crucifix. Her friends, all of whom fall
victim to Krueger, are all sexually active or driven, reaffirming the original dogmatic
moral that sex kills. Nancy’s interactions with both Freddy and her boyfriend
Glen (Johnny Depp), reinforce the heteronormative nature of this film. All
other characters within the film are coupled up in straight relationships and
there is no hint of gayness at all within the first instalment of the franchise.
During the 1980’s, the AIDS
virus took a strangle hold of the major media news outlets, eliciting fear in
the hearts of Americans and especially a fear of the gay community who had been
blamed for the spread of the disease not long prior to this, a stigma that
would follow the gay community for many years after. This was due in large part
to the original name that was given to the AIDS virus; GRID or Gay-Related
Immune Deficiency. Suddenly, homosexuals were villainised as the cause of the disease
that was taking the lives of many Americans, and terms such as The Gay Plague
were used against an already disenfranchised community.
A
Nightmare on Elm Street was a huge financial success for producer
Robert Shaye of New Line Cinema, and the film maker went straight to work on a
sequel, hiring Jack Sholder, who had previously directed Alone in the Dark (1982) for Shaye, to helm the film, and writer David
Chaskin to pen the script. Chaskin took it upon himself to write a screenplay
with a homosexual subtext that I will analyse within this essay. What was not
apparent to Chaskin at the time was that his subtext would inadvertently be
brought to the forefront of the film and that A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) would be reported
as not just a slasher film, but a piece of gay cinema.
In email communications with
the director, Sholder asserted that “It never occurred to me that there was a
gay subtext to NOES 2 when I was making it, nor did anyone at New Line ever
mention it, including Dave Chaskin. When the film came out and the Village
Voice review brought up the “gay theme”– the only contemporary review that
mentioned it that I saw – we all thought it was hilarious since it was so far
from what we thought we were making.” (J Sholder 2018, personal communication,
5 July).
Aware of the gay subtext or
not, the film has become a cult hit for fans of queer cinema. When dissecting camp
cinema, Jack Babuscio states that “The link with gayness is established when
the camp aspect of an individual or thing, is identified as such by a gay
sensibility.” (1999, p.119) This isn’t to say that only someone with a gay
sensibility can identify with the queering of the traditional slasher formula
with this film, and I will break the film down and analyse the gay sensibilities
within.
One major change of style
unique to this sequel is that the protagonist is male. Mark Patton portrays the
character of Jesse, replacing Heather Langenkamp’s character of Nancy from the
first film and in essence becoming the first male scream queen of the slasher
sub-genre. “He has that vulnerability and sex appeal and just everything that
goes into being a scream queen.” (Scream, Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street,
2018) Previously, all of the major slasher franchises, as well as the minor and
lesser known films, would exclusively use women in their lead roles. Mark
Patton, a closeted homosexual at the time of production, played Jesse as a
meek, effeminate, and often camp character, which adds to the rich gayness of
the film.
When speaking of the casting
of the character of Jesse, Sholder claims “it never crossed my mind as to whether
Mark was gay or not. He was a good actor and right for the part.” Sholder
continues “But as we all know, leading men (and women) in that time had to
appear straight whether they were or not. That’s the dilemma Mark Patton found
himself in and why he says he quit the biz.” (op cit, 2018)
On the surface, the film is
the story of Jesse, a heterosexual boy and new kid in town whose family has
moved into 1428 Elm Street, the house in which Nancy was terrorised by Freddy
in the first film. Jesse is plagued by nightmares of a deformed killer adorned
in a green and red sweater and a gauntlet of razor sharp finger knives. Over
the course of the story, Jesse is possessed by the evil Kruger, who uses the
boy to initiate his sadistic machinations. Jesse’s love interest, Lisa (Kim
Myers), sees the anguish that he is going through, and though she doesn’t fully
understand what is happening to Jesse, she attempts to help him through this
difficult time.
Beneath the surface lies the
story of a young gay man coming to terms with his sexuality in a time and place
where he is deemed a deviant and dangerous to the “normal” heterosexual world
around him. Timothy Shary uses A
Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 as an example of symbolic angst within the
teen horror movie “the protagonist's terror arises from his implicit homosexual
confusion, represented by the killer.” (2003, p.50)
Freddy represents the
repression of his homosexual desires, and embodied as a hideous monster, shows
the self-loathing of Jesse, a boy raised in a conservative family - especially
his Reaganite father - with values that would look down upon his sexual
preferences as deviancies.
At school, Jesse is tortured
by his sadistic physical education teacher, Coach Schneider (Marshall Bell),
who takes great pleasure from making his students exert themselves to the
limits of their physical exhaustion.
Jesse’s best friend, Grady
(Robert Rusler), an attractive and athletic boy, starts the film as a rival of
sorts, but they quickly align through their mutual disdain of Coach Schneider. With
queer theory, we can see that Grady is Jesse’s love interest and not Lisa, as
the film progresses and the lines between friendship and romance blur between
both Jesse and Lisa & Jesse and Grady.
The first signs that this is a
gay movie comes when Jesse has a nightmare, finding Freddy in the basement of
his house. Freddy catches Jesse as he calls out for help and begins to seduce
the boy. He caresses Jesse’s face with his blades and talks to him in hushed
tones, as if not wanting to wake his parents. He tells Jesse that he “needs” him
and that he’s “got the body”. This interaction is reminiscent of Freddy’s
seduction of Nancy in part 1, though this is the first time we see this interaction
with a male counterpart. With both examples, Jacques Haitkin served as
cinematographer, and the respective scenes leap out of the screen with sexual
tension.
Later in the film, Jesse is about
to meet up with Lisa, when his father tells him he can’t leave until he has finished
unpacking his room. The subsequent scene is the quintessence of pure camp with
its naïve innocence and unawareness, as Jesse dances whilst cleaning his room.
The dance is overtly sexual and effeminate, as he gyrates his hips and backside.
He gives the viewer a faux fashion show, as he wears different gaudy hats and
sunglasses, each more outlandish than the next. The song, Touch Me (All Night Long) by Fonda Rae, is a disco pop dance song
that emphasises the campness of the scene. “One must distinguish between naïve
and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naïve. Camp which knows itself to be Camp
(‘Camping’) is usually less satisfying.” (Sontag, 1999, p.58) The climax of the
scene comes when Jesse, dancing on his bed in a pair of golden, lightning bolt
adorned sunglasses, holds a giant party popper in front of his crotch like an
erect phallus and popping it, ejaculating streamers, as his Mother and Lisa
enter the room, surprising him. Jesse’s mother seems incredibly gleeful at the introduction
of Lisa, a girl, into the room of her son. It’s as if her suspicions or fear of
her son’s homosexuality is assuaged. “Camouflage, bravura, moral anarchy, the
hysteria of despair, a celebration of frustration, skittishness, revenge … the
possible descriptions are countless. I would opt for one basic prerequisite
however: camp is a lie that tells the truth.” (Core, 1999, p.81) Jesse is
hiding in plain sight. He is desperate to be himself and shows this when alone.
The dance is an expression of freedom, and self-knowing. When there are no eyes
watching, Jesse can alleviate his frustrations in a celebration of camp.
The set design of this scene,
though subtle, also emphasises camp. There is a sign on Jesse’s bedroom door
stating NO CHICKS. In his closet is a board game called Probe. This is Jesse’s
safe space where he can comfortably be himself. When Lisa enters the room,
Jesse tones down the camp.
The dance scene also reveals a
stark contrast between the first two Elm Street movies. Many scenes are set in
Nancy’s bedroom in the first film, yet all of them are played straight. Her
bedroom is emphasised as the place where Nancy sleeps. In comparison to Jesse
in Part 2, where hardly any scenes are set in his room and the one standout
scene is the campest scene in the movie.
Jesse’s interactions with Lisa
for most the film does not reflect the cliché characteristics of a young
teenage couple that are attracted to each other. Lisa is more of a friend and
confidant to Jesse, supporting him through his tough time. There is little
flirtation between the two, and even though the young actors have obvious
chemistry, none of it seems sexually charged.
His interactions with Grady on
the other hand, scream of sexual tension. During a baseball game at school,
Grady pulls Jesse’s sweat pants down before the two boys wrestle in the dirt. Whilst
being punished for this scuffle, Grady refers to Jesse as a “pretty boy”. In their
next scene together, Grady is watching Jesse as he sleeps in class. A snake
begins to wrap itself around the sleeping boy, which causes him to wake and
scream. Perhaps another nightmare of a homosexual encounter, as the phallic
snake grips the teen. The eye contact and laughter shared between Jesse and
Grady oozes with chemistry as Jesse gives a wry knowing smile, mere seconds
after this nightmare scenario, whilst giving Grady a middle finger.
The biggest give away of the
Jesse/Lisa/Grady love triangle comes towards the end of the film. Jesse is at
Lisa’s pool party and the couple are talking in a cabana. Jesse is distressed
about his nightmares. As the scene progresses, Lisa makes the move and kisses
Jesse. The two make out intensely and Jesse opens Lisa’s shirt and begins to
kiss her chest, in between her breasts, keeping them covered at all times.
Suddenly, a gnarled and deformed tongue, created by Freddy, emerges from
Jesse’s mouth and creeps along Lisa’s flesh, pushing the reluctant boy towards
a heteronormative sexual encounter. “The essence of camp is it’s love of the
unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” (op cit, p.53) Jesse’s ‘Freddy’
tongue is a perfect example of camp exaggeration. The situation seems funnier
than scary as the cartoonish caricatured tongue combined with the subtext,
showcases a glorious representation of camp that elicits humour, rather than
fear. Jesse freaks out and leaves Lisa, who is upset and confused. Jesse then
breaks into Grady’s bedroom, waking him from his sleep by almost leaping on top
of him. The most telling piece of dialogue occurs in this scene, as Jesse
pleads Grady to let him stay at his house that night, Jesse exclaims: “Something
is trying to get inside my body.” To which, Grady replies: “Yeah, and she’s
female and she’s waiting for you in the cabana, and you want to sleep with me.”
Freddy emerges from Jesse and kills Grady, once again exhibiting the
self-loathing nature that Freddy represents. He tries to force Jesse to
continue licking Lisa all over her body against his will yet murders the man he
is about to spend the night with.
“To name a sensibility, to
draw its contours & recount it’s history, requires a deep sympathy modified
by revulsion.” (ibid, p.53) This quote regarding the gay sensibility of camp
cinema, is constructed as if speaking specifically about A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2. Jesse’s possession by Freddy and
the hideous acts forced upon him by the dream demon, garner both sympathy and
revulsion, whilst also examining the gay sensibility.
The final scene I want to
discuss is also the one scene which acknowledges the gay world within the film.
Jesse sleepwalks out of his house and ends up at a gay bar. Inside, the extras
are adorned in fabulously camp costumes and regalia - leather, denim, spikes, mohawks.
Jesse, a minor, is served an alcoholic drink, but before taking a sip, he is
stopped by Coach Schneider, adorned in a kinky leather outfit. Schneider takes
the young boy back to the school and forces him to run laps of the gym. After
Jesse looks as if he is about to drop, Schneider tells him to hit the showers
and retreats to his office. Within his office, Schneider is suddenly attacked
by a barrage of balls. Baseballs, basketballs, dodgeballs, all shoot towards
his face. The symbolism of testicles being thrust towards the sadistic coach is
fairly apparent. Skipping ropes magically wrap themselves around Schneider, dragging
him into the shower room with Jesse and tying him up to the pipes of the
showers. His clothes are ripped from his body by an unseen force, leaving him
naked and prone as towels lash his bare backside. As steam fills the room,
Jesse is replaced by Freddy who slashes Schneider to death. Once again showing
that any interaction that Jesse may have with another gay man, leads to a
gruesome death at the clawed hand of Kruger, Jesse’s twisted conscious.
My analysis of this film leads
me to the conclusion that the entirety of the movie, from the opening bus ride
nightmare scene, to its mirrored bookend conclusion, is all one long nightmare.
The nightmare of a gay teenage boy coming to terms with his repressed sexuality.
Lisa represents the
expectations of society around him, an incredibly beautiful young woman who
only has eyes for this awkward boy, regardless of the lack of sexual chemistry.
It should be noted that Lisa is also representative of the friend that Jesse
needs to help him through this difficult stage of his life. She is his shoulder
to lean on.
Grady is Jesse’s fantasy. Possibly
the boy at school that he dreams of being with. He is cool, funny and
attractive, and in Jesse’s nightmare, he is taken away from Jesse just as the
two become close.
Coach Schneider represents the
gay deviant that the world around Jesse has convinced him that his sexuality
represents. He is a bully and sadistic. He surrounds himself with children and
proceeds to mercilessly torture them.
And as explained throughout
the essay, Freddy is the self-loathing that is stopping Jesse from coming out
of the closet and being who he really is, by forcing him into situations that are
unnatural to the boy.
“There are only two things
essential to camp: a secret within the personality which one ironically wishes
to conceal and to exploit; and a peculiar way of seeing things, affected by
spiritual isolation, but strong enough to impose itself on others through acts
or creations.” (op cit, p.82) This quote is a perfect summary of Jesse and his
journey through the story of the film. His spiritual isolation is the dream
that the entirety of the story takes place in and his homosexuality, the part
of his being that is tearing him apart, is the secret that he wishes to conceal
and exploit. Jesse is tortured by his belief that his family would not approve
of his sexuality, the one gay man that he knows is a sadistic bully, he’s
fallen for Grady and Lisa, his other friend, is falling for him.
After offering my analysis to
Sholder, specifically regarding the entirety of the film being set in one
nightmare, his response was “In literary criticism the intentionalist fallacy
is defined as “an assertion that the intended meaning of the author is not the
only or most important meaning; a fallacy involving an assessment of a literary
work based on the author's intended meaning rather than an actual response to
the work.” Which would mean that your
interpretation is as valid as mine or Dave Chaskin’s… and it’s an interesting
take on the film.” (op cit, 2018)
Bibliography
Babuscio, J. (1999). The
Cinema of Camp (AKA Camp and the Gay Sensibility). In: F. Cleto, ed. 1999. Camp, 1st ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, pp. 117-135
Core, P. (1999). From Camp:
The Lie that Tells the Truth. In: F. Cleto, ed. 1999. Camp, 1st ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 80-86
Shary, T. (2003). Film Genres
and the Image of Youth. Journal of Film
and Video, 55 (1), pp. 39-57
Sontag, S. (1999). Notes on
Camp. In: F. Cleto, ed. 1999. Camp,
1st ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 53-65
Filmography
A
Nightmare on Elm Street. (1984). [film] USA: Wes Craven
A
Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge.
(1985). [film] USA: Jack Sholder
Scream,
Queen: My Nightmare on Elm Street. (2018). [film] USA: Roman
Chimienti and Tyler Jensen
Scream
and Scream Again: A History of the Slasher Film.
(2000). [film] UK: Andrew Abbott and Russell Leven
