A Hallowe’en tie-in article touting SCREAM, QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET/’19 , a documentary on the making (and subsequent history) of the second ELM STREET fright-flick, and its current status as an ‘80s horror pic with a closeted gay sub-text (not so ‘sub’), along with the closeted gay actor in his first lead in it, hooks you in. Heck, why leave the idea as a documentary? This is feature film material. Reboot the series! But having never seen an ELM STREET, best to watch the film before the doc. No? Bad idea. ELM STREET had already lost Johnny Depp (does he die in #1?), but as Part 2 had even bigger grosses than the first, how bad could it be?* (Rhetorical question.) With writer/director Wes Craven replaced by crass horror specialist Jack Sholder and debuting scripter David Chaskin (only two further feature credits), the quick answer is very bad. (Okay, it’s also the long answer.) Above and below the line/in front and behind the camera; insultingly bad. Featuring more bare male chests than a BAYWATCH marathon, but nary a fright or a giggle in this all-White suburban body-horror about creepy slasher ‘Freddy’ who shows up in the nightmares of 26-yr-old High Schooler Mark Patton, looking thin, miserable and out of condition. And that’s before ‘Freddy’ bursts out of his flaccid bod as a corporal monster. Featuring laughable effects, nonsense for logic, and Romper Room level acting. (Are all the NIGHTMAREs this bad?) For what it’s worth, and not having seen any others, this one felt more John Carpenter/HALLOWEEN/’78 than Wes Craven.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Once upon a time, income on sequels were generally keyed less on intrinsic quality than on Box-Office results from the previous series release. It often meant a one-film delay before a new word-of-mouth kicked in. Pre-2000 James Bond films chart this theory nearly perfectly. But recent decades no longer follow old patterns as the internet made old marketing theories and practices obsolete.
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