I’m not disputing the presence of a gay erotic current in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. But I worked as a freelance publicist for this film in the summer and fall of ’85, and I don’t remember the slightest remark at the time by any New Line staffers about Mark Patton (who was 25 or 26 at the time) being any kind of scream queen. Nobody said zilch about this, and the people I worked with in New Line publicity and marketing were very sharp and super-opinionated about everything.

From “Brief Shining Moment of Freddiemania,” posted on 1.17.15: “I’d like to take a brief bow for my efforts as a freelance public relations guy for New Line Cinema in ’85 and ’86, and particularly my promotion of Jack Sholder‘s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, and even more particularly the semi-phenomenon known as ‘Freddiemania,’ which originated with spottings of movie fans dressed as Freddy Krueger a la Rocky Horror for midnight showings of Wes Craven‘s A Nightmare on Elm Street (’84).

“There weren’t that many Freddy freaks to be found, to be perfectly honest, but it was an interesting and amusing enough story to persuade Entertainment Tonight and the N.Y. Times and other big outlets to run pieces on it and to speak with Sholder (who later directed The Hidden, one of the finest New Line films ever made) as well as Freddy himself, Robert Englund, with whom I became friendly and hung out with a bit. (Producer Mike DeLuca was a 20 year-old New Line assistant at the time.) One of my big Freddy promotional stunts was persuading Englund to march in New York’s Village Halloween Parade on 10.31.85 from Houston Street up to 14th or 23rd or something like that.”

I also wrote about this period in “New Line Memories,” posted on 3.3.08.

Directed by Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen, Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street is currently streaming on Amazon. It’ll also be released on SHUDDER, the horror streaming service, on 6.4, or two days hence.