Film

Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street

Name: Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street
Genre: Documentary, Horror
Released: 2019
Cast: Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Robert Rusler

Biopic

A documentary about Mark Patton's experience starring in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, and how homophobic backlash from audiences and the industry derailed his career. Thoughtful and furious by turns, it's a portrait of survival and reclamation that happens to be about horror cinema, but really concerns itself with damage and erasure.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love behind-the-scenes accounts of how cult horror gets made and remembered, especially when the people who were there are finally given room to argue about it.

Skip it if you want a tight, scare-driven slasher; this is talk-heavy, with long stretches of interviews and clips rather than fresh nightmares.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a brisk hour and a half of talking heads, archival footage and fan-convention chatter, with the emotional weight arriving slowly rather than all at once.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th2010

Brisk, affectionate look at the Friday the 13th phenomenon with behind-the-scenes stories and the perspective of everyone from directors to stunt people to victims who lived to tell.

But Lighter touch means less of the uncomfortable truths; it's celebration over reckoning, which some viewers find evasive.

His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th poster

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy2010

Comprehensive documentary covering the entire Nightmare series with interviews spanning cast, creators, and critics. Direct predecessor to this film, but tells the institutional story rather than one person's.

But Canonical in a way that can feel safe; doesn't interrogate the industry failures the way Scream, Queen! does.

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy poster

Room 2372012

Obsessive dive into one film's making and reception, exploring how audiences construct meaning and how creators lose control of their own work once it enters the world.

But Experimental and digressive; some find it pretentious rather than exploratory, and it's less personal testimony than abstract analysis.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both are stories about the machinery that grinds up people who enter it hoping to become someone, and both ask whether identity itself survives that machinery intact.

Lynch's fever dream about ambition, identity, and how Hollywood devours people who want to be stars. It's constructed as a mystery about who we think we are, which is exactly what Scream, Queen! interrogates in documentary form.

But Deliberately fractured and dreamlike; if you need clarity and chronology, this will frustrate you for three hours.

Casting By2012

Documentary about the (then largely uncredited) work of casting directors in Hollywood, with stories about the people who almost made it, the roles that changed everything, and the ones that ruined careers.

But Sprawling and occasionally unfocused; not every interview lands with the same emotional weight.

JAY-Z: Fade to Black2004

Documentary about how Hollywood has treated Black performers across eras, with many stories of talent sidelined or erased by systemic racism and industry indifference.

But Difficult subject matter without the specificity of following one person's story; some viewers find it too broad to land as deeply.

The Celluloid Closet1996

Both are about the specific violence of being erased from the narrative of your own story, and both use film as the evidence of that erasure.

Documentary about how Hollywood coded and erased queer identity for decades, using clips from films themselves as evidence. Direct lineage to what Patton's experience reveals: how the industry weaponized queerness while profiting from it.

But Reaches back to older cinema that can feel dated; some viewers find the scholarly tone less engaging than more recent documentaries.

The Vast of Night2019

Both are mysteries about what's been hidden, both told through obsessive investigation of fragments, and both ultimately concerned with how we survive what we uncover about the world that made us.

Science fiction film from the same year about two teenagers chasing a mystery through 1950s small-town America, told entirely through phone calls and a single evening drive. Utterly unexpected formally, but shares Scream, Queen!'s obsession with how the past holds secrets we can't shake.

But Slow-burn mystery that privileges atmosphere and conversation over plot momentum; impatient viewers will find it static.