The road to becomming a self proclaimed Horror Movie Expert starts now.

Snow Day Netflix Madness! Yesterday, my Wife and I had a snow day. It doesnt take much in Nashville to shut the system down. With that bonus free time, we rocked the Netflix pretty much all day, and revisited some classic horror.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge was on the docket. And with this viewing came a new perspective. I read a few articles and blog posts which covered the subtext of the plot and its Homosexually charged theme.

The most obvious point that was brought to my attention, that I am now embarrassed to say I never noticed before was the fact that there was no "Survivor girl" but a "Survivor man". Mark Patton, who is openly gay, played the part of Jesse Walsh. Jesse is a teenager who had a girl who liked him "Lisa" and that he had liked but "not in that way". The other major examples pointed to being the encounter he has with his gym teacher in a gay S&M leather bar, and his fleeing to Ron Grady's house after an aborted attempt of making out at his girlfriend's pool party.

Robert Englund has also went on to say that he thinks, "the second Nightmare on Elm Street is obviously intended as a bisexual themed film. It was early '80s, pre-AIDS paranoia. Jesse's wrestling with whether to come out or not and his own sexual desires was manifested by Freddy. His friend is the object of his affection. That's all there in that film. We did it subtly but the casting of Mark Patton was intentional too, because Mark was out and had done Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." The rest of the cast and crew with the exception of Englund and screenwriter David Chaskin who admits it was written that way on purpose were oblivious at the time of its' making.

Even with the subtext, my opinion on #2 is that 2nd only to The Dream Child, it is the weakest in the series. Sorry folks.

Later in the night, we watched Hellgate. 

Hellgate, while having an interesting story, was not really executed properly. Its pretty obvious the budget was very low. And the acting wasn't really the best. But this movie kept me entertained. What was awesome was the overbearing use of slow motion. Anytime there was action, it was in slow motion. Its on Netflix in case you don't want to hunt this thing down on VHS or DVD.

I've decided that I'm going to challenge myself to become a Horror Movie Expert. What that entails, in my mind at least, is that not only am I going to start watching all of the movies Ive left to the side out of thinking they were below me, but also revisiting all of my favorites and really locking down everything inside of them. I want to start to understand the intent. I want to start to grasp any and all subtext. I want to find out who wrote it, and dig out the rest of their horror catalog. I want to understand why the masks change from sequel to sequel. I want to know why there are so many plot holes.

So, first thing I need to do is write up a curriculum for myself. Horror Movies 101. Take the class until I pass, and then write up another lesson plan. Ill keep you posted