From Michael Myers to Jason Voorhees, most slasher films are known for their silent, unstoppable killers. But the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise’s Freddy Krueger is different. He brings a sense of style and theatricality to his kills. A theatricality that belies a barely kept secret: He’s gay.

Written and directed by the great and recently deceased Wes Craven and released in 1984, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a different kind of slasher movie. Instead of stalking a group of nubile teenagers through the woods, Freddy Krueger (brilliantly played by Robert Englund) attacks them in their dreams, and besides Hot Topic, dreams are the one place a teen should be free!

Freddy is, if nothing else, a storyteller. That’s what we in the who’s-secretly-gay-club call a pink flag. Why? He creates whole worlds inside his victim’s minds, finding the thing that scares them the most and manipulating them to the fullest effect. He doesn’t just want to kill his victims, he wants to toy with them. If that doesn’t sound like a bitchy queen, I don’t know what does. In A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), Mark (played by Joe Seely) is an aspiring comic book, artist so of course Freddy pulls him into a comic-book world. Mark, feeling like he’s on sure footing, turns himself into a superhero and fights Freddy, but it’s no use. Freddy was never going to lose and he turns Mark into paper and using his glove of knives to slice him up (these movies get delightfully surreal). It’s that kind of mind-fucking that sets Freddy apart from your standard slashers: Jason and Michael Myers are blunt tools; Freddy wants to watch you twist in the wind for a while, just like Joan Collins on Dynasty.

It’s this showmanship that proves Freddy’s gay. A straight guy just doesn’t care enough about the psychological state of their victim, they just want to “wham, bam, cut off your hand.” Where’s the élan in just putting a machete through someone’s skull? Where’s the drama? Freddy is the Andrew Lloyd Weber of horror, because you know with him that you’re going to get a show. (I know Andrew Lloyd Weber isn’t gay, but he’s an honorary).

And what of accessories? Freddy’s affectation for his razor-fingered glove is another point in the gay column. Like arranging your signature scarf just “so” before you leave the house, Freddy doesn’t go anywhere without his deadly glove. If that doesn’t scream “swish” then I don’t know what does. And it isn't some off-the-rack weapon, he made it himself. If you went up to Freddy in a bar and asked him where he got that glove he’d say, “Wouldn’t you KNIFE to know?” Then he’d stab you in the stomach. (Freddy loves his puns, he’s basically the horror movie version of Bruce Vilanch). The point is, ain’t no one gonna have the same swag as Freddy!

Why are Freddy’s victims almost exclusively teenagers? In the first film, we learn that Freddy is a serial child murderer. Maybe a child molester, according to the awesome Nightmare doc Never Sleep Again (check it out, it’s fabulous!), but it’s never said so in the films. So, let’s quickly move on and just say the point is that the parents of the Elm Street kids got together and burned Freddy alive. So, in the afterlife, Freddy gets “dream powers” and takes revenge on the parents who killed him by killing their kids. But surely he knows that the parents were justified in wanting to burn him alive, and he can’t really be all that angry at them; Freddy isn’t stupid. The point of all this is to say that I think Freddy just likes killing teenagers! And as an aging gay man myself, I totally get it. There is not hotter commodity in gay culture than youth, and who has all the youth? Fucking asshole teenagers with their giant hair and pop metal (this was the 1980s, remember?). He’s revenge killing! Slay on, Freddy!

But perhaps the strongest case for Freddy’s gayness comes back in the first movie. All the other kills in the movie are on-screen, visible to all. Except for Glen’s death. Glen is pulled under his bed, dies off-screen, and then a geyser of blood shoots up through the bed. It’s important to note here that Glen is played by Johnny Depp, in his first film role. Glen is gorgeous and wears a midriff-bearing T-shirt. Glen is basically pure sex in sweatpants. Freddy fucks him in his bed and in this world, the money shot is always red.

Finally, no one says the word “bitch” more than Freddy Krueger. You could tally up every episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race and their “bitch” word count wouldn’t come close. Case closed!

Mark Rennie is a writer based in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram @markrennie.