Review – A Nightmare On Love Street
Lovers of classic horror movies unite, as this is the performance you have been waiting for. For A Nightmare on Love Street we join two lovers, aptly named Carrie and Freddy (played by the utterly engrossing Branden Christine and Kurt Phelan) as they re-enact famous scenes from classic horror movies with such passion and energy it’s lusciously exhausting to watch.
After being ushered into the performance by the cross-dressing Christine and Phelan, the audience is asked to choose five out of ten horror movies to be explored on stage. The likes of Evil Dead, Poltergeist and a Hitchcock mash up of The Birds and Psycho are the likes of what’s on offer. Characters Carrie and Freddie lampoon famous scenes from the films, invoking a safe word when things get a little too sinister. The horror is juxtaposed with a little passion between Carrie and Freddie, as they segue into wordless snippets of their domestic lives between role-plays. This is a little messy, and could easily deteriorate into confusion, but the performance is executed so brilliantly by Christine and Phelan there is only minimal cause for complaint.
Assisted by a miscellany of props, Christine and Phelan are captivating and energetic to the extreme. Often their imitations are precise, perfectly encapsulating the farcical nature of the chosen horror films. Their version of the tree rape scene from Evil Dead was fantastic, and Christine’s zombified and possessed evil girlfriend face was spot on. Add to this a Freddie Krueger rap from a Nightmare on Elm Street, featuring dubious sexual references “not in the backdoor” and you have a vastly inappropriate and often hilarious show. The show is not perfect, but the delivery is and Christine and Phelan excel.
This late night Fringe show perfectly exemplifies the cheesiness of horror films and is an absolute recommendation for anyone looking for a fun- filled homage to horror at its bloody best.
