From Nosferatu to A Nightmare on Elm Street, LGBTQ+ viewers have long tected a queer unrtone many horror films. Now the genre is brgg s gay subtext to the surface
Contents:
- THE HISTORY OF HORROR IS GAY
- HORROR MOVI WH GAY SUBTEXT
- THE 5 MOST UNTENTNALLY GAY HORROR MOVI
- THE NIGHTMARE BEHD THE GAYT HORROR FILM EVER MA
THE HISTORY OF HORROR IS GAY
While some earlier films do clu overtly gay them, thgs went unrground durg the Hays Co era, and the reverberatns of that subversive queerns rema uful to this day. A tan of classic horror, gay filmmaker Jam Whale wove queerns to most of his films, which clu the origal “Frankenste” and “The Invisible Man. But as wh so much of Hchck, ’s hard to say that this is an outright homophobic visn, pecially when the script has the souciance of Osr Wil: “Before this day is out I fear we’ll hear that terribly old-fashned but que exprsive term ‘foul play, ’” Sanrs says, all while munchg on a chicken leg.
” The remarkable thg about all this is that Hchck mak you intify wh Perks (who was gay and closeted real life) as much as he did Marn Crane herself, to the pot that, as Hchck often did at his perverse bt, you’re kda rootg for him. A prolific and succsful horror fictn wrer who began directg to adapt his work himself, out gay filmmaker Clive Barker is rponsible for two of the films on this list, “Nightbreed” and “Hellraiser. “In many ways, ‘Interview’ is the most mercially succsful gay film of all time, and most dienc didn’t even realize they were seeg a gay film.
Takg the token gay iend to his rightfully sensual ends, her roommate Adrien luxuriat his sexualy, brgg boys home and flntg the pleasur of the flh that seem so out of reach to the raveno Jte. For 2019’s “Midnight Kiss, ” a sexy gay slasher set amongst a group of LA gay iends on New Year’s Eve, Blumhoe tapped out gay talent — wrer Erlgur Thoroddsen and director Carter Smh, who also hired all queer actors for the queer rol. Over the next few years, var wags of Tumblr began to sist that the film’s eponymo monster – a towerg charal-sketched ghoul wh a stovepipe hat, icepick fgers and an ordate number of sharply rectangular teeth – was fact a gay in.
HORROR MOVI WH GAY SUBTEXT
In promotg his new documentary seri Queer for Fear, a history of queer horror cema currently streamg on the chiller-themed platform service Shudr, gay TV wrer Bryan Fuller (creator of the TV seri Hannibal) argued that an tn the genre n beg early life, wh somethg as nocuo as The Wizard of Oz. Irish thor Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carla, about a female vampire preyg on a young woman, effectively ed the lbian vampirism trope faiar later horror storytellg; long believed to have been a closeted homosexual, Bram Stoker load Dracula wh enough polysexual allns to keep amics by for over a century. In 1922, closeted German film-maker FW Murn squeezed a good number of them to his unofficial, rampantly sire-fuelled adaptatn, Shelley’s siarly suoly load Frankenste, meanwhile, beme the source of one of Hollywood’s first nonilly queer horror films: gay English director Jam Whale’s five 1931 adaptatn is marked by a distctly queer empathy wh Boris Karloff’s socially vilified monster, prented as more vulnerably human than the vengeful villagers bayg for his bristle … Elsa Lanchter Bri of Frankenste.
The rints of the hoe are scribed as “godls”, and d as sexually ee and viant; one, the tellgly named Horace Femm, is mply played to the rafters by gay actor Ernt Thiger. Psycho’s tone was a far cry om the gleefully rampant sexualy of a spate of Sapphic vampire B-movi om the 1970s – cludg Hammer Films’ own Carla adaptatn The Vampire Lovers, not to mentn Jús Fran’s self-explanatory Vampyros Lbos – and, of urse, the Rocky Horror the Aids panmic raged, more hostile queer reprentatns beme wispread: horror films rangg om W Craven’s Deadly Blsg to Brian De Palma’s Drsed to Kill to Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, serial killg was routely lked to homosexualy, transgenrism and/or past newsletter promotnafter newsletter promotnIf this turnaround was le wh the Aids panic, allyship me om sourc both highbrow and low.
Most unexpectedly, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge two years later ma the bart of efforts to hi s homoerotic gaze, while s closeted gay teen protagonist Jse (so-lled male scream queen Mark Patton, who would himself later e out as gay) emerg as a heroic survivor the mould of horror’s tradnal Fal Girl. And the leather-wrapped S&M genrqueerns of the mons gay wrer-director Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) spoke for be them … Yann Gonzalez’s Knife + year’s Hellraiser remake, wh transgenr actor Jamie Clayton the inic Phead role, brgs much of s forenner’s LGBTQ+ subtext plaly to the surface – parg the two is an object lson how much queer horror has transformed the last few s. At the turn of the 21st century, we were still dancg around symbolic reprentatns of outsir sexual inty – see the implicly queer outst sisters of the lic teen werewolf tale Gger Snaps – or prentg homosexualy as an allurgly dangero threat, as Alexandre Aja’s thrillgly lurid but distctly sex-negative High, queer perspectiv are centred, by queer film-makers, whout shame or secrecy.
THE 5 MOST UNTENTNALLY GAY HORROR MOVI
Set the world of gay porn, Yann Gonzalez’s geoly grisly Knife + Heart is so heavily populated wh queer characters – vortg, killg and beg killed wh equal abandon – that they don’t have to symbolise anythg relatn to straight society. The moody 2017 ghost story Rift foc on the hntg of a young gay uple by memori and trma – that mastay of morn art-horror – but you n image much the same film beg fashned around a pair of the recent Netflix phenomenon Fear Street and Hala Reijn’s grimly funny slasher edy Bodi Bodi Bodi are built around the nscient sexual fluidy of generatn Z: their queer characters are warmly accepted, even when they are executed.
Horror all shap and siz and the genre ntu to evolve brgg more opportuni for meangful reprentatn, but if you’re lookg for some thly veiled g out metaphors and gay-d characters to go along wh your gore and jump sr, the 10 horror movi will be right up your alley. Full of homoerotic subtext and not-so-subtle sexual tensn between villa Freddy Keger and ma character Jse Walsh, the film is often lled “the gayt slasher film ever ma”. Although the screenwrer nied that he meant to imply (pretty blatantly) that Jse was gay, didn’t take long for dience to notice all the signs.
THE NIGHTMARE BEHD THE GAYT HORROR FILM EVER MA
Barker, who is openly gay, has said “the look of the Cenob, such as the ps their lear’s head, was spired by S&M clubs” and the overall them of the movie explor how the all-nsumg need for pleasure n lead you directly to hell—a theme that some believe is also an AIDS allegory. But after Netflix accintally tegorized the film the LGBT sectn, queer dienc embraced the creature and terpreted that he reprented rilience the face of homophobia.