31 Gay Horror Movi: ‘Raw,’ ‘Nightmare on Elm Street 2,’ and More – IndieWire

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Before homosexualy was formally legislated out of existence Hollywood by the Productn Co — monly referred to as the Hays Co, which tablished mandat for “moral standards” motn pictur and banned pictns of “sexual perversy” — the legendary filmmaker Jam Whale was buildg the foundatn for Amerin genre cema wh films like Frankenste, The Old Dark Hoe, and The Invisible Man. It also doubl as a timele of the evolutn of queer horror: How LGBTQA them and characters went om hidg between the l movi wh “gay sensibili” the 1930s to breakg out as Pri mem almost a century later — gog om visible (lbian ghosts! Benshoff explas his book Monsters the Closet: Homosexualy the Horror Film, “Immediately before and durg the years of World War II, Universal Stud’s horror films began to employ a more humanistic pictn of their monsters, ” and the films of Val Lewton, like Cat People, reflected “a growg awarens of homosexualy, homosexual muni, and the dynamics of homosexual opprsn as was played out society and the ary.

Whale imbued his movi, often about the ultimate outsirs, wh a gay sensibily: In Dark Hoe, five people are brought together when they’re forced off the road by a storm and end up takg shelter the same isolated home. She battl “horrible impuls” that she tri and fails to reprs, and even starts seeg a psychiatrist to analyze the “vampire” out of her (a treatment that was thought to cure homosexualy, as well). As Benshoff wr Monsters the Closet, the postwar era was a terrible time to live outsi the prefab fn of what meant to be a te Amerin: “In many ways, the 1950s might be thought of as the darkt of the twentieth century both for monsters and for homosexuals, as well as for anyone else who might have nsired him/herself somehow outsi the hegemonic nstctn of normaly.

“The qualified passn that had been directed towards queer monsters durg the years of World War II evaporated the blazg heat of McCarthyism; a new paranoia surroundg difference, be polil or sexual, add to a socially opprsive atmosphere that fueled not only greater social persecutn of homosexuals, but also, nversely, the begngs of an anized homosexual civil rights movement, ” wr Benshoff. Brandon suggts regrsive hypnotherapy to fd the root of Tony’s impuls wh his subnsc so n be ntralized (siar to regrsive treatments at the time that were remend for weedg out and elimatg homosexual sire), but accsg those early-stage memori of urse jt unleash the boy’s ner beast, stead. Arguably there was no such thg, jt a stterg of gay and lbian directors, often closeted, makg films that were masqueradg as mass-market heterosexual fare, albe wh the ocsnal gay or lbian actor or subtle wk.

If nservativ hoped there was a way to shove the gay genie back the bottle after got loose the 1970s, this mil horror send-up — featurg a Teenage Frankenste–style boy toy ma by a blatantly queer mad scientist who uld sce even the most vanilla heterosexual men or women — cshed all of those square hop and dreams. The queer eye of the mera on his body eroticiz Andrew’s form, and the movie has a gay enough sensibily to stage a nontatn between Andrew and his bully a school shower, where the bully tnts him by askg for a date, and then a kiss, before actually kissg him while the two are both naked. Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)Freddy’s Revenge is the rare slasher to feature a Fal Boy stead of a Fal Girl, but s hero, Jse Walsh (Mark Patton, who was the closet at the time) is monly intified as a reprsed gay teen.

The Lost Boys (1987)Horror cema served up plenty of gay lady vampir, mostly the service of the straight male gaze, but Lost Boys gave the as-yet-rare hive of que queer blood-suckg boys. ” Vampir are often queer avatars, but ’s Sam who seems to be the gayt thg happeng Lost Boys, wh a p-up photo of Rob Lowe on his bedroom wall, and T-shirt that says “Born to Shop” makg an appearance at one pot.

This fiance was thanks no small part to the onset of the AIDS crisis, and the queer activism the face of a Reagan admistratn that stayed silent as long the disease was limed to beg a “gay plague. Siarly, gays horror movi uld jt go mpg wh their iends — and worry about psycho killers who were jt good old-fashned horror-movie maniacs, stead of moralizg s hunters or trans people ma terrifyg. Hellbent (2004)Hellbent isn’t a great movie, but wrer and director Pl Etheredge-Ouzts is an important figure the queer horror non for makg a slasher about a bunch of gay men the crosshairs of a serial killer, who has no discernable anti-gay motive for his crim.