Queerness, like horror, is defined by tensions: between the inside and the outside, the normal and the abnormal, the celebrated and the rejected. Like so many marginalized groups, LGBTQ+ people know what it’s like to be on society’s perimeter, peering through the windows, trying to decide whether we want to be let into the party or continue living in shadow. Is it any wonder, then, that we see ourselves in vampires, werewolves, and other twisted creatures? That we empathize with villains who are cast out, stabbed through the heart, and burned at the stake?
But whether we identify with horror or not, the genre has always been about us, from its literary origins to its contemporary boom. Even during the censorious Hays Code era, which spanned from 1934 to 1968, filmmakers simply coded characters as queer using brushstrokes that are as obvious today as they were to trained eyes back then. We are what society fears, but we are also what society is fascinated by, and horror resides at that painful intersection, simultaneously insisting that the monster must be slain to maintain the social order while remaining fixated on it to the very last frame.
Legendary writer Clive Barker, himself an openly gay man, captured this tension well when he described the “reactionary” undercurrent of much horror fiction. “It’s usually about a return to the status quo — the monster is the outsider who must be banished from the sanctum,” the Hellraiser writer-director once said. It’s what he added next, however, that captured the deeply queer turn the genre has taken over its lifespan. “But over and over again,” Barker continued, “I’ve created monsters who come from the outside and who call out to somebody to join them in the sanctum.”
Whether we are creating horror, viewing it, or simply discussing it, LGBTQ+ people have certainly infiltrated the sanctum by now. We are the outsiders who haunt the inside, remaking the genre in our own ghastly image while tracing our presence throughout its history. The monster, at long last, is getting its revenge. Still, there are steps left to be taken to broaden and expand the genre, given horror’s historical sidelining and often outright exclusion of queer characters of color.
To that end, Them contributors have compiled this list of 55 remarkable horror movies spanning from 1932 to 2022, highlighting the long and often painful trajectory of LGBTQ+ representation in genre cinema. Not all of us are fans of every entry on this list, and some choices are bound to be controversial, but we believe it includes much of the finest horror cinema has to offer. Watch them all if you dare. — Samantha Allen
Click here to jump to a decade: 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s.
1930s
One of the first openly gay filmmakers in any genre, horror or otherwise, James Whale directed several spooky stories have been reinterpreted through a queer lens. It’s easy to see why someone whose identity made them an outsider would be so attracted to stories about monsters and pariahs. Until its recent rediscovery, The Old Dark House was largely forgotten compared to the likes of Whale’s Frankenstein, though it holds the unique distinction of being the film that inspired The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The premise is essentially the same: a group of strangers find themselves trapped in a mysterious mansion during a storm, during which all manner of curious and disquieting events begin to occur. Produced before the rigid censorship of Hollywood’s Hays Code, The Old Dark House is much more explicit than horror films in the years to follow, dripping with provocations and innuendos, with a daring sensibility befitting a director whose own personal life flew in the face of convention. — Nadine Smith
James Whale was instrumental to launching the Universal Monsters series, and The Bride of Frankenstein is arguably the queerest of his films. Picking up where his 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein left off, Bride finds Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) reunited with his campy mentor, Dr. Pretorius (bisexual actor Ernest Thesiger), who seeks to build Frankenstein’s creature a mate. (Fellas, is it gay to run off with another guy and obsess over the man you created on your wedding night?) While Frankenstein and Pretorius’ charged relationship speaks for itself, it’s the Monster (Boris Karloff) who best encapsulates the film’s pulsing queer undertones. Cast aside as an abomination, Karloff’s gentle giant only craves an intimate connection with someone else. Whether that’s with a kindly hermit or a bride doesn’t matter, he likes both! It’s no secret that monsters have always appealed to queer folks who see themselves in an “other” that fights eradication, and Bride understands that sentiment perfectly. Plus, Elsa Lanchester’s Bride is what drag dreams are made of. — Abby Monteil
During the Hays Code era, which began in 1934, queer characters were reduced to subtext to appease the censors. Monstrosity consequently became a shorthand for “otherness,” especially queer otherness, and the lesbian vampire in Dracula’s Daughter is one of the earliest examples of this phenomenon. The lesbian vampire subgenre saw a later boom in the the ’70s, and it’s still being explored in recent media like First Kill, but Dracula’s Daughter remains one of the more fascinating entries. While many of the lesbian vampire films of old used the predatory lesbian and “bury your gays” tropes, this 1936 horror film is an introspective piece that leans into the experience of internalized homophobia. While its ending plays with the “bury your gays” trope, the vampire’s death seems to lack finality, evoking themes of queer resilience. — Sara Clements
1940s
In bringing his unmistakable style to RKO Studios in the 1940s, iconic horror producer Val Lewton assembled the perfect team of collaborators, notably director Jacques Tourneur, to create the perfect little horror film that is Cat People. This deceptively simple film about Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a fashion designer who believes she will transform into a panther if she and her new husband are intimate, holds so much beneath its skin. It’s a film that prioritizes what exists in the shadows, both visually and metaphorically, with queerness that is never explicitly stated but flat-out obvious to any viewer who understands what it’s like to resist (and then give into) your true desires.— Juan Barquin
In 1944’s The Uninvited, the unwelcome force that haunts our protagonists and their new home is the power of desire itself. Our two leads, Rick (Ray Milland) and Pamela (Ruth Hussey), live together but aren’t a couple; they’re brother and sister, and when grown adults are single in an Old Hollywood movie, it’s usually a hint about their sexuality. The siblings have moved into an old and abandoned estate, where Pamela is beset by unwelcome spirits: female spirits in particular, who are said to embody the memory of the siblings’ deceased mother, with whom Pamela has an unhealthy obsession. But the subtext is louder than ghosts banging at the door, and what’s really haunting Pamela is the truth of an identity she’s too terrified to accept. — Nadine Smith
Oscar Wilde’s classic novel of the perpetually young, beautiful, and pansexual, Dorian Gray has been adapted for the screen numerous times. Its durability is in large part due to Wilde’s sneaky indictment of the repressive culture that forced Dorian to keep his true self hidden, locked away in a closet. Dorian may be a typical Evil Gay (and arguably the original Murder Twink), but society helped force his hand: Had he not had to hide his true self, he might not have gotten so good at hiding his actual crimes. The real villain here? Society’s own hubris. All that, and Angela Lansbury staking her claim as an early gay icon as doomed tavern singer Sibyl Vane. — Daniel Bayer
Alfred Hitchock films with underlying gay subtext are plentiful, but 1948’s Rope goes a step further in its depiction of queer-coded characters. Though not quite a horror film, Rope is the kind of murder mystery that would pave the way for more explicit psychologically-motivated thrillers, as well as being a technical landmark in its use of Technicolor and extended takes. Allegedly inspired by the real-life case of Leopold and Loeb, it’s hard not to read the central pair of murderers in the film as a gay couple. But look into the film’s production and it’s all but impossible: the play from which Rope is originally adapted explicitly portrays the male leads as a couple. Screenwriting and theater legend Arthur Laurents — who was gay in real life and romantically involved with the film’s co-star, Farley Granger — claimed later in life that he deliberately wrote the film so the audience would realize the characters were gay, without explicitly saying so due to Hays Code censorship and contemporaneous attitudes. — Nadine Smith
1950s
Alfred Hitchcock had a fascination with queer-coded villains, including those in Rebecca and Psycho. But his greatest gay baddie is the infamous Bruno (Robert Walker) in Strangers on a Train — a devilishly charming chap who, like so many other homosexuals, has a penchant for plans and schemes. Walker’s performance is one of the greatest portrayals of homicidal mania in film history. He has a fondness for strangulation – a decidedly intimate and erotically tinged murder method – which he employs both on Guy’s wife Miriam (Kasey Rogers) and, in a frightening demonstration that starts out playfully, on a woman at a party. The unyielding sharpness of his obsession eventually proves to be his downfall, solidifying him as not only one of the great queer antagonists, but also as a darkly tragic figure who inspires as much fascination as he does revulsion. — Cody Dericks
A devilish little mystery with a twist ending, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Hitchcock-inspired classic Les Diaboliques follows a murder scheme: the wife and mistress of a despotic boarding school principal team up to kill their tormenter. To say more would be to literally give away the plot, but there’s plenty of queer subtext throughout, even if the film is ultimately constrained by the norms of its era. — Samantha Allen
1960s
Psycho is a film that has left scars. Alfred Hitchock’s 1960 shocker is the prototypical example of the transphobic “crossdressing killer” trope, which has loomed large over horror cinema ever since. When I first watched the movie as a deeply closeted trans teen, it caused undeniable harm, sending me a message that defying gender norms was comparable to murder in its level of social transgression, despite the closing exposition about the serial killer’s motivations. And yet, there was something electrifying about the film, too. The impeccable direction and cinematography, the masterful suspense, and the pitch-perfect performance of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates all combine to create not just one of the best horror movies of all time, but one of the best films of all time, period. With age and time, I have been able to return to the movie to reclaim queer readings, grappling with the transphobic imagery to extract new meaning from its frames. — Samantha Allen
The sole directorial effort from maverick upstart Herk Harvey, 1962’s Carnival of Souls is best known as a landmark in independent film, a self-financed horror movie produced at a time when “independent film” wasn’t even a concept yet in a place as far from Hollywood as you can get: Salt Lake City. But especially given the highly repressive and conservative culture the film was made and set in, it’s almost hard not to read Carnival of Souls retroactively as a queer film. Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss), a church organist, wants nothing more than to live life on her own terms, but at every turn, she’s controlled and surveilled by forces both supernatural and patriarchal. Mary is haunted by a threatening male presence, who becomes the embodiment of the heteronormative society working to control her. More than just a paranormal haunting, it’s conformity itself that drives Mary to madness. — Nadine Smith
Dripping with queer subtext, this 1963 adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is a master class in reading between the lines. Two women, the sheltered Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris) and the bohemian Theodora (Claire Bloom), accept a paranormal investigator’s invitation to spend the night in an allegedly haunted home, and while they do encounter supernatural forces, the film’s true terrors are more interpersonal. Released near the end of the Hays Code era, Robert Wise’s remarkable screenplay can only slyly refer to Theodora’s queerness, with Eleanor at one point shouting at her, “I’d rather be innocent than like you!” — a heart-wrenching moment in a film that more than lives up to its name. — Samantha Allen
1970s
The title of Vampyros Lesbos says it all: the most famous film from infamously prolific exploitation filmmaker Jesús Franco sees queer horror at its seediest and most debased, but perhaps also its most thrilling. Starring Franco’s regular muse Soledad Miranda, Vampyros Lesbos is the film most often credited with jump-starting the cinematic “lesbian vampire” subgenre, with its blend of taboo sexuality, lurid horror, and psychedelic stylings would become exploitation signatures. While it’s hard to dispute Vampyros Lesbos as an object produced primarily for the titillation of the male gaze, there’s something thrilling about reclaiming a film so terrified and almost worshipful of the carnal power that queer women possess. — Nadine Smith
Though the lesbian vampire film was a surprisingly fertile subgenre in the 1970s, the Belgium-produced Daughters of Darkness has a level of elegance and eroticism that makes it stand on its own. A newlywed couple taking their honeymoon on the misty Flemish coast find their secluded stay interrupted by a mysterious and menacing Hungarian countess, who immediately makes her sexual interest in the couple known. Played by legendary arthouse actress Delphine Seyrig, the Countess Elizabeth Báthory soon reveals herself to be a succubus, who has maintained her Dietrich-like looks and poise by feasting on the blood of younger women. Báthory invites the new wife to leave her already toxic marriage and enter a world of endless and infinite pleasures. Though the drive for desire in Daughters of Darkness unsurprisingly ends in bloodshed, there’s no denying the genuine sexual charge behind its depiction of queer female desire, with a level of sensuality rarely seen in exploitation movies of the era. — Nadine Smith
A pair of gay interior decorators / antiques dealers are some of Blacula’s first victims in this 1972 blaxploitation classic. Bobby McCoy (Ted Harris) and his partner Billy Schaffer (Rick Metzler) are clearly intended as stereotypes — at one point, an officer investigating their murders does refer to them using the F-slur, so be warned — but taken in the context of its time, it’s remarkable to see a gay interracial couple of means taken seriously in their profession. Plus, the film’s a blast. Vampire bites and funk music simply belong together. — Samantha Allen
This musical horror-comedy, which follows a young couple as they stumble on a castle housing a curious group of sexually liberated characters, is one of the most influential films of the 20th century. It’s a piece of queer art whose culture-shifting power taught an entire generation to be out and proud. Gender nonconformity has never looked as hot as Tim Curry in a corset, garter and high heels, playing a character who encourages everyone to let their freak flag fly. The Rocky Horror Picture Show shows how powerful and moving it is to have your own strange community. — Sara Clements
1980s
The very making of William Friedkin’s Cruising sparked protests. From the moment the director’s camera began panning through the real gay leather bars of downtown New York, the queer community, already in a precarious social position, understandably objected to the film’s conflation of BDSM practices with real-world violence. But, with time, Friedkin’s film — which follows Al Pacino’s undercover cop character as he goes stealth into the scene to investigate a series of murders — reveals a shrewd perspective on desire, identity, and fascism in America. You just have to look. — Kyle Turner
The Hunger features David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve, and Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve having sex. What more could you want? This erotic vampire film has all the gothic decadence and decay you would expect, but underneath its creepy noir veneer is something bold for its time. Coming out during the 1980s AIDS crisis, the film’s portrayal of sexual fluidity is refreshing. The absence of any labels — the word “vampire” is never used — is a powerful choice to make at a time when stigmatizing conversations about sexuality were dominating the news. — Sara Clements
The shocking twist ending of Sleepaway Camp is one of the most legendary in all of horror. While Robert Hiltzik’s 1983 slasher has understandably garnered a lot of criticism for being trans- and homophobic, it has also undergone a reappraisal in recent years by queer horror fans who see more here: The campy nature of the unprofessional performances (it’s one of the only teen slashers to have used actual teens in its cast), Felissa Rose’s portrayal of the quiet Angela (whose bullies all end up violently murdered), and the preference for exploiting the male body over the female body all speak to a film that might be more queer-positive than you would think, given its reputation. But that ending reveal, which comes out of nowhere and leads us straight into the credits with no time to process it, will continue to spark debates for decades. — Daniel Bayer
During the 1980s, as the violence and sexuality in mainstream horror movies became more overt and extreme, so too did the queer subtext. In Tom Holland’s Fright Night, there’s no lurking in the shadows, and the phallic imagery is hard to miss. Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale), an all-American teenage boy, becomes obsessed with the neighbors next door, Jerry (Chris Sarandon) and his roommate Billy (Jonathan Stark). Charley begins to suspect that Jerry and Billy aren’t just more than friends, but more than humans too — they’re vampires hiding amid the normativity of suburbia. The submissive and dominant dynamic of male vampires drips with homoeroticism, but queer viewers have often seen the film as a moralizing metaphor for the AIDS crisis, which equates sex between men with vampirism and decay. — Nadine Smith
Widely maligned upon its initial release, this strange sequel to Wes Craven’s legendary original film has found an unlikely cult following in recent years for its barely-even-subtextual queer content. Jesse (Mark Patton), the rare male scream queen, is shown going through a stressful experience that many once-closeted boys can relate to: he can’t stop thinking about a man. It just so happens that in this case, that man is infamous dream invader Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund). Jesse struggles through several shockingly queer moments that are played for scares, including running into his sadistic gym teacher at a Hollywoodized version of an ’80s gay bar. And while the film’s metaphor seems to indicate that Jesse’s burgeoning sexuality is something to fear, the ridiculousness of the dialogue and Patton’s shrieking performance make this a perverse camp classic. — Cody Dericks
“Romance” isn’t alway the first word that comes to mind when describing David Cronenberg’s nasty body horror nightmares, but The Fly is nothing if not a deeply loving film. Released at the height of the AIDS crisis, Cronenberg’s remake of the ’50s sci-fi horror film was almost immediately read through a queer lens, and decades later it’s an interpretation that still holds water. Though the lead couple of Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) and Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) is ostensibly heterosexual, the fears expressed by The Fly are ones that especially resonated with gay audiences during the 1980s. There’s a deep sense of anxiety in the film that the joys of sex and love could potentially lead to disease and death, but there’s also an unexpected kind of hope. As Veronica watches Seth’s body mutate and deteriorate, becoming something she struggles to even recognize, the love she feels for him endures beyond the physical form. — Nadine Smith
This deliciously ’80s vampire flick was brought to the screen by openly gay director Joel Schumacher. In a fantastic scene that has the look of an ‘80s rock video and the tone of a softcore porn intro, Michael (Jason Patric) is practically seduced into drinking blood and becoming a vampire himself by the group’s bleached blonde leader David (Kiefer Sutherland). In Michael’s vision, the face of Star (Jami Gertz), the young woman who essentially serves as the vampire gang’s bait, merges into David’s face, making it clear just who, exactly, Michael is drawn toward the most. The film’s repeated theme song “Cry Little Sister” drives home this same-sex attraction with the lyrics “Unchain me, sister / Love is with your brother.” They may be lost, but these boys have certainly found something that brings them together. — Cody Dericks
Hellraiser was queer long before Jamie Clayton took on the legendary Pinhead role. Clive Barker’s 1987 horror classic is drenched in BDSM imagery and sexual themes, introducing audiences to the Cenobites, a cadre of extradimensional pain enthusiasts who enter our world via a puzzle box. In this first (and still best) entry in the franchise, the Cenobites invade and torture a family after they move into a new house, but it’s the nightmarish imagery more than the narrative that has made Hellraiser one of the most iconic and enduring horror films of all time. — Samantha Allen
There’s a reason this is the second appearance Fright Night is making on this list: the 1988 sequel balances horror and comedy better than most contemporary genre hybrids manage, and it features a queer-coded vampire who roller-skates down a bowling alley and then chucks the ball backwards between their legs to hit a strike. Alternately read as genderqueer, transgender, or just plain queer, Russell Clark’s Belle is an instant ’80s horror icon. Belle has no lines of dialogue, but they arguably don’t need any to steal their scenes. — Samantha Allen
1990s
Though best known for Hellraiser and the multitude of sequels it spawned, Clive Barker brought the overwhelming queerness of his writing to life in a few other feature film endeavors. The most obviously queer of these is Nightbreed, a film that is quite literally about a tribe of monsters who come together and hide from humanity. Adapted from his own novel Cabal, Barker brings so much creativity and personality to this story that could easily have become a more didactic sermon about otherness. It’s a film about finding connection in a world that wants you dead, and that has traumatized you beyond recognition. There’s something beautiful to be found in the way Nightbreed plays out, however messy it might look from a distance. — Juan Barquin
An underseen gem of New York independent cinema, Michael Almereyda’s Nadja fully brings the lesbian vampire film into the 1990s, coating its seedy exploitation heart with an arthouse finish. It’s an update on the most classic of vampire tales, with Peter Fonda as Van Helsing, and Elina Löwensohn (probably most famous for her work in Schindler’s List, or as the Romanian gymnast on Seinfeld) as the titular Nadja, the beguiling prey of Van Helsing who has acquired a lustful taste for the women of the Lower East Side. If earlier iterations of the lesbian vampire film were Gothic and ornate, Nadja is more shoegaze, captured on bleary black-and-white videotape with an expressionistic flair. Fellow sapphic horror enthusiast David Lynch served as executive producer, and makes a hilarious cameo to boot.— Nadine Smith
The 1994 adaptation of Interview with the Vampire is a camp classic. The premise is simple enough, at least in its opening act: An 18th-century man named Louis de Pointe du Lac, (Brad Pitt) gets turned into a bloodsucker by vampire Lestat de Lioncourt (Tom Cruise) but has trouble accepting the morality of feeding off humans. As the couple’s homoerotic-coded relationship starts to fray, Lestat turns Louis’ first victim — a young girl named Claudia, played by a precocious Kirsten Dunst — into a vampire. It’s a classic gambit: have a kid to save the marriage, and it works just about as well as you’d expect. — Samantha Allen
This ’90s classic has one of the most vocal and queerest fandoms of any horror franchise. And it’s easy to see why: there’s the sardonic tone, the fabulously empowering performances from Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, and most notably, the nigh-boyfriends who turn out to be (huge spoiler alert) the masked killers. In the legendary revelation scene, Billy (Skeet Ulrich) and Stu (Matthew Lillard) passionately cling to each other, with Stu practically nibbling on Billy’s ear. Stu even confesses that his motive for the murders is merely “peer pressure,” essentially revealing that his lover-like devotion to Billy was strong enough for him to literally kill for his attention. — Cody Dericks
The Craft is a touchstone film, especially for anyone who has trod the well-worn Catholic-outcast-to-out-lesbian pipeline. A story about a group of teenage girls at a prep school becoming a coven doesn’t just invite queer readings, it demands them. In 2020, The Craft: Legacy made the queer subtext more explicit, but nothing compares to the 1996 original, with its perfect wardrobing, iconic soundtrack (hello, Jewel!), and eminently quotable lines. “We are the weirdos, mister” will never not land. — Samantha Allen
The only feature film directed by feminist visual artist Cindy Sherman, the macabre horror comedy Office Killer deserves special mention for being produced by queer cinema pioneer Todd Haynes. Though not necessarily overflowing with queer subtext, this story of women in the corporate world who give into their nervous breakdowns and find catharsis through violence — imagine if 9 to 5 were a slasher — is an underseen classic waiting for its cult. Office Killer is anchored in the kind of defiant female characters that queer viewers so often love, but Carol Kane’s performance deserves praise in particular for pushing the camp icon to her most unhinged. — Nadine Smith
The shot-for-shot, line-for-line nature of Queer New Wave auteur Gus Van Sant’s Psycho remake means that yes, the notorious closing monologue diagnosing the world’s most famous mama’s boy Norman Bates is still here. But Van Sant knows what he’s doing with the source material. His version of Psycho is the ultimate drag act, gussying up the original with eye-popping colors, creepy insert shots, and of course, Anne Heche (who in 1998 had just come out to the world via her high-profile relationship with Ellen DeGeneres) as the doomed Marion Crane, wondering out loud about how to get herself out of her own “private traps.” It may not be fully successful, but Van Sant’s attempt at a queer reclamation of this problematic text deserves a reappraisal. — Daniel Bayer
2000s
A werewolf coming-of-age tale about two sisters on the brink of womanhood, Ginger Snaps has a complex subtextual queerness: While neither Brigitte (Emily Perkins) nor Ginger Fitzgerald (Katharine Isabelle) are expressly written as LGBTQ+, there’s plenty of queer meaning packed into the latter’s lycanthropic transformation. The film has been read alternately as a trans allegory, a bisexual bildungsroman, and a lesbian classic, but however you choose to interpret the story, there’s so much fun to be had between the delicious dialogue and fantastic practical effects. — Samantha Allen
A young woman without an identity (Laura Elena Harring) and a hopeful starlet (Naomi Watts) have their hearts and minds twisted together in David Lynch’s masterful poisoned love letter to Hollywood. Lynch’s films need not be treated like puzzles; his emotional (and libidinal) clarity cuts through serpentine structure and oblique imagery, the former shaping the latter. In Mulholland Drive, Harring and Watts’ magnetic, otherworldly bond bends the surrounding world, leaving it, and them, in a narcotic dream state. — Kyle Turner
Child’s Play creator Don Mancini brought a keen eye and a wicked sense of humor to his feature directorial debut. At once a cutting sendup of the brutality Hollywood displays toward queer people and a delicious satire of family dynamics, Seed of Chucky introduces audiences to the gender nonconforming child (Billy Boyd) of murderous doll Chucky (Brad Dourif) and his bride Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly). The child’s name, Glen/Glenda, is an overt reference to Ed Wood’s cult camp classic Glen or Glenda, and the presence of the real Jennifer Tilly on the set of a fictional, in-universe Chucky movie only add’s to the film’s metatextual playfulness. As Chucky and Tiffany figure out what it means to be a parent, Seed of Chucky lets Glen/Glenda navigate what it is to be themselves. — Kyle Turner
In a Stockholm suburb in the ’80s, ice begins to grip young Oskar’s (Kåre Hedebrant) heart. Bullied and shunned for his snow-white paleness and weak, wiry frame, he befriends his new neighbor, Eli (Lina Leandersson). Sharing the same gray pallor to their skin, the pair take comfort in one another as fellow outcasts. A romance blossoms in the snow, even as blood begins to pour in the streets after a series of deaths. The two have been marked as other: one not enough of a man, the other not enough of a human. With uncompromising beauty and tenderness, director Tomas Alfredson lets his characters find resilience and strength in one another as they navigate a cruel and unwelcoming world. — Kyle Turner
The Diablo Cody-written 2009 cult classic deserves every bit of its critical reemergence and more. Mismarketed and misunderstood, Jennifer’s Body was dismissed in its day as a shameless bit of titillation, largely due to a girl-on-girl kiss between cheerleader-turned succubus Jennifer (Megan Fox) and her mousy best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried). Fortunately, the film found an adoring audience that connected with its depiction of bisexuality, its wry post-9/11 humor, and its themes of female friendship. In addition to launching director Karyn Kusama’s film career, Jennifer’s Body has also given us a bevy of classic lines, including, of course, the immortal “I go both ways.” — Samantha Allen
2010s
Recently celebrating its tenth anniversary, Laika’s spooky stop-motion horror-comedy ParaNorman taught families about tolerance while breaking new ground for LGBTQ+ media. In this animated gem, eleven-year-old Norman Babcock has the gift of seeing and speaking to the dead, which makes him an outcast at school and at home. When a witch places a curse on his town, zombies rise from the dead and terrorize the populace. So it’s up to Norman, his sister, his bully, his best friend, and his best friend’s older brother Mitch to save the day. Marking Laika’s sophomore feature after Coraline, ParaNorman has likewise stood the test of time. The animation quality is still breathtaking, its commentary on pacifism is strong, and it featured the first openly gay character in an animated children’s movie. It has deservedly become a go-to movie for horror fans of all ages to watch together during spooky season. — Rendy Jones
Though not as well done as Jennifer’s Body, the 2013 rape revenge horror-comedy All Cheerleaders Die is similarly deserving of critical reevaluation. This is a film that refuses to be fenced in, dabbling in the undead, the magical, and, perhaps most importantly, the Sapphic. As a group of cheerleaders reckon with their fate after a violent encounter with their school’s football team, a beautiful lesbian romance unfolds. Though some might find the film to be tonally dissonant, there’s nothing queer women horror fans love more than a perfect mix of gore and tenderness. — Samantha Allen
No matter how proud we are, there’s still that insidious little voice in gay people’s heads that wants us to kill that side of ourselves, and our deepest fear is that one day it might become too seductive to ignore. That’s the horror that powers Stranger By The Lake. At a remote gay cruising beach, Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) witnesses a mustachioed stud drown another man from a distance. He pursues the murderer, not to confront him or point him out to the police, but to have sex with him. Alain Guiraudie’s hypnotic film captures the hazy heat of summer and the naughty thrill that forbidden, almost-public sex can have. It’s also thrilling in how it externalizes many gay men’s internalized homphobia as a menacing — and, in this case, drop-dead sexy — force. — Daniel Bayer
Frayed and yellowed like the cornfields, Xavier Dolan’s hair looks like shit in Tom at the Farm. Despite his impish charm off camera, the director-star is the opposite of a Hitchcock Blonde onscreen, not so much chic and fabulous as he is jagged and frantic. Visiting the farm of his late boyfriend’s family, Tom (Dolan) discovers that the surviving members — mother (Lise Roy) and brother (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) — were not aware of their bereaved’s personal life. Maybe. Trapped in a tango of lust, grief, and power, Tom at the Farm is the Canadian filmmaker’s tightest and most controlled film. — Kyle Turner
From Minnie Driver and Meat Loaf’s supporting turns to the pastiche-laden original songs, this musical comedy/slasher mash-up fully embraces “camp” in every sense of the word. Stage Fright is set at a musical theater summer camp mounting a Phantom of the Opera knockoff production that became infamous a decade ago when its star died on opening night. This Canadian indie is rough around the edges, but if you’re not on board by the end of the hilarious camp arrival song “We’re Gay”, then you will be by the time our kabuki-masked killer starts singing heavy metal about how much he hates musical theater. — Daniel Bayer
A running gag turned a monster into a gay icon. To the queer community, The Babadook is about more than a mother battling grief and trying to keep her son safe from a monster in a pop-up book. It can also be seen as a film about a gay man living in a small Australian suburb whose neighbors fear him. Many queer viewers project themselves onto this character because of his creativity, his distinct style and flamboyance, but especially because he exists in a home that does not accept him. The Babadook isn’t just a movie; it's a symbol for the queer reclamation of horror movie monsters. — Sara Clements
After she’s forced to eat raw meat during a veterinary school hazing ritual, Raw heroine Justine develops an insatiable hunger for human flesh — your typical coming-of-age fare! In juxtaposing her main character’s sexual awakening with her burgeoning cannibalism, director Julie Durconeau challenges the often fraught relationship between female violence and sexuality in horror. Justine’s queer roommate Adrien (Rabah Nait Oufella) also plays a crucial role as he becomes the target of her newfound lust, with quandaries of gendered power and consent playing out in Raw’s neon-tinged shadows. — Abby Monteil
Joachim Trier’s Norwegian supernatural thriller Thelma gives us a new kind of queer superhero. The film follows the titular character as she learns to accept her sexuality and disability. When her queer desires and seizures intersect, everyone around her — her family, her religion, her school — makes her out to be a monster. Her identity is entirely repressed because of how she’s been taught to view herself, but as she comes of age, she refuses to accept the stigma the world places on her. Thelma is not the kind of horror monster of the past who would have been killed off to depict queerness or disability as weakness; in this film, they’re superpowers. — Sara Clements
Gasper Noe heard the saying “music makes you lose control” and took it to heart. In this chaotic psychological horror flick, a French dance troupe is partying like it’s 1996 because it is 1996. The proceedings seem to be going fine until unexpected tensions and aggressions start to break out among the dancers. As they all question their deteriorating sanity, they realize the punch they have been drinking all night is spiked with LSD. From there, the roaring party becomes a raging nightmare. Murders ensue, romances blossom, and the body count gets higher as the night goes on. Climax is as visually disturbing as it is adrenaline-inducing. — Rendy Jones
A dreamlike homage to the giallo, Yann Gonzalez’s Knife+Heart follows a French gay porn production that is being stalked by a masked killer. Legendary actress Vanssa Paradis turns in a remarkable performance as Anne, the director who takes it upon herself to investigate the murders after running up against police incompetence. Gonzalez’s direction is lush and languorous, adding a surreal sheen to the violence while also attending to the very real fears of being queer in a queerphobic world. — Samantha Allen
Here we float again. Many say It: Chapter Two is far weaker than its predecessor for a myriad of reasons. But amid the repetitive jump scares lies a thoroughly scary and satisfying concluding chapter to Stephen King’s classic story. The brutal, provocative opening scene featuring Xavier Dolan depicting the realism of bigotry and hate is stomach-churning, but fits into the dark atmosphere of the source material. Once the Losers make their grand return to put Pennywise back in his hole, the film becomes a series of intimate character studies. Most powerful of all is Ritchie’s (Bill Hader / Finn Wolfhard) coming-out story, which leaves the viewer in despair. I still choke up over beautiful Bill Hader crying over his lost love. — Rendy Jones
Set in the 1990s, this unnerving 2019 Canadian thriller balances occult intrigue with an all-too-real rumination on being queer in suburbia during a less accepting era. Starring Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman and Ari Cohen as a same-sex couple who move to a small town with their young daughter, Spiral taps a common horror well: What are the neighbors up to? And should we trust them? But director Kurtis David Harder (Influencer) imbues the proceedings with a slow-boiling paranoid energy that slowly overtakes the film. This film is for any queer person who has ever wondered, “Am I safe here?” which, if we’re being depressingly honest, is every queer person. — Samantha Allen
2020s
A hilarious horror-comedy about a teenage girl who wakes up in a serial killer’s body after a near-death encounter, Freaky is the slasher version of Freaky Friday we didn’t know we needed until writers Michael Kennedy and Christopher Landon dreamed it up. Directed by Landon fresh off his fantastic Happy Death Day films, this body-swapping gem showcases finely tuned performances from both Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn. The 6’5” Vaughn, who opens the film as the terrifying Butcher, has to capture the timidity of a socially outcast teenage girl after the swap, while the 5’5” Newton is tasked with embodying the bravado of a rampaging killer. The queer and trans allegorical elements are obvious here, but Freaky also features nonbinary actor Misha Osherovich in a breakout role. — Samantha Allen
Leave it to Julia Ducorneau to turn a story about a serial killer with a car fetish into one of the most moving horror films in recent memory. Impregnated by her beloved car and on the run from the cops, genderfluid dancer Alexia (a mesmerizing Agathe Rousselle) finds refuge with aging firefighter Vincent (Vincent Lindon) who believes Alexia to be his long-lost son Adrien.
Throughout its runtime, Titane is unafraid to challenge the conventions of queer and trans storytelling. Where another film would frame Alexia/Adrien’s violent, visceral gender nonconformity as a source of terror, Ducorneau flips the script: the more they fail at being a traditional “boy,” the deeper Victor’s unconditional love for them grows. While the film posits that gender itself is a series of fragile rituals — even Vincent injects himself with steroids to combat his body’s decline — the found family that its two central characters form makes up its true beating, bloody heart. — Abby Monteil
This “requel” (to use the film’s own terminology) cranks up the self-awareness of the already meta film series to deliver a blistering indictment of fandom culture and Hollywood’s exploitation of audience nostalgia. And the spokesperson who the screenwriters use to unleash their thoughts on the state of modern cinema just so happens to be a young queer woman. Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) is a deep well of movie knowledge, and she’s given the honor of delivering this entry’s requisite explanation of the “rules” that the other characters must follow to stay alive. In fact, making a pop culture-literate lesbian the most knowing member of the film’s ensemble can be seen as a reflection of the Scream franchise’s real-life fans, who are famously knowledgeable on horror lore and — arguably more than most fandoms — often queer. — Cody Dericks
During an early scene in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, teenage protagonist Casey (Anna Cobb) muses, “It’s like I’m watching myself on TV all the way across the room.” It’s a fitting summation of the ways in which Jane Schoenbrun captures the haze of dysphoria, and the potential for comfort and manipulation that queer kids so often find reflected in the glow of computer screens. A lesser film would turn Casey’s descent into a creepypasta-esque horror game and subsequent communications with an older man (Theo Anthony) into a technophobic cautionary tale, but Schoenbrun’s ability to capture how these liminal online spaces can change us over time announces an exciting new voice in found-footage and trans filmmaking. — Abby Monteil
Bodies, Bodies, Bodies may be a recent whodunit horror-comedy but it’s already destined for sleeper hit status. Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn’s English language feature debut blends Mean Girls and Clue to craft a hilarious satire that encapsulates a generation. The deadly tension between a group of upper-class friends is only heightened by the claustrophobic single setting: a mansion during a “hurricane party,” which is exactly what it sounds like. With an all-star cast featuring Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, and Rachel Sennott, Bodies is a terrifying and darkly atmospheric ride that could become a new classic. — Rendy Jones
Filmed in IMAX and full of spectacle, Nope is a beautifully shot movie driven by two powerful, often quiet performances from Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, who play the struggling heirs of a Hollywood horse ranch near the epicenter of an unexplained extraterrestrial phenomenon. The film’s queerness extends beyond Palmer’s portrayal of out lesbian Emerald Haywood; in addition to being a commentary on the way the entertainment industry consumes us, Nope is also about otherness. A ragtag group of misfits (including a Fry’s Electronics employee) teaming up to take down a monster that’s always looming over them? That’s always going to be an appealing story for LGBTQ+ audiences. — Samantha Allen
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