From gothic lit legends Bram Stoker and Mary Shelley to the Universal monster movies of yore, horror streamer Shudders new four-part documentary series Queer For Fear charts the role LGBTQ people have played in the genres development. NME unprotected up with its executive producer Bryan Fuller no stranger to scares having ripened the well-known Hannibal to list the key queer horror films you shouldnt miss.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent)
Its foundational and has an wondrous queer monster that rejects heteronormativity in the most dramatic ways. Its openly queer director James Whale had success with 1931s Frankenstein, and without that he became increasingly venturesome with 1932s The Old Dark House which is explicitly queer. But when the Hays Code [Hollywood moral guidelines which ran from 1934 to 1967 censoring anything of a perverse nature], came into place, his most subversive film, Bride of Frankenstein, had to use the metaphor of monstrosity to tell the tale of stuff queer at a time when it was dangerous.
For fans of: The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man
The Hunger (1983)
Where to watch: Virgin TV Go
[I chose this] considering of the queerness of its star David Bowies performance persona and the genderfluidity of his iconography as an artist. Then there’s the eager, deliberate and explicit same-sex romance between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. Plane though its directed by Tony Scott who was straight, he has a trappy eye and aesthetic, and its often referred to as the lesbian vampire movie to beat, considering of the womanliness in which the sex scenes are shot, as opposed to some of the 70s lesbian vampire movies which are really for men.
For fans of: Let The Right One In, Bound
The Haunting (1963)
Where to watch: Virgin TV Go
I believe theres a very powerful queer narrative at the centre of The Haunting. Theres something well-nigh the repression of the protagonist, who is running yonder from a life that didnt quite fulfil her into a situation where she is the centre of the story for the first time. Its a horror story, and its a metaphor for her own self-discovery and running from that discovery.
For fans of: Rosemarys Baby, The Others
The Shining (1980)
Where to watch: Virgin TV Go
It has an emotional resonance for me. I identified with the overly-sensitive child whose father wanted to destroy them considering of their sensitivity a narrative many queer people can relate to. Theres something well-nigh parents of that era who want to crush or eliminate any sense of queerness in their child and the lengths theyll go to in achieving that. So if you start looking at The Shining through that prism, theres something special well-nigh it.”
For fans of: Get Out, The Machinist
Fright Night (1985)
Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (rent)
Fright Night takes a lot of wonderful vampire tropes from the early days of literature, like Dr Polidoris The Vampire, a weft modelled on the bisexual poet Lord Byron. You can trace a line from the implicit queerness of those tales to Fright Night, where three of the five main tint members are queer, and theyre telling a horror story through a queer lens thats so explicit that you cant help but be erotically charged. Plane though on the surface its well-nigh teenage getting-laid shenanigans, theres a level of queerness and self-exploration evident in the narrative.
For fans of: The Lost Boys, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Where to watch: Studio Canal (Amazon Prime Video)
Like Fright Night, it has its origins in literature. Sheridan Le Fanus Carmilla, which predates Dracula, and is the first instance of a lesbian vampire in literature, tells the story of Carmilla a vampire who weaves her way into a young womans life, and Mulholland Drive is substantially a redressing of that tale, so theres something fascinating well-nigh David Lynchs squint at lesbian and sexuality erotics through this noir horror story that can be traced when to Carmilla.
For fans of: Blue Velvet, Lost Highway
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1984)
Where to watch: Virgin TV Go
This mucosa is increasingly or less explicitly queer. Although its representational and wonderful on so many levels, not least of which was the Final Boys Mark Pattons performance, which was fantastic and compeling and elevates the story, but it moreover ends with a queer boy choosing to be heteronormative to save himself from his evil gay demons. While fun and camp, it packs a wallop considering of the authenticity of Pattons performance.
For fans of: Scream, Friday the 13th
Psycho (1960)
Where to watch: Virgin TV Go
Psycho is major in terms of queer representation and queer interpretation, and moreover considering of exactly what director Alfred Hitchcock was doing with [closeted gay heartthrob] star Antony Perkins [Norman Bates] performance. Hitchcock once said that if he hadnt met his wife when he did, then he might have turned out queer himself. Theres something well-nigh the otherness and society marginalising folks at the end of the town as opposed to welcoming and embracing them that creates monsters which is intriguing. But mainly considering of Perkins powerhouse performance and Hitchcocks obsession with queerness, theres a greater story stuff told between the lines.
For fans of: Rope, Silence of the Lambs
True Blood (2008 2014)
Where to watch: Sky/NOW
Its not a movie, but True Blood reverted the landscape for queer representation and moreover for queer people of colour in horror. At the centre of its narrative is this very heteronormative romance, but it is buttressed with such fantastic queer notation having queer journeys that it reverted the game. We wouldnt have American Horror Story if it wasnt for True Blood stepping up to the plate.
For fans of: American Horror Story, Hannibal
Damien: Omen II (1978)
Where to watch: Disney
Damien: Omen II follows the pattern of the I Was a Teenage gay panic horror films of the 1950s and 1960s, like I Was a Teenage Werewolf, which often involve older same-sex scientists trying to turn young nubile teenagers into monsters. What you get with Damien: Omen II is a teenage protagonist coming into sensation of who he is and all the hot older men who are there to shepherd him withal the way, and it plane has a tragic coming-out scene where he comes out [as the son of Satan] to his cousin Mark, and when Mark rejects him, he kills him with a thought. And Im sure thats a fantasy wits for a lot of queer people who had bad reactions when they came out, so the mucosa has a lot to offer in terms of queer subtext.
For fans of: The Exorcist, Dont Squint Now
Cat People (1942)
Where to watch: BBC iPlayer
Cat People is representative of notation who were monsters that were seeking psychiatry to cure them of their monstrousness which reflects the burgeoning tactics in psychiatry for gay conversion therapies that were medieval. If you squint at movies like Cat People or Draculas Daughter, which are filmed in the middle of the Hays Code [a restrictive set of industry guidelines virtually what could be shown on screen] where the monster has to die, theres a fascinating speciality to the way those stories are told that make it well-spoken how nonflexible it was to be a queer person at that time.
For fans of: Draculas Daughter, I Walked with a Zombie
Draculas Daughter (1936)
Where to watch: Sky Store (Buy)
Draculas Daughter, like Cat People, is well-nigh a protagonist who doesnt want to be the monster and realises that psychiatry isnt going to help them solve their problem, and theres something trappy well-nigh a story where Countess Zaleska, who is at first red-faced of who she is comes to an visa that is scrutinizingly heroic. Considering its during the Hays Code, she has to die for it, but the take-away is that she got to a point of self-acceptance!
For fans of: Nadja, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Queer for Fear is streaming now on Shudder
The post The weightier queer horror films everyone should see as chosen by an expert appeared first on NME.
