11 horror movies given a second life by LGBTQ audiences

In honor of Pride Month, we’ve put together a list naming 11 horror movies that have been given a second life among LGBTQ community!

It’s reaching the end of Pride Month and it’s also only four months until Halloween, so in honor of that, let’s take a moment to appreciate some horror films that were especially appreciated by the LGBTQ community.

Horror has always been the genre for outcasts, the ghouls and goblins hiding in the dark and under the bed are kindred spirits to the socially rejected. For many years, LGBTQ audiences had to rely on subtext or “gay codes” for representation in film, hardly any director or writer was brave enough to write such characters without covering them in a veil of straightness and even if they were brave enough, no studio would have dared let it be released.

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The connection between gay fiction and horror goes back to Gothic novels of the 1790s and early 1800s where many of the authors who wrote them such as Matthew Lewis, William Thomas Beckford, and Francis Lathom, were homosexual.

Unlike other authors, it was impossible for these men and women to openly write about their lives and they ended up having to sublimate such topics in more acceptable forms, and horror became the best option.

Even though it’s one of the most controversial genres, horror might possibly be the most relatable. Daring enough to delve into personal themes such as fear, rejection, and self-hatred as well as formerly taboo topics like mental illness, racial conflicts, and sexuality. Just like how the Gothic authors had to hide in their work, many writers and filmmakers today are forced to do the same.

Just to clarify, the movies on this list are not official LGBTQ films but are horror films containing certain themes and/or a certain amount of subtext between characters that it has been considered as such by audiences or critics.