Vulture's 55 Essential Queer Horror Films

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By Jordan Crucchiola
JUNE 26, 2018

From 1934 until 1967, Hollywood movies were shaped by the Production Code, otherwise known as the Hays Code. Written in 1930, but not implemented until four years later, this set of rules was generally intended to keep movies from “corrupting” the people who watched them. Given that homosexuality was considered either a physical or psychological malady in the early 20th century, the code effectively legislated any limited queer presence out of existence. While homosexuality was not explicitly banned in the Hays’ text, it was mandated that “no picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin.” It was also codified that only “correct standards of life” should be presented,” and that “sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden.”

In other words, for a long time, cinematic queers were pushed underground, relegated to existing only in subtext — and most often as villains. In order to get queer stories onscreen, filmmakers had to find creative ways to subvert the system.

Horror films in particular have made for a fascinating case study in the evolving perceptions of queer presence; queer-horror filmmakers and actors were often forced to lean into the trope of the “predatory queer” or the “monstrous queer” to claim some sense of power through visibility and blatant expressions of sexuality. Below is a beginner’s guide to the most essential queer horror of the past 90 years. It also doubles as a timeline of the evolution of queer horror: How LGBTQA themes and characters went from hiding between the lines in movies with “gay sensibilities” in the 1930s to breaking out as Pride memes almost a century later — going from invisible (lesbian ghosts!) to closeted (literally, in the case of Dorian Gray) to fabulously out (who wouldn’t have given in to Catherine Deneuve’s Miriam Blaylock?), before finally being allowed to exist as multidimensional characters onscreen.

From the coded abominations of James Whale’s taboo-skirting films of the 1930s to the Pride reign of The Babadook, here’s our guide to queer horror cinema.

1-7: The 1930s and 1940s — Fear the Queer Monsters
8-12: The 1950s — Kitschy Monsters and More Queer Subtext
13-17: The 1960s — Farewell to the Hays Code
18-22: 1970s — The Lesbian Vampires Are Loose!
23-32: 1980s — Resurgent Conservatism, the AIDS Crisis, and the Mainstreaming of Queer Culture
33-38: 1990s — New Queer Cinema and Gay Vampire Dads
39-47: 2000s — Out and (Getting) Proud
48-55: 2010s — They’re Here. They’re Queer. Get Used to It.