It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

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It is, understandably, considered gauche to describe bisexuality as transitory, almost as gauche as the word “bisexual” itself. Perhaps it would be better to think of bisexuality as queerly universal — stem cells potent with potential. As long as compulsive heteronormativity exists, queer people will pass through bisexuality at some point, however briefly. Some tear through it on a speedboat, heading for a more monosexual harbor, others circle, content, drinking aperitifs in the sun.

A really terrific collection of essays by a great selection and variety of different authors — both fiction authors, poets, and essayists — about the intersection between queer studies and queer identity and horror movies.” —Gothamist The relationship between horror films and the LGBTQ+ community? It’s complicated. Haunted houses, forbidden desires and the monstrous can have striking resonance for those who’ve been marginalised. But the genre’s murky history of an alarmingly heterosexual male gaze, queer-coded villains and sometimes blatant homophobia, is impossible to overlook. There is tension here, and there are as many queer readings of horror films as there are queer people.

Both Ways

But boys keep going missing and showing up in isolated areas, their bodies ravaged and cannibalized. (The phrase “lasagna with teeth” is used twice.) Needy eventually learns that Low Shoulder — attempting to curry favor with Satan by sacrificing a virgin for fame and fortune — sacrificed Jennifer, a nonvirgin, and she ended up with a demon inside of her. Only Needy knows what’s really happening, and only Needy can end her reign of terror. Through the lens of horror—from Halloween to Hereditary—queer and trans writers consider the films that deepened, amplified, and illuminated their own experiences. Narby writes “I, for one, find blobs to be eminently relatable.” They begin their essay by describing a trip to the emergency room due to their gallstones. Narby grounds body horror in a very concrete, personal sensation before theorizing about it. They do justice to Society director Brian Yuzna’s prodigious imagination before pointing out that “there is something rather more fascistic than Marxist about the film’s equation of affluence with sexual decadence and depravity.” Yet as much as they object to its politics, they’re fascinated by its world-building, wondering about the customs of its alien species. The blob promises a degree of queer intimacy alien to human experience, dissolving social and sexual boundaries. Because we’re so frequently othered, many LGBTQ+ people find ourselves in horror film monsters. In their essay “Indescribable,” Carrow Narby describes feeling a kinship with the titular creature in The Blob; our society is so gendered that someone without a gender identity is nearly impossible to describe or even perceive. In “Twin/Skin,” Addie Tsai explores how their difficult relationship with their twin sibling is reflected in Dead Ringers. And the metaphor of having to hide oneself behind a mask, not lost on most queer people, is explored by Richard Scott Larson’s reflection on Halloween in “Long Night In The Dark.”

There’s a moment in this book that’ll resonate with every single reader: undead, queer, or otherwise.” —FangoriaFor a short and terrible time, I was so in love with her it hurt. But then she stood on that beach and said that she was straight, and I had nothing to say. I was already somewhere else.

This re-emergence of anxiety in 2020 was both more and less frightening. Less frightening because I knew what it was, but more frightening because I couldn’t pinpoint the single thing which had triggered it. Like the monster in a long-running movie franchise, I recognised it, but couldn’t figure out why it had been summoned. I had a new collection of poetry publishing in the middle of 2021 that was playing on my mind, but that didn’t seem to be the root cause of why I lay in bed, or the bath, unable to move, why I wouldn’t eat, why I couldn’t seem to focus on anything for hours or days at a time, why for the first time in my life I felt like I couldn’t do my job. It Came from the Closetis a fantastic collection of diverse queer perspectives—an accessible, provocative, and much-welcomed addition to the growing body of queer horror analysis of our favorite films, new and old. This is a must-read for horror fans wanting to find connection and community in challenging the heteronormative and patriarchal narratives that can still dominate the genre." —Jessica Parant, cocreator of Spinsters of Horror We can understand queerness itself as being filled with the intention to be lost,” Muñoz wrote in Cruising Utopia. “To accept loss is to accept the way in which one’s queerness will always render one lost to a world of heterosexual imperatives, codes, and laws . . . [to] veer away from heterosexuality’s path.” A girl kissing her best friend — because she wants to see how it feels, because she’s curious, because a boy is nearby, because she’s in love, because she once bent her mouth to her best friend’s bleeding hand in supplication and this just feels like the next logical step — is the acceptance of loss, the veering from the path. No matter where she goes afterward.At its best, this anthology offers captivating personal essays, astute movie analysis, and lyrical prose that expands (and complicates) conceptions of queerness. In the moments it falters, authors rely on a tenuous link between the film they are purportedly discussing and a disconnected personal narrative. These low points are few and far between, however, and the quality of storytelling, prose, and analysis throughout the anthology more than makes up for occasional moments of disjointedness. Which I think of as a mix of (understandably) hungry for queer media, (understandably) cynical about queer representation, and extremely sensitive to even a whiff of phoniness. I lean more toward a 4 than a 5 star rating with this because a good chunk of the essays don’t focus on queerness as much as other topics. There were also a few essays that didn’t really actually focus on the movies they were assigned to it would focus a little bit on that movie and a lot on other movies. As soon as his parents left, Andrew flopped down onto the couch and turned on his favourite video game, Zombie Crush Three. It was better playing it with friends, but he guessed it would take time to meet people he could invite over on weekends now. He wasn’t as easily sociable as Eliza seemed to be.

An essential look at how spooky movies so often offer solace through subversiveness.' - Electric Literature It Came from the Closet is a heterogeneous anthology and even though the essays are short, the authors dig deep into their personal life experiences while using horror to reflect on their queer identity, and vice versa.I’ve never been a massive fan of the horror film genre, which you might think makes me a weird person to review this book. But maybe it makes me the perfect person to review it. Unsurprisingly, there are a good number of essays that touch on the representation of the Other in horror films — the ostracized, the condemned, the villainized, and the judged. As a marginalized group, queer folks often see themselves reflected in horror media, providing unique insights into the genre. “It is our distorted mirror image, our secret self,” Carrow Narby writes. “We are as ambivalent toward the monster as we are toward ourselves.” This was overall a very solid collection of essays. Keep in mind the fact I have not read the essays that pertained to movies I have not seen (with the intention of watching the movies and then returning to their respective essays).