Horror, according to Brooke Lilek, is a canvas for “what haunts [American] society”. Horror reflects what we fear most. The animalistic shark predator in Jaws evokes the instinctual fears of early hunter-gatherers while The Exorcist shows the patriarchal anxieties of the 70s by presenting the foul-mouthed, tomboyish teenager as possessed by a demon.
Responses to transgender and gender-diverse individuals have been historically hostile. It is no secret that this has continued into the current social climate, such as when politician Helen Zille compared trans rights activism to a “contagion” in a tweet. The fear of transgenderism has trickled into horror. One need not look further than the concluding scene of Sleepaway Camp where the horror is not in the violence of the severed head but in the reveal that “Angela” is a boy.
A popular example of how horror reflects the fear of trans identities is in Silence of the Lambs. This film details the story of transgender serial killer Jame Gumb, who desires the final physical form of a woman. After being denied gender reassignment surgery, she embarks on a killing spree where she deliberately targets female victims, skinning them to fashion a female suit for herself. The message here is that the desire for transgender authenticity manifests itself in acts of violence against other people.
Christina Hodel identifies how Silence of the Lambs never allows us to feel any empathy for Gumb. Instead, we only learn of the character’s past and previous crimes. The film frames the transgender individual as “monstrous and untrustworthy” for desiring to live authentically.
Horror seems to have completely different messaging when written by and for queer people. When horror is intentionally written to portray an aspect of the queer experience, there seems to be more queer-positive messaging.
The 2024 film I Saw The TV Glow centres the trans experience from a different perspective than Silence Of The Lambs. Rather than the character’s trans identity being a point of fear, this film focuses on the experience of closeted trans individuals. The horror factor comes from the fact that the main character, Owen, refuses to embrace his true identity – “Tara”. The “closet” in this case is represented by the midnight realm, an alternate world in which Owen is trapped in an inauthentic life. This is in contrast to the real world where Tara, Owen’s true self, has been trapped in the midnight realm. Owen would rather remain in the midnight realm than explore the possibility that there is another “truer” version of himself.
Owen is told, “The longer you wait, the closer you get to suffocating.” He knows that something is wrong. He knows that his true self is wasting away as he continues to live the life he feels he is supposed to live. This is what instills fear in us as viewers. Whereas Silence Of The Lambs’s subtext villainises the authentic expression of trans identities, I Saw the TV Glow explicitly places denying one’s true identity – specifically one’s trans identity – as a source of terror, leaving viewers understanding that what is scarier than being yourself is not being yourself.
The recent queer horror film Leviticus depicts two boys, Ryan and Naim, being haunted by a violent entity which takes the form of the person they desire most—each other. This may seem as though it places queer desire negatively. However, as Ryan and Naim continue to pursue each other despite the fear that they could be interacting with the entity trying to kill them, audiences begin to root for them and their love.
The entity itself emerges as a result of a ritual performed by a local pastor deemed the “deliverance healer”, representative of conversion therapy. The film frames religion-based homophobia as horrific and has the audience hoping Ryan and Naim will find a way to be together. The horror element in this film presents itself as the entity that keeps Ryan and Naim apart, but also as the people who shame queer desire.
As queer people tell their own horror stories, we begin to see a different perspective on queerness. Rather than fearing queer identity, the true horror is living inauthentically. With more queer directors telling queer stories, we see that there is no need to fear the “other”.
Visual: Amy Lamplough
Mazviita Pasi