Like its genre cousin, science fiction, horror films have long used supernatural terrors as stand-ins for real-life fears.
When Jordan Peele used the genre to show white supremacy as the ultimate terror in “Get Out,” he was inspired by years of socio-political readings of his favorite horror films.
Even though openly LGBTQ characters in horror were rare until recently, when it comes to queer subtext, the genre is ripe for exploring themes such as possession, body transformation, fear of the other, uncontrollable desire, and hidden identities.As explored in Shudder’s exhaustive docuseries “Queer For Fear: The History of Queer Horror,” the history of horror aligns pretty significantly with the history of queer film.
The series traces the genre’s origins, beginning with a reclamation of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker as queer writers, through Alfred Hitchcock’s many queer-coded films, and runs all the way to Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story” empire.
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