For the better part of the genre’s existence, queerness itself was the horror movie villain. Look no further. than Psycho or Silence of the Lambs, where lines of gender were blurred order to incite terror instead of sympathy. These characters however continue to pave the bloodstained way to towards acceptance and understanding. Here are the 10 best LGBT characters from horror movies and shows.
10. Sam and Deena – Fear Street
The Fear Street Trilogy got many things right, and the thing they got rightest of all was the sapphic love story between Sam and Deena. Rather than sexuality making them easy horror film prey, the fire of their love rendered them completely unkillable. Spoiler alert: they survive the entire ordeal, a hard thing to do a queer and sexual being in a horror movie.
9. Mitch – Paranorman
Paranorman‘s Mitch is the first ever queer character to appear in a family-targeted film. While for the majority of the film the himbo jock appears to be clueless towards the affections of his cheerleader classmate in the way that only a teenage boy can be, it’s revealed at the end that he is openly gay and has had a boyfriend the entire time. The best part? How normally it’s treated, no one seems to mind one way or the other. Except cheerleader Courtney, she’s crushed.
8. Lestat and Louis – Interview with The Vampire
Before there was Edward and Bella there was Lestat and Louis, the not-so-subtle vampire lovers in Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire novel. While the pair’s relationship is only hinted at in the novel and the film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, AMC’s TV adaption of the series shows their queerness loud and proud. Granted, it’s a toxic sort of love, but what love between vampires isn’t?
7. Jennifer Check – Jennifer’s Body
While it was critically panned upon release, Jennifer’s Body has become a cult classic film. After being sacrificed by an indie rock band in a demonic ritual, Jennifer Check becomes the undead embodiment of sapphic rage. After spending the second act of the film eating men, she turns her attention to her best friend Needy. Complex unrequited lesbian love story aside, she’s just iconic. Look at her strut down the high school halls. She was made to be internet famous.
6. Thelma – Thelma
One doesn’t have read too deeply into Carrie to see the queer parallels in an angry telekinetic girl’s struggle for acceptance, but spiritual successor Thelma lays everything out on the table. Thelma is a sheltered young woman raised in a religious household who begins manifesting psychic powers due to her repressed love for girl at her university. Love makes us do all sorts of wild things, like set people on fire with our minds!
5.Dr. Frank-N-Furter – The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Dr. Frank N Furter strutted, capered, and climbed the scenery so modern queer horror characters could fly. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is perhaps one of the most seminal queer works in existence, and the sweet transvestite from transexual Transylvania its campy, glorious star. With morals as ambiguous as their gender, Frank-N-Furter is hell-bent on using mad science to sculpt a lover with rock hard abs. What else is science for?
4. Eli – Let The Right One In
Let The Right One In is the best vampire film ever made. Suck it, Dracula, pun intended. The film revolves around a bullied and isolated little boy named Oskar who becomes friends with a little girl who only comes out at night. Spoiler alert: it’s revealed later in the film that Eli is not only a 200 vampire, but also trans. What makes her great? Her love for her best friend Oskar. Would your best friend dismember and devour your bullies for hurting you? If no, you need an Eli in your life.
3. Owen – I Saw The TV Glow
Jane Schoenburn’s I Saw The TV Glow is, according to the director themself, a trans parable. Inspired by the novel Nevada, where a heroin snorting transfeminine drifter out of New York attempts to convince a closeted Wal-Mart employee of their transness, I Saw The TV Glow follows similar plot path. Throughout his life, Owen is out of touch with his body and his life, and his long lost friend Maddy attempts to convince him that the reality he lives isn’t actually real at all. The film is a mediation on self-denial. Owen is a tragic character, trapped in an existence that he knows is fundamentally wrong, but too full of doubt to be capable of change. Owen’s story is excruciating to behold, and all the important because of it.
2. Ellie – The Last of Us
The Last of Us hero Ellie is one of the finest queer protagonists in horror history. Why? Her queerness, while intrinsic to her character, is simply one part of her totality. Ellie is a complicated heroine. She’s messy. She’s brash. She’s naive. She’s hilarious. She’s tough. She’s gay. She’s a full human being, not a queer stock character so often present in cinema, defined solely by sexuality. That being said, her, her capacity for queer love and romance is one of the most beautiful parts of her character. Her all too short romance with Riley is gorgeous and tragic. Players of The Last of Us 2 know that her character is only going to get more complex (and morally ambiguous) from here.
1. Bill and Frank – The Last of Us
While Ellie may be the queer protagonist of The Last of Us, Bill and Frank are its true LGBTQ stars. While their characters skirted the line of gay stereotypes in the original video game, series creators rewrote them into a pair of full fleshed out human beings whose beautiful, gut wrenching Love In The Time of Fungus story became one of the greatest queer romance tales ever told. In the span of one episode, Bill transforms from mistrustful, closeted survivor to an openly gay man who is fundamentally changed by love. Try to maintain dry eyes while watching the pair giggle and eat strawberries together. It isn’t possible. This episode, perhaps the greatest single episode of TV in a decade, will make you ugly sob.
(Featured Image: 20th Century Studio)
Published: Oct 9, 2024 03:34 pm