The best queer and LGBTQ horror movies you can watch at home, from spooky movies with queer characters to scary movies with queer themes.
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Water is wet, and horror is queer. By depicting monsters living on the periphery who antagonize a society that others them, the horror genre has always found ways to speak to the queer experience and struggle. As time has passed, the genre has evolved from showing queerness strictly at a subtextual level to bringing it to the surface.
As a way of highlighting that long history, and offering viewing options for those looking for something to watch during spooky season outside of the usual staples, below is a list of 10 great horror films with queer themes. The first half has modern horror films with visibly queer characters, while the second half is comprised of spooky classics with queer connotations.
With the arrival of Bride of Chucky and the introduction of Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly), Chucky’s doll companion, the Child’s Play franchise moved further into horror-comedy fare than before. Then came Seed of Chucky, the series’ fifth installment, which was a further advancement in a different way.
Besides acting as a slice-and-dice slasher film and Hollywood satirization, Seed of Chucky is a poignant depiction of familial acceptance and gender identity. When Chucky and Tiffany reunite with their offspring Glen(da) (voiced by Billy Boyd), they wrestle with how they want Glen(da) to identify. Chucky wants to claim their child as a boy while Tiffany says she wants a daughter. Ultimately, it’s up to Glen(da) to muster up the courage to tell them their choice, saying they can be both and, in fact, feel like both. Given how nonbinary visibility is scarce in the horror genre, Glen(da) remains an icon in their own right.
Seed of Chucky is available to stream on Peacock, Syfy, USA Network, and fuboTV, or for digital rental or purchase via Amazon, Apple TV, Vudu, and Google Play.
A rare slasher film with a group of entirely openly gay characters, Hellbent is an outlier of its time that’s also a fine example of a story with queer protagonists that goes beyond the traditional “coming-out” narrative. Our main group of friends — Eddie (Dylan Fergus), Joey (Hank Harris), Chaz (Andrew Levitas), and Tobey are already out of the closet and are adults instead of the usual doomed teenagers.
As they go out on Halloween night with a mysterious, devil-masked assailant shadowing them and picking them off one by one, Eddie pursues his handsome crush, Jake (Bryan Kirkwood). Given how Eddie is the main character, his acting on his romantic affections disproves the notion that the archetypal final survivor must be purely chaste in order to prevail. Both subversive and gripping, Hellbent is a worthy watch for those wanting simple slasher-movie thrills.
Hellbent is available to stream on Here TV, or for digital rental or purchase via Amazon.
Although Stranger by the Lake is more in Hitchcockian thriller territory than traditional horror fare, it still possesses a chilling atmosphere. This is particularly due to its desolate setting on a gay cruising beach and the use of shadow by cinematography maestra Claire Mathon. When Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) becomes sensually fixated on Michel (Christophe Paou) even after witnessing him drown another man in the ocean, Franck is always enraptured in shadow, whether it’s in a nighttime scene or he’s encased by his own silhouette during the day. Franck always being engulfed in darkness encompasses his temptation leading him to danger. Franck’s mixture of compulsion and apprehension are well illustrated in Deladonchamps’ expressive eyes.
