We’re halfway through Pride month, which means we’re also halfway through the Kickstarter campaign for Hauntology, the queer horror anthology film from writer-director Parker Brennon that our very own Rob Jarosinski is producing! While the film was already fully funded within the first week, it’s now looking to meet its first stretch goal, so check it out below if you want to donate!
Click here to donate to the Hauntology Kickstarter!
Parker’s film is looking to enter the new canon of queer horror films, a subgenre that highlights and celebrates the queer experience within the milieu of the macabre. However, the history of queer horror doesn’t begin in the 2010s. Horror has had queer characters, creators, and themes since the very beginning, only they haven’t always been what one might call perfect representation. In this list, I want to highlight 5 films from the 1980s that are surprisingly queer and fascinating in their treatment of the topic, even though there are elements that are clearly – and in some cases startlingly – problematic.
When it comes to representation, it’s tempting to just ignore the problem films, but they are certainly worth investigating and studying as we (hopefully) make progress away from them.
#5 Windows (1980)
The Bad: Talia Shire is being menaced by a psychotic lesbian who is obsessed with her, to the point of hiring someone to break into her house and menace her so she can obtain recordings of her moaning. It’s… a lot. It’s also one of many horror films that leans on the theory that gay=homicidal maniac.
The Good: This film is gorgeous. It was directed by Gordon Willis, the cinematographer behind the Godfather trilogy. Just take a look at that title shot up above!
#4 Sleepaway Camp (1983)
The Bad: If you know the ending of Sleepaway Camp, you already know what I’m talking about. SPOILERS: The person killing people around Camp Arawak is Angela, who is revealed to have a penis in a memorable final shot. It’s one of a long line of films that position trans or trans-coded characters as murderous villains, including Psycho, Dressed to Kill, and Silence of the Lambs.
The Good: While it is only up to individual trans people to choose whether or not to reclaim Sleepaway Camp, there is an interesting reading of the character of Angela as someone who is driven to destruction by being forced into a gender presentation that doesn’t match their identity. There is also a famously weird gay subplot where Angela’s father has a gay lover with whom he has sex in a dark void in flashback. Oh, and lots of hot men wear crop tops, which is always a plus.
#3 Hanging Heart (1983)
The Bad: This film, which follows a young actor trying to clear his name after his girlfriend is murdered, once again underlines the gay=murder thing when it is revealed that his roommate/mentor’s repressed homoerotic longing for him has made him commit murder.
The Good: This film is basically the gay slasher equivalent of the early biblical films that show all manner of sin and decadence with the caveat that the perpetrators eventually be punished in the end. The filmmakers knew the audiences were coming to indulge their more prurient sides, but the ending reaffirmed that they were morally upstanding for watching the film. Hanging Heart was designed more or less explicitly to appeal to gay men, with endless scenes of hunky shirtless dudes and even a sex dream sequence with explicit gay content. So as problematic as the ending is, it’s still a fun time. Also, it’s inexplicably gorgeous, with several shots that stand head to head with those in Windows.
#2 Cruising (1980)
The Bad: Cruising even stirred controversy at the time for its storyline depicting a killer stalking the leather bars of New York City and Al Pacino being driven mad by being asked to go undercover in the scene.
The Good: Cruising is just a fucking good movie, you know? It’s genuinely scary, for one thing. The killer’s creepy whispering voice will strike fear into even the most hardened horrorhound. Also, it for the most part depicts its gay characters as actual humans, as much as it also asks audiences to stare around the leather bar scenes in goggle-eyed terror. There are also sex scenes between men that put in the work to actually be erotic. Thank you, William Friedkin!
It was also shot in the real leather bars of New York City, capturing a subculture on film shortly before it was ravaged and changed forever by the AIDS epidemic.
#1 The AIDS Murders (1986)
The Bad: I mean…
The film, which was demurely retitled as City in Panic, follows a killer who is murdering people who have been diagnosed with AIDS.
The Good: It does feature a lot of gay characters, including a gender swapped remake of the Psycho shower scene. It is also weirdly and explicitly obsessed with echoing and referencing the Fritz Lang film M, which is certainly a high rung for a shitty little later-period slasher to reach for.
Brennan Klein is a millennial who knows way more about 80’s slasher movies than he has any right to. He’s a former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast and a current senior movie/TV news writer at Screen Rant. You can find his other reviews on his blog Popcorn Culture. Follow him on Twitter or Letterboxd, if you feel like it.