Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays as it is for many LGBTQ+ people.  It is the one day in the year where the strange and unusual becomes commonplace.  There is a type of a feeling of freedom that comes with the day where we pretend to be someone or something else, sometimes it is the one day where we are allowed to be ourselves. Plus, we just love to dress up! So it is only fitting that a documentary about the LGBTQ+ contributions to the horror industry should come out in October. Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror goes through the past and focuses on gay contributors to the horror industry.  The first episode harkens to the beginning focusing on the authors of those first classic horror books that inspired the genre.  Mary Shelly who wrote Frankenstein, Oscar Wilde who penned The Picture of Dorian Gray and Bran Stoker who, of course, brought us Dracula.  It also briefly looks Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And at the author and director of Nosferatu, F.W. Munau.

Where I found the episode fascinating and thought provoking, I also got the feeling of “wishful thinking”.  There is a lot inferred about the themes within some of the pieces that were examined that I am not so sure had a queer backing.  It was heavily inferred that the three main stories examined, Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and Dracula, all stemmed from the sexual repression that abounded at the times these stories were penned.  Where I do think this is partially true, it is not the entire nature of the story and the documentary seemed to overemphasis this.  But, there is a lot written on this very subject especially focusing on Stoker’s repressed homosexual tendencies and the way these emerge in Dracula.  Dracula was my favorite book in high school (which was many years ago and before I came out), I feel like I should reread it, seeing it in a new light.

I did find the author histories intriguing.  I had heard of Mary Shelly’s relationships with women and Oscar Wilde was out as a gay man at a time it was illegal to be so, so there was no surprise there.  But I had not been aware of the rumors surrounding Bram Stoker.  There are several letters written to “Out” author Walt Whitman that are very suggestive and there was speculation about Stoker’s life long friendship with Hall Caine and his obsession with the actor Henry Irving.  Public opinion of gays at the time were very negative and his friend, Oscar Wilde, had been convicted of the crime and sentenced to two years imprisonment.  Later in life, when Stoker was dying of syphilis, he wrote in favor of artistic censorship, “A close analysis will show that the only emotions which in the long run harm are those arising from sex impulses, and when we have realized this we have put a finger on the actual point of danger.” There is a thought that he wrote this while starting to go insane from his disease and he may have developed a fear to what brought on his suffering.

I feel as the series progresses, and we get into films that not only had gay subtext, but actually overtly represent the LGBTQ+ community, that I will enjoy it more.  I do hope that the show gets a bit better with its production value as well.  There were times where they showed scenes to films, but didn’t label which film it was from, and they didn’t always give us the name and title of the person hosting the segment.  Overall, I was a bit underwhelmed by the presentation.  It could have been collectively tied together a bit more cohesively, but it was still thought provoking and lead me to do a bit more research on my own.