Scary gay
33 Essential LGBTQ+ Horror Movies
(Photo by © Altered Innocence / Courtesy: Everett Collection)
As elongated as there contain been horror films, there have been queer horror films. Before homosexuality was formally legislated out of existence in Hollywood by the Production Code — commonly referred to as the Hays Code, which established mandates for “moral standards” in motion pictures and banned depictions of “sexual perversity” — the mythical filmmaker James Whale was building the foundation for American genre cinema with films like Frankenstein, The Old Dim House, and The Invisible Man. Here was Whale, a gay man, building horror in his own image and having astounding box office success as some groups were lobbying Hollywood to censor queerness out of existence. Fortunately, they weren’t creative enough to drive the big bad Other away.
In the century since America became the world’s commander in horror production production, the genre became a bastion for the outsiders, the marginalized, the people made monsters by self-appointed adjudicators of sin, and who saw themselves in the supposed “villains” at the center of stories like Dracula’s Daughter. On rare occasion, queer folk
‘You think God didn’t make lgbtq+ men?’ Comedian Leslie Jones on religion, grief and getting celebrated at 47
It’s early evening in a photography studio in west London, and the American comedian Leslie Jones is capering about, dressed in a full-length gold lamé ballgown and smoking. “Make me look skinny,” she says to the photographer’s departing back.
“I’m 6ft tall – I can’t cut my feet off,” she says, later. “I can’t interrupt being a scary motherfucker. This is who I am – let me work with who I am.” Yet, she is the opposite of scary. Statuesque, no question, but whatever she’s doing, whether peering into a bag of fish and chips as if it’s alive, or telling her assistant to interpret The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho’s trust-the-universe novel, for the 100th age, there is always somebody laughing. She brings an air of deliberate chaos, which you just have to surrender to, wherever the conversation leads, until you find yourself nodding along with the most crackpot conclusion. (The birthrate is low because men spend too much time in hot tubs, and their sperm has become lazy and complacent? “It’s funny, but it’s accurate . Go look that shit up – I’m not saying something that’s not factual. I hope.”)
S
Ellen DeGeneres: I moved to the UK because of Trump
Culture reporter
Reporting fromCheltenham
- Ellen DeGeneres confirms she moved to the UK after Donald Trump's re-election
- She and wife Portia de Rossi planned to relocate part-time but decided "we're staying here"
- She says they have a "simpler" lifestyle in the Cotswolds and also have concerns over US queer rights
- DeGeneres says they may marry again in England if US same-sex marriage laws are reversed
US TV star Ellen DeGeneres has made her first general appearance since moving to the UK, saying she decided to settle in England the daytime after Donald Trump was re-elected US president.
The comedian and host told a crowd in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, that experience "is just better" in the UK.
Ellen said she and wife Portia de Rossi were considering getting married again in England after some moves in the US to reverse the right to gay marriage, and that America can still be "scary for people to be who they are".
She also addressed allegations of a toxic workplace that led to the end of her long-running chat show in 2022, admitting she could be