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Post by Fenril on Jun 15, 2011 15:07:14 GMT -5
This one should be a doozy.
"Queer horror (or "Queer fear")" is a relatively new term used in enciclopedias, websites and other compediums to designate horror movies with GLBT [Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transexual / Transvestite / Transgender] themes. While this subject actually appears in a lot of horror fiction (for instance, one of the earlier Vampire stories, "Carmilla", is about a lesbian vampiress) and has since the very begginings, it's usually coded or treated ambigously. And often presented in a very negative light, because of the prevalent mindset at the time.
Even so, there have been several movies exploring this subject at least as early as the 50's. Much more recentlly, there have even been a few productions with an entire gay cast.
Here's where it gets tricky, trough: just because an horror movie has a gay, tranvestite or whatever character in the cast, that doesn't make it "Queer horror" as such. It has to both have at least one such character and to actually deal with the subject, at least in a subtle way.
For instance, "Psycho" doesn't fall into this because, while one character crossdressed in it, the movie isn't about the subject (and the characer is clearly stated not to actually be a transvestite, anyway). "The hunger" could fall into this, since the lead characters are established as bisexual and the entire movie is an allegory about sexual awakening, in a way. More explicit movies like "Killer Condom", "Hellbent", "The blood-splattered bride" and "Night warning" most certainly do fall into this.
Obviously, there are good, bad and average movies in the mix, hence my wanting to discuss them.
Also, as I said earlier, some of these movies potray GLBT people in a positive light and some most definitely do not. That, too, should be discussed.
So, seen any "Queer horror" movies and if so, what did you think of them?
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Post by slayrrr666 on Jun 16, 2011 11:20:02 GMT -5
There's been a lot, so I think I'll miss some here the first time.
Bikini Frankenstein-The doctor manages to revive a dead woman in his laboratory but it's constant desires of affection for his assistant make his planned revenge on the scorned a little tougher than he figured. Late night Skinemax feature, but it's actually one of the best I've seen, due to it's plot and the fact that it's got a lot of good stuff about it. The assistant is a total riot and actually comes off with a great sense of humor, cracking off a ton of one-liners about the situation that are pretty funny, the women are pretty hot and are naked really frequently and we get all kinds of good lesbian action, from a fantastic shower sequence to an extended three-way that ends the film. I guess it counts merely because, despite being under mind-control, the Frankenstein woman tends to display extreme affection for women (as I mentioned, the lab assistant is generally the source of it, though she also initiates the big lesbian three-way at the end) and there's only one straight-forward sex scene with her involved. It's pretty enjoyable.
The first four Brotherhood films. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here since they're all pretty much the same: new recruit arrives on campus and finds the group of hot guys to be a part of a deadly cult and must stop them before its too late. Lots of scenes of guys running around in their underwear among darkened hallways or into the showers, it's pretty hard to distinguish between one or the other, yet their each pretty watchable. I have not seen the last two, just the first four, though I seem to remember ranking the fourth the highest so I guess that's the best one.
Countess Dracula's Orgy for Blood-The awakening of a lustful vampire leads a group of slayers out to stop her before she can use her victim's blood to unleash her master. Again, straight-up porn although, again, the focus of her attention being towards women, and her disdainful attitude towards men, tends to put this here. Lots of pretty good sex scenes here, although most will probably find fault that the performers here have more silicone than Apple's latest line of computers put together, yet by focusing on the sensuality during the sex, it's not that hard to complain about.
Dracula's Daughter-A strange, pale woman torments the daughter of a famous scientist in a remote village, drawing ire from the villagers who know her true identity. It's been a while since I saw it and so it might not be 100% what I gave the plot description as, but it's the 1936 film that's generally credited as being the start of the lesbian genre so even though I don't remember much about it, I've still seen it.
The Gay Bed and Breakfast of Terror-A group of people arriving at a small motel to wait for a special performance find themselves the target of a deranged killer stalking them for their sexual orientation. An absolute blast of a slasher, manages to be a lot of fun and has a lot of good parts to it that would fit in any normal "straight" slasher, from the abundant kills and gore to a series of fun and enjoyable confrontations inside the house at the end. Plays like a traditional slasher only featuring members of this description as the targets, hence the inclusion.
Hell-Bent-A group of gay friends find themselves stalked by a maniacal masked killer on Halloween night and must race to stop his rampage before they're all killed. Surprisingly a lot of fun, again like a normal slasher in it's set-up and execution (including some wonderful stalking scenes in a disorienting nightclub and a breathtaking battle through a darkened house) only again, the sexuality of it's targets tends to be the main difference here. It's not really played up explicitly as well, making it an easier incursion into the world for some that might have a problem with it.
In Blood-A college student finds that the only way to psychically experience clues to stop a rampaging murderer lie in sexual situations, but gay experiences help him the most. Much closer to what I intend you want to talk about, as it's all about him finding his sexuality through the repeated use of his experiences, which in turn to give it a horror edge, lead him to psychic visions that will stop a rampaging killer. Lots of allegories about the birth of sexual awakening, but they only tend to clutter the film's storyline and push the horror out, leaving it like a drama for the most part.
Hammer's Carnstein trilogy-Comprising The Vampire Lovers, Lust for a Vampire and Twins of Evil, all have their moments though it's easily The Vampire Lovers that's the best, packed with spectacular nudity, glorious Gothic violence and a frenetic pace that makes it impossible to stay bored, as if looking at the women would've kept that from happening anyway, but it's still a blast. Lust is pretty much underrated, I enjoyed it a lot and Twins might be overrated, as there's not a whole lot of action and the film seems to be a gimmick about their being actual twins involved, and it's not until the end that it really gets going.
That's all for now, I'll come up with more later.
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Post by Fenril on Jun 16, 2011 15:42:51 GMT -5
I think your list is very good, looking forward to the next. The definition I gave was paraphraed from a Spanish enciclopedia, but as with a lot of movie-genre definitions, there are a lot of movies that don't quite fit the description, yet probably belong in the category. Of your list I've only seen one: Hell-Bent-A group of gay friends find themselves stalked by a maniacal masked killer on Halloween night and must race to stop his rampage before they're all killed. Surprisingly a lot of fun, again like a normal slasher in it's set-up and execution (including some wonderful stalking scenes in a disorienting nightclub and a breathtaking battle through a darkened house) only again, the sexuality of it's targets tends to be the main difference here. It's not really played up explicitly as well, making it an easier incursion into the world for some that might have a problem with it. That pretty much sums it up. Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot, as well, in that it's just a fun slasher that happens to have a gay cast. Really liked the iconic scene of the killer's sickle scratching a glass eye, too. My list, which like yours is probably missing a lot of entries (and a few movies probably don't fit, but whatever): - A nightmare on Elm street, part 2. Because the subtext here is pretty evident, it more or less has Freddy taking advantage of a teenager's repressed sexuality to possess him and thus return to the waking world (the sequence with the gym teacher's the strongest evidence for this). Not the best Elm St. movie, trough it has a few inspired moments. The real problem is that it's just not scary enough (there are barely any deaths in it). - Acapulco Golden. Mexican short having to do with a teenaged gay couple who plot to murder one of the kid's mother for the inheritance money, but she turns out to be extremely hard to kill. Really gory and borderline tasteless, but with a certain campy charm. - Alucarda. A young woman is seemingly possessed by demons and starts quite the ruckus at the convent she was being raised in. The title character is pretty much stablished as a lesbian (she's in a relation of sorts with fellow student Justine and later seduces a priest's daughter as well), which gives another layer to her Inquisition-like enemies. - La novia ensangrentada [aka The blood splattered bride]. Spanish horror loosely based on "Carmilla", in which a newlywed woman tires of her husband's constant sexual demands and deflects instead to the attentions of the misterious, vampish and deadly Mircalla. Quite gory and explicit both in its nudity and themes of sexual repression, this had a few problems with its local censors. - Cruising. The infamous William Friedkin movie starring Al Pacino as a cop investigating a serial killer who frecuents the local gay S&M bars. Extremely controversial (even among GLBT circles) for its mix of explicit "bondage-and-dominance" themes with slasher violence, this is still a pretty interesting thriller on its own right, trough the conclusion is very unsatisfying. - eXXXorcismos. Mexican ghost movie concerning an urban legend of sorts: two young gay lovers who swore to perform a double suicide in a mini-mall; only one of them goes through with it --since then, his ghost prowls the mall in search of men from whom he draws "more than blood". Interesting setting and some nice gothic-esque atmosphere, but the script was clearly intended for a stage production instead of a movie, so there is far too much monologuing and very little action. What little action is has is pretty good, including a surprisingly bloody climax. - Gozu. Takashi Miike movie concerning a Yakuza searching for his missing comrade on an odd small town. I included this one for the subtext as well: the comrade in question inexplicably becomes a woman halfway through, at which point our main character starts courting her, then things get even more strange. More surreal thriller than horror per se. - The hunger. Vampire story of sorts, with Catherine Denueve as a Vampire (ish) who tires of her male companion and seduces a young female physician. A very interesting variation on the vampire mythos. - Jeepers Creepers. Two teenage siblings are chased by an ancient demon. Again, a certain subtext in it (the title Creeper is pretty much a "dirty old man chasing a young boy"), which the sequel makes more explicit. It's a pretty good creature feature on its own, too. - Phii khon pen (aka The victim). Thai ghost movie about an actress trying to solve two murder mysteries. Each has a queer twists of sorts to it, the first one having to with a supermodel and her lesbian stalker and the second with a transsexual ghost. Bizarre at times, but with some neat ghostly scenes. - The Rocky horror picture show. More comedy than horror, a musical tribute to B-movies with an omnisexual cast. Lots of fun! - Sick girl. Episode of the tv series Masters of horror, with a lesbian enthomologist, the girl she has just moved in with and a monstrous bug roaming in their apartment. Part dark comedy part creature feature, one of my favorite episodes of the series. I'll probably remember a lot more, later. |
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Post by Fenril on Jun 16, 2011 17:30:57 GMT -5
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Post by slayrrr666 on Jun 17, 2011 10:42:02 GMT -5
A couple more, though again it's not a complete list:
The French films Girl Slaves of Morganna Le Fey and The Shiver of the Vampires, with a more detailed description in the French horror thread.
I'll also throw in ANOES 2 and The Hunger, and you do seem to have a point there in including Fright Night and the Jeepers Creepers films. Never saw them that way, but there is a point to be made especially in the second one with the focus being on the male football team-members and the ignoring of the cheerleaders.
Dead Serious-A zealot turns his attention to a gay bar in his quest to rid the world of homosexuality, and gets his group to meet at the place to use experiments to turn them into a race of bloodthirsty vampires. A lot of fun actually, with a campy atmosphere especially in the dealings with the vampires who aren't concerned with their existence being discovered and instead try to focus on preserving their lifestyle. The blood really flies in the last half when they make a stand and fend for themselves, which is really where it sorta applies here since it's an allegory for the turning from a homosexual into a vicious, blood-sucking creature as a departure from their lifestyle and the change being done through the man. Lots of good content here actually.
Leeches-A new recruit to a varsity swim team finds that the team is stalked by a steroid-driven swarm of leeches. Great fun as a creature feature, with lousy effects (using actual puppets of the creatures dragged along the ground to signify them chasing down the team as well as a blanket covering one victim to show them being engulfed by the creature) and mixed together with a lot of violence and gore. Shows a lot of the cast running around shirtless (considering it's a male swim team) and scenes of them showering in their boxers after practice, so it goes in here.
Those came to me pretty quickly, but to throw more out there I'll have to think a little harder.
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Post by Fenril on Jun 17, 2011 12:33:28 GMT -5
I'll also throw in ANOES 2 and The Hunger, and you do seem to have a point there in including Fright Night and the Jeepers Creepers films. Never saw them that way, but there is a point to be made especially in the second one with the focus being on the male football team-members and the ignoring of the cheerleaders. The Creeper specifically singles out one of the guys in the footbal team and even makes obscene gestures at him, so... yeah. I'm thinking of more movies for the list, but will probably post them later. |
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Post by slayrrr666 on Jun 22, 2011 10:35:02 GMT -5
Okay, I've got a lot to update here since I've been thinking about this, and this still doesn't cover it all, I think:
Blood for Dracula-A vampire moves his entourage to a new country because of a shortage of available prey and preys upon a naive family, leading their handyman to battle against him when he discovers the ploy. Probably my favorite Vampire film of all time, mostly because it's just so dirty and disgusting, yet it never crosses over into the revolting stage. Lots to love here, from tons of nudity, a pretty healthy dose of gore, lots of Gothic stalking, a frenetic pace and plenty of sleaze, mostly counted by the incestuous lesbian relationship between the two sisters. Not that I'm blaming them at all, but that counts a little bit.
Embrace of the Vampire-A college student in a troubled relationship with her boyfriend starts to find compassion with another woman while also being stalked by a vampire looking to make her his immortal bride. Lots of good stuff here, from the major lesbian relationship and her being courted over to the other side because of her dealings with the supernatural. Not too great of a film, the romance in the middle makes the horror slow to a crawl but the frequent nudity makes a wonderful distraction.
Female Vampire-Jess Franco effort about a women vampire trying to find a lover to spend eternity with. Not a lot of pretenses, just a lot of female flesh on display during a series of intense lesbian and straight sequences. There's just too much to mention here, there was a ton of it and I utterly feel offended I forgot this the first time around.
Lair of the White Worm-A man traveling through the Scottish countryside comes across a family tormented by a crazed cult of demon worshippers looking to use one of their daughters in a ceremony to awaken their god. Not really one with a big, noticeable amount, but the one thing that stuck for me was the site of a woman making advances on the daughter while wearing a unicorn crown on her crotch. Kinda alluded to since it's never really right out in the open, but that's about as close to keeping it in the closet as you can come with that kind of symbolization.
Modern Vampires-A vampire takes a young woman into their world after turning her and they get caught up in a deadly triangle with a rogue creature luring a group of vampire hunters closer to their hidden nature. Pretty fragrant one here, since there was a lot of content on display. The women were all bisexual, making out with girls while the guys were watching and then going back to them, or just plain lesbian sex with each other. Plus, with it taking place in a club lots of other acts are seen along the periphery that can also be included.
The Mummy's Kiss: The 2nd Dynasty-An aging woman finds that the key to eternal youth rests in her sucking the lifeforce from women after an erotic encounter and sends a mummy out to capture them to start the process. A pretty blatant exercise in lesbianism, with just about everyone cast in the film (plenty of porn actors, or the Skinemax variety if you will) getting naked at the drop of a hat, tons of lesbian sex and a storyline to allow for plenty of it. Pretty enjoyable, though I still think Bikini Frankenstein is the best of the lot.
Vampryos Lesbos-Jess Franco's immortal film on lesbian vampires, not a whole lot to say here and a real pity I forgot all about it before, like the aforementioned Female Vampire.
In thinking this over, I seem to remember Interview with a Vampire being one that should've had a lot but I don't quite remember there being any in the film. Maybe that counts, I don't know, but that one jumped out at me as well.
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Post by Fenril on Jun 23, 2011 18:11:03 GMT -5
Interview with the vampire is kind of an odd one: in principle the two main characters can be read as a couple, but in this case it's more subtext than anything else.
A lot of Anne Rice's work seems to be like that, kinda flirting with queer subjects but not quite dealing with them.
Vampyros Lebos is a famous example, can't believe I had forgotten about it.
More for the list:
- Mulberry Street. The just-evicted denizens of a Manhattan aparment complex have to fight a strange rat-based plague.
One tranvestite character of sorts, and the entire movie has alternative families as a core theme (the drag queen in question is a surrogate mother of sorts to his best friend's daughter; then there's the single mother and son, the two old men in a sort of functional marriage, etc.).
Unfortunately, this movie is a failure on the makeup department (the monsters look silly, period). But the script is really quite interesting.
- Zombies of Mass destruction. When a quaint small town is besiegued by a zombie plague, the conservative denizens decide to lay the blame on whatever minorities they can find nearby. Like the Iranian girl next door, or the visiting gay couple...
Kinda Shaun of the dead by way of the U.S.
- Night warning. A teenage boy discovers several ghastly secrets concerning his caretaker aunt.
A basic (but pretty good) slasher, included here for the subplot concerning a gay basketball coach and an insanely homophobic cop (who in his own way is even more dangerous than the cleaver-welding killer on the loose).
- Make a wish. Six women gather in the woods to celebrate their friend Susan's birthday, unaware that there are several dangerous strangers loose. One of them with deadly plans for the group.
The lesbian counterpart to Hellbent, in that it's an ordinary (fun, if low-budget) slasher that happens to feature a lesbian cast.
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Post by slayrrr666 on Jun 24, 2011 10:23:10 GMT -5
Right, that was the thing that got me when I was remembering these films: they tend to behave like an old-married couple, but beyond that, there was nothing that really whacked you over-the-head and said it, even if it flirted around the edge in doing so. Either way, it was hard to really tell with that one and why I didn't feel sure about putting it here.
Forgot about Mulberry Street, since I thought it was utter shit anyway. Didn't even remember those figures from the film anyway.
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Post by slayrrr666 on Sept 13, 2011 10:14:43 GMT -5
Can add one more to the list, Psycho Beach Party, where a woman who joins up with a gang of surfers finds that they're being killed off one-by-one and she may be the culprit since she tends to fall victim to a split personality.
Not a bad entry at all, and definitely a pretty good mixture of it's two main genres, a 60s Beach movie and a slasher, though the slasher is kinda ignored since there's never any stalking or suspenseful set-ups, the victims just happen to be isolated from everyone and are then killed off rather rudimentarily, as it seems like the beach movie scenario is the main focus. That also gives it it's qualifications here, since two of the guys are closet homosexuals and are always wrestling with each other (that then becomes the sight of two men in swimwear glistening with body oil wrestling and groping each other), tend to try on women's clothes at the first opportunity and a running gag with one of them is that he's constipated ever since joining the group and when the other lover finally makes a move on him, he's able to relieve himself. Kinda cheesy how it goes about it, but still not exactly hard to see where it's going.
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Post by slayrrr666 on Jun 19, 2013 11:22:17 GMT -5
Got another one we can talk about, Vamperifica, a young man who's struggling to fulfill his dreams of being in the theater discovers he has a Vampire King's spirit inside him and tries to withhold the urges to bite his best friends while his cronies try to help him with the transformation.
This here was a total waste and really has very little that's enjoyable about it. One of the main issues here is that it's got way too much of a vanity-project feel that's completely unwarranted due to the main character's completely irritating and aggravating personality who feels he's warranted and deserving of unadorned praise and worship despite clearly not being seen as deserving of any of it then ranting and raving about it in hysterical fits of expressed rage. That this constitutes the comedy in the movie is hardly appealing at all and makes for quite an exasperating time getting involved in the film to begin with as the change-over occurs far too late in the movie to make it an impressive feat. The change-over transformation does bring about some decidedly- decent horror offerings in a couple nice kills and some atmospheric segments that are quite enjoyable, but overall there's just not enough to overcome the fundamental problem of getting invested in this one, and it really could've been something with it's more serious finale that has a few nice action scenes. Overall, though, this is a pretty tough one to get interested in.
Still, the fact that the guy is about as spot-on I've seen yet for a gay stereotype (effeminate, speaks with a light airy lisp, goes shopping constantly with his female best friend, an expert at insulting people, loves the theater and acting, etc) even before getting down to his physical appearance that gives him away rather easily means it's good enough to be placed here.
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Post by Fenril on Aug 7, 2013 21:11:24 GMT -5
- La noche del terror ciego [aka Tombs of the blind dead]. A young woman vacationing in Portugal seemingly grows jealous after watching her boyfriend flirting with one of her old school friends (actually, it's because the other girl used to be *her* girlfriend), jumps off her train and pernocts in an old abandoned building. An old building that used to house the legendary Knights Templar. The rumored satanists who would rise at midnight to gnaw on the flesh of the living...
Classic Spanish horror that launched the Templar Knights tetralogy, oft regared as one of director Armando de Ossorio's best, and rightly praised for deviating from the usual Hollywood influence to dwell on old European folklore instead. Truth be told the movie alternates between elegantly gothic set-ups (the sequence where the knights rise out of their tombs and mount their spectral horses, for instance) and leering exploitation (more on that later).
It's in this thread for a curious reason: the lead character is a lesbian... but this movie is hardly positive on that respect: of the two gay characters, one (who might simly be bicurious or even just plain undecided) is killed early in the film and twice at that, thanks to the fact that this a sorta-kinda zombie movie. The other inadvertently causes pretty much every major death in the plot, claims to be so due to not feeling entirely confortable around men and gets raped by a man in graphic detail.
But then, this it part of the movie's intention: whatever human drama is around (there are plenty) becomes irrelevant in the face of the Knights' attacks. Existing solely to feed on the flesh and blood of the living, the Templars simply do not care if their victims are male or female, young or old, hetero or homo --not even good or evil.
It's also interesting that the real-life Knight Templars were excomulgated and executed, among other things, on charges of sodomy (reportedly one of many false charges invented by King Felipe IV and the Pope to get out of a debt they couldn't afford to pay).
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Post by slayrrr666 on Aug 8, 2013 11:20:33 GMT -5
Oh, man. I forgot about that. Good call.
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