Queer Horror Film and Television

About this book

In recent years, the representation of alternative sexuality in the horror film and television has 'outed' itself from the shadows from which it once lurked via the embrace of an outrageously queer horror aesthetic where homosexuality is often unequivocally referenced. In this book, Darren Elliott-Smith departs from the analysis of the monster as a symbol of heterosexual anxiety and fear, and moves to focus instead on queer fears and anxieties within gay male subcultures. Furthermore, he examines the works of significant queer horror film and television producers and directors to reveal gay men's anxieties about: acceptance and assimilation into Western culture, the perpetuation of self-loathing and gay shame, and further anxieties surrounding associations shameful femininity. This book focuses mainly on representations of masculinity and gay male spectatorship in queer horror film and television post-2000. In titling this sub-genre 'queer horror', Elliott-Smith designates horror that is crafted by male directors/producers who self-identify as gay, bi, queer or transgendered and whose work features homoerotic, or explicitly homosexual, narratives with 'out' gay characters.