#A Spooky Season Spotlight!
This LGBTQ+ History Month, we’re highlighting the subgenre of queer horror! Horror, as a genre, focuses on the body, desire, and fear. The perfect place to discuss normativity (or lack of) and social identity, it has been embraced as a place for queer books and writing to thrive.
Did you know? Le Fanu’s Carmilla was one of the first novels about vampires. Published before Dracula, it is one of the reasons the queer subgenre of horror became popular. Followed by classics like The Picture of Dorian Gray, queer themes were prevalent in older Gothic literature.
James Jenkins of Valancourt Books notes that:
“The traditional explanation for the gay/horror connection [at this time in Gothic writings] is that it was impossible for them to write openly about gay themes. So, they sublimated them and expressed them in more ‘acceptable forms’ using the medium of a transgressive genre.”
Modern horror, on the other hand, is able to delve into modern topics. Some popular themes are body horror as an allegory for body dysphoria and transphobia (Hell Followed with Us) marginalization, gender identity, that scary thing lurking in the closet, secret identities, and so many others.
Check out some staff favorites in the queer horror subgenre below. But beware - they're horror titles and may contain descriptions of imagery that may be unsettling to some, so read at your own risk!
