The horror genre has always been imbued with queer themes. From early gothic fiction like J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1897 novel Carmilla to one of the first vampire films, Nosferatu (1922), to many Universal Classic Monsters. The highly imaginative, fantastical nature of horror made the best home for these queer-coded stories.
Before it was accepted to feature explicit LGBTQ+ representation on the screen, many filmmakers included subtext. Monsters were often used as a metaphor for queer people. Others, like James Whale, artistically explored experiences and struggles faced by the community, flying right under the radar of the infamous Hays Code, or The Motion Pictures Production Code, which banned explicit gay references. The undertones and themes were clear for those the stories resonated with.
Thankfully, today, artists can overtly express queerness in the films they make. Horror is filled with them. While there are plenty of LGBTQ+ horror films to pick from, there’s something special about finding an old movie from a different era and picking up on the metaphors, the undertones, and the big messages behind the subtlety.
Explored below are 10 queer-coded classic horror movies that are perfect for enjoying during Pride Month.
10
‘Nosferatu’ (1922)
Release Date
February 16, 1922
Runtime
95 Minutes
Director
F. W. Murnau
Writers
Henrik Galeen
F.W. Murnau’s seminal horror Nosferatu, the unauthorized adaptation of Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, was almost deleted from history due to a lawsuit, but thankfully for film buffs, a print survived. The German Expressionist silent picture borrowed the bones of Stoker’s plot, but made major changes, such as names, settings, and the count’s appearance. Nosferatu also introduced the idea that the vampire could die by sunlight. In the most important deviation, the film’s vampire can only be killed by a woman.
The Film That Queered Vampires Forever
Just like its material source, Nosferatu has widely been interpreted through a queer lens. Murnau, a gay man himself, infused his picture with heavy subtext. Count Orlok (Max Schreck) is not a romantic figure, but a foul-smelling monster who brings pestilence and death, mirroring society’s homophobia. His pupils dilate and eyes grow large when he looks at Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim), including in a scene where he watches him undress. In another suggestive moment, Orlok sucks on Hutter’s finger, his craving for blood a stand-in for gay desire.
Additionally, Orlok has often been cited as a manifestation of Hutter’s repression of his own sexual identity. He cares for his wife Ellen (Greta Schröder), but kisses her in a sexless manner. His lack of recollection of having been bitten by the vampire is symbolic of his repression.
9
‘Frankenstein’ (1931)
Release Date
November 21, 1931
Runtime
70 Minutes
Director
James Whale
Writers
John L. Balderston, Mary Shelley, Peggy Webling, Garrett Fort, Francis Edward Faragoh, Richard Schayer
Legendary director James Whale, a pioneer of the genre, is notable for being openly gay throughout his career, something uncommon in his era. It’s only fitting that he’d be a part of the reimagining of Mary Shelley’s inherently queer novel. The film follows Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive), a man obsessed with unlocking the mysteries of death and life. After stealing body parts from fresh corpses, he stitches them together and electrically reanimates the result into a living creation. And so, Boris Karloff’s iconic character, the misunderstood Monster, was born.
Roots in Queer Gothic Fiction
Dr. Frankenstein has been interpreted as a gay, repressed man. Throughout the movie, Frankenstein is more invested in his scientific pursuits than he is in marrying his fiancée, Elizabeth (Mae Clarke). Early on, she discusses his strange behavior and isolation, hinting at his “otherness.” Frankenstein’s rejection of his creation represents the fear he has of his own sexuality.
As for the Monster, he’s socially vilified for simply being born different, emphasizing that sexuality isn’t a choice. The mob wielding flaming torches and pitchforks to go after the Monster needs no explanation. And although the villagers fear him, the film paints him with a vulnerable human nature — an outsider who longs to belong.
8
‘The Old Dark House’ (1932)
Release Date
October 19, 1932
Runtime
72 minutes
Director
James Whale
Writers
Benn W. Levy
Producers
Carl Laemmle Jr.
-
Charles Laughton
Sir William Porterhouse
James Whale brings another loaded gem to life with The Old Dark House, a classic tale that set the template for haunted house movies to come and acted as a precursor to camp horror. Set in remote Wales, the film tells the story of five travelers who end up seeking shelter inside the same mysterious mansion during a relentless rainstorm. Owned by the bizarre Femm family, all sorts of unnerving and peculiar events occur during their stay on the isolated estate.
One of the Gayest Films of All Time
Each member of the Femm clan has their own queer flair. Horace is the most obvious example, played in an exceedingly campy performance by bisexual actor Ernest Thesiger. His sister Rebecca (Eva Moore), who runs the household, has been interpreted by numerous film theorists as a repressed lesbian. There’s a scene that implies that their brother Saul (Brember Wills), who’s kept locked in the attic because of his pyromania — a hint at a family hiding what’s socially unacceptable — shared a love with Morgan (Boris Karloff), the family’s mute butler.
Additionally, the movie is one of the earliest examples of gender subversion, with a female actor, Elspeth Dudgeon, playing the 102-year-old Femme patriarch, Sir Roderick. The film is filled with LGBTQ+ subtext, insinuating queerness, androgyny, and non-conformity.
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7
‘Bride of Frankenstein’ (1935)
As James Whale was making a big name for himself in the industry, he was using his work to feed hidden messages to his audience about the queer experience, often depicting the community’s struggles with acceptance and the restrictions placed by society’s heteronormative beliefs. Bride of Frankenstein is yet another example. Following the events of Frankenstein, the film sees Dr. Henry Frankenstein team up with the mad scientist Dr. Septimus Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) to construct a mate (Ella Lanchester) for the Monster.
One of the Biggest LGBTQ+ Icons
There are obvious queer undertones between Frankenstein and Pretorius, with their chemistry very much reading like a forbidden homoerotic attraction. However, the film’s biggest message is the rejection of heteronormativity through the depiction of a woman “made” for a man who then goes on to reject him. After the Bride is animated, she meets the Monster and instantly rebuffs and denies him, refusing to submit to presumed societal norms and her fathers’ expectations. Her rejection of the Monster as a partner is a metaphor for the queer community’s inability to adhere to the heteronormative status quo.
6
‘Dracula’s Daughter’ (1936)
Release Date
May 11, 1936
Runtime
71 minutes
Director
Lambert Hillyer
Writers
Garrett Fort
Producers
E.M. Asher
-
Gloria Holden
Countess Marya Zaleska
-
Otto Kruger
Dr. Jeffrey Garth
-
Marguerite Churchill
Janet
Decades before the lesbian vampire boom of the 1970s, Gloria Holden gave a mesmerizing performance as the seductive Countess Marya Zalezka. Although it’s a sequel to 1931’s Dracula, building upon its established lore, Dracula’s Daughter functions as a standalone film. After her father’s death, Marya believes that she’s free of her vampiric curse, only to be crushed when this isn’t proven true. She then seeks the psychiatric care of Dr. Garth (Otto Kreuger), who she hopes can cure her of her “horrible impulses.”
The First On-Screen Lesbian Vampire
With the use of psychiatry, the film alludes to conversion therapy, which played a major role in the suppression of sexuality in that era. The message: Reparative therapy is ineffective because you can’t change a person’s sexual orientation. Marya’s struggle with bloodlust represents her attempts to repress her lesbianism.
The movie drips in lesbian subtext from the beginning. After burning her father’s body, she declares she’ll be able to “live a normal life now, think normal things.” With her female victims, there’s heavy tension and longing, whereas with men, she’s quick, doing it more out of necessity than lust. Her desire for Janet (Marguerite Churchill) is evident throughout the film. The two have one of the steamiest girl-on-girl moments in cinematic history with an “almost kiss.”
5
‘Cat People’ (1942)
Release Date
December 5, 1942
Runtime
73 Minutes
Director
Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People stars Simone Simon as Irena Dubrovna, a Serbian immigrant and fashion illustrator in New York City. Her belief that she’s descended from a cursed lineage of metamorphosed women who transform into bloodthirsty panthers in the heat of passion has forced her to live a lonely life. She finds a friend in engineer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). After marrying him, Irena remains afraid of intimacy. The longer their marriage goes unconsummated, the closer he grows to his coworker Alice (Jane Randolph), who Irena becomes obsessed with.
Female Sexuality, Repression, and Xenophobia
Irena’s stalking of Alice is not born out of jealousy, but out of desire. Irena only preys on those who arouse or sexualize her. That she turns into a panther around Alice says everything. Additionally, there are instances in which characters comment on Irena’s strange appearance, “othering” her. On top of her outsider experience as an immigrant, Irena is further alienated by her failure in a heteronormative marriage. Her strong reluctance to be intimate with Oliver can be read as a repressed lesbian desire and an inability to adhere to societal pressures.
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4
‘The Uninvited’ (1944)
Release Date
February 26, 1944
Runtime
99 Minutes
Director
Lewis Allen
Writers
Dorothy Macardle, Dodie Smith, Frank Partos
-
Ray Milland
Roderick Fitzgerald
-
Ruth Hussey
Pamela Fitzgerald
-
Gail Russell
Stella Meredith
-
Donald Crisp
Commander Beech
The Uninvited is about a brother and sister, Rick and Pamela Fitzgerald (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey), who, while on vacation on the coast of Cornwall, fall in love with the Windward House, a long-abandoned cliffside mansion. On a whim, they decide to buy it. The owner, Commander Beech (Donald Crisp), who still lives nearby, sells it to them at an unusually low price, despite his granddaughter Stella’s (Gail Russell) objections, who believes the home is haunted by her mother. After moving in, a ghost story ensues.
A Haunting as a Metaphor for the Terrifying Truth of Sexual Identity
Upon its release, The Uninvited became an underground queer cult film. Although the film passed the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code), it garnered the scrutiny of the National Legion of Decency, with the Catholic organization deeming it inappropriate. In a letter to William Hays, Hollywood’s head censor and chairman of the MPPDA, they noted the movie’s lesbian undertones and the fact that “large audiences of questionable type attend this film at unusual hours” who “had been previously informed of certain erotic and esoteric elements in this film.”
3
‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (1945)
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Release Date
March 3, 1945
Runtime
111 minutes
Director
Albert Lewin
Producers
Pandro S. Berman
Cast
-
George Sanders
Lord Henry Wotton
-
Hurd Hatfield
Dorian Gray
-
Donna Reed
Gladys Hallward
Although the movie implements several major changes, this 1945 rendition remains the best screen adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Written and directed by Albert Lewin, it stars Hurd Hatfield as the titular protagonist, who gains perpetual beauty and youth after wishing that his portrait age instead of him, effectively selling his soul and becoming someone else entirely. The painting doesn’t just age, it also reflects his moral failings.
An Adaptation of a Famously Queer-Coded Classic Novel
Over the years, gay author Oscar Wilde’s gothic novel has been a subject of queer interpretation. This film adaptation is no different. It contains homoerotic undertones, and several characters are heavily coded as gay. Dorian’s portrait is literally kept locked away, reflecting how the repressive culture of the time forced LGBTQ+ people to keep their true selves hidden. His character has a kind of cold apathy about him that shrouds him in ethereal mystery, hinting at his unknowable sexuality. While the picture implements the “monstrous gay” trope, painting Dorian as the typical Evil Queer, it’s society who’s to blame for forcing him to hide who he’s always been.
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2
‘The Haunting’ (1963)
Release Date
August 22, 1963
Runtime
112 Minutes
Director
Robert Wise
Adapted from Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, this movie centers around a group of people who have been assembled at Hill House, a notoriously haunted mansion, by Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson), a paranormal investigator who wishes to study the house. They include a psychic, Theodora (Claire Bloom), the sensitive Eleanor “Nell” Lance (Julie Harris), who experienced poltergeist activity as a child, and the disbelieving heir to the house, Luke Sannerson (Russ Tamblyn). During their stay, they experience eerie, strange phenomena. Eleanor comes to believe that the house is alive and communicating with her.
Hill House as Nell’s Closet
The sheltered Nell accepts the invitation to run away from an unfulfilled life, wanting to experience more of the world and create a story for herself, a metaphor for a repressed woman embarking on a journey of self-discovery. In that search, she becomes haunted, suffering a breakdown. She can’t handle it when she’s confronted with the truth of who she is, as it was still taboo to understand and accept one’s queerness.
Theo is an obvious proud lesbian, acting and speaking unabashedly queer at times. She talks about the woman she lives with, subtly makes advances at Nell, and remarks about not wanting a man. In one scene, Eleanor turns to her and suggests she’s “unnatural.”
1
‘Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde’ (1971)
Hammer Film Productions and MGM-EMI Distributors
This Hammer horror movie interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novella incorporates the real-life case of Jack the Ripper and comes with a gender-bending twist. Dr. Henry Jekyll (Ralph Bates) believes that he can cure all diseases and ailments known to man, but as a mere mortal, he doesn’t have the time. This realization inspires him to find the elixir of life, and he develops a serum using female hormones taken from murdered corpses. It transforms him into a beautiful woman, who Dr. Jekyll explains away as his sister Edwina (Martine Beswick). In order to keep the effects of the potion, they need more fresh cadavers.
A Surprisingly Progressive Take on Gender
The film is an exploration of gender and identity. It has resonated with gender-non-conforming viewers as a powerful demonstration of the non-binary experience. Others have noted its trans subtext, recognizing a trans woman trying to fully assume her identity. There’s also abundant LGBTQ+ subtext throughout the film, including several knowing queer references.
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