When you think of the horror genre, the LGBTQ+ community is probably one of the last things you think of. After all, most of the genre is dominated by cishet people who have movies filled with promiscuous women, American-Dream families, and heroic men. However, horror is much more queer-coded than you may think.
Several novels could be made about the homoerotic subtexts in horror, but for our purposes, know this: horror is ultimately fueled by otherness. We're scared of things that are different. That ghost is from a mysterious dimension? Scary. That man is hiding in the alleyways? Frightful. Does that monster have scales and horns? Terrifying. If someone is acting differently from societal norms or looks different than everyone else, people become uneasy. As a long discriminated group seen as "strange" for the past several decades, it's easy to see why the genre is important to LGBTQ+ culture. Many in the Drag community have even claimed Halloween as "Gay Christmas". Despite this, horror has still mainly been strictly heterosexual... until now. We are currently in a boom of fantastic LGBTQ-led horror films, and you deserve to know about it!
So, without further delay, here are 8 modern LGBTQ+ horror movies that you need on your list!