What's So Gay About Horror Movies?

1977’s Deliverance knockoff Rituals, starring Hal Holbrook, put five wealthy doctors on a wilderness adventure that goes very wrong. One of the doctors is gay, and although his friends are supportive of him, the man is an utter mess, having become an alcoholic because of his inability to deal with his sexuality and ultimately suffering a painful death. 

The Deliverance horror knockoff, Rituals

The 1978 slasher cheapie Class Reunion Massacre (aka The Redeemer: Son of Satan!) actually features gay and lesbian characters … who of course fall under the killer’s blade when a group of high school friends are reunited at the abandoned school by a religious zealot classmate (or is it?). Again, the gay characters are there to represent some kind of evolving (or disintegrating, depending on how you interpret the movie) of American values. 

Similarly, 1979’s Savage Weekend (aka The Upstate Murders) cast a gay role in order to tie its story of city dwellers being besieged by rural folk to the here-and-now. Among the group of friends is no-nonsense Nicky, a wispy slip of a fella who can hold his own in a barfight, which he proves when a few rednecks gay-bait him and he kicks the crap out of them. Of course, it ultimately doesn’t end well for Nicky, but c’mon … this is a horror movie. It doesn’t end well for pretty much everyone! (This one’s also worth noting for an early performance by Newhart’s William Sanderson as the Alpha Redneck.) 

1981’s colossally bad Lauren Bacall slasher (yes, you just read that right) The Fan also threw a gay man in harm’s way (or a few, depending on how you look at it). A deranged stalker is hacking up screen legend Sally Ross’s friends (including her dancer “boyfriend”, who is slashed underwater at the YMCA), and when the killer (a young Michael Biehn) decides to fake his own death, he does what any enterprising straight psycho would do: He goes to a gay bar, picks up a guy his size, and takes him to a rooftop where he lets the guy get frisky with him below the belt before killing him and setting him on fire. 

Michael Biehn in The Fan

Happy to help, Hollywood! 

And likewise, 1981’s jaw-droppingly bizarre Fear No Evil has a school bully actually kissing lead nerd Andrew in the school shower as their naked classmates egg him on (as some sort of public shaming?) … that is, until Satan-in-training Andrew sucks the guy’s lifeforce out through his mouth. Talk about a bad kisser! 

Of course, 1980’s Cruising is a category unto itself for its immersive approach to horrifying any and all viewers by anything remotely gay … and by “remotely gay” I mean the image of Al Pacino dancing on poppers. The film is a relentless assault on male heterosexuality via a ridiculous gay minstrel show of queer aggression. We’re both the victims and the aggressors here, and we’re also lurking in the backs of the minds of straight men everywhere, waiting to strike!  

Al Pacino in Cruising

Over time, though, the novelty of having more shocking gay characters wore off a bit, and gay characters started becoming just part of the gang, or were at least treated with a modicum of sympathy or understanding. 

1981’s Night Warning (aka Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker) is a truly shocking film … not because of its tawdry plot of incest and obsession and violent murders, but because the film features several gay characters who are actually allowed to have a relationship and inspire sympathy. As the insane Aunt Cheryl Susan Tyrrell steals every scene from young Jimmy McNichol and Julia Duffy, but it’s the sad story of Jimmy’s gay basketball coach and his murdered lover that really makes this one stick.  

The wonderfully clever 1985 horror comedy Fright Night has gay all over it. Not only does out lesbian Amanda Bearse play the lead girl and gay pornstar-to-be Stephen Geoffreys play “Evil Ed”, but main vamp Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon) actually goes undercover with his manservant as an antiques-dealing gay couple in order to fit in in suburbia. 

Scenes from Fright Night