In the century since America became the world’s leader in horror film production, the genre became a bastion for the outsiders, the marginalized, the people made monsters by self-appointed adjudicators of sin, and who saw themselves in the supposed “villains” at the center of stories like Dracula’s Daughter. Fortunately, they weren’t creative enough to drive the big bad Other away.

Here was Whale, a gay man, building horror in his own image and having astounding box office success as some groups were lobbying Hollywood to censor queerness out of existence. Before homosexuality was formally legislated out of existence in Hollywood by the Production Code - commonly referred to as the Hays Code, which established mandates for “moral standards” in motion pictures and banned depictions of “sexual perversity” - the legendary filmmaker James Whale was building the foundation for American genre cinema with films like Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, and The Invisible Man. (Photo by © Altered Innocence / Courtesy: Everett Collection) 33 Essential LGBTQ+ Horror MoviesĪs long as there have been horror films, there have been queer horror films.