Why Queer Horror?
Horror is queer (period).
Not just in the campy cult classics and high-glam vamps. Not just in the metaphor. Not just in the monsters. Horror has always been queer. It’s woven into the blood-soaked fabric of the genre, lurking in the shadows of repression, transformation, desire, and defiance. And that’s exactly why Stage Fright exists.
As a queer horror theater festival, we believe horror is not just a playground for fear — it's a stage for truth. Queerness and horror go hand-in-hand because they both speak in subtext, in double meanings, in things that were once unspeakable.
This blog is here to pull the curtain back and answer one big question: Why Queer Horror?
A Brief and Bloody History of Queerness in Horror
From the earliest days of cinema, horror has been a haven for coded queerness. In the pre-Code era, films like The Old Dark House (1932) featured effete, gender-bending villains and eerie homosocial households that read like queer fever dreams. Then came the censors — the Hays Code — and queerness retreated into the monster's body.
As NightTide Magazine points out, monsters became surrogates for society's "deviants." Queer-coded villains like Dracula or Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde embodied repression, duality, and forbidden urges. Characters were punished not just for their evil, but for being other.
In Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981), maternal obsession, closeted identity, and psychosexual repression all collide in a stew of queer-coded tension. And let’s not forget Nightbreed (1990), Clive Barker’s deeply queer monster epic that centers on a persecuted community of outsiders fighting for survival.
In recent years, horror has become more openly queer — and gloriously unapologetic. Films like Pearl (2022), Titane (2021), and Jennifer’s Body (2009) center female rage, fluid sexuality, and gender-bending transformation in bold, bloody ways. Otto; or, Up with Dead People (2008) dives into undead queer alienation, while I Saw the TV Glow (2024) explores dysphoria and identity through a surreal teen nightmare. And, of course, there’s M3GAN — the gay icon we never knew we needed — serving camp, chaos, and coded queerness with every fierce head tilt.
Why Horror Speaks to Queer Audiences
Queer people have long found solace in horror because it gets us. Horror understands what it means to be hunted, misunderstood, closeted, fetishized, feared. To be the final girl and the villain. To shapeshift to survive.
According to the book Queer for Fear — a scholarly deep-dive into horror’s queer history by Heather O. Petrocelli, featuring Portland’s own Carla Rossi and her legendary Queer Horror film series — horror offers a unique lens for marginalized people to see themselves. It validates the strange, the sexual, the defiant. It makes space for rage, transformation, and revenge.
As Carla herself says: “Monsters are just queer people with better lighting.”
Why Stage Fright?
Because queer horror deserves a stage.
We created Stage Fright to celebrate the monsters, the misfits, the femme fatales, and the freaks. To give queer artists the chance to sink their teeth into roles and stories that bite back. It’s not just about visibility — it’s about taking up space, making noise, and reveling in the weird, the wild, and the wonderfully terrifying.
We believe theater is the perfect place for queer horror to thrive. It’s immediate. It’s intimate. It blurs the line between performer and audience, illusion and reality. And when you add queer voices to that mix? You get art that devours and delights.
Want More Queer Horror Recs?
Check out:
Let the Right One In (2008)
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021),
Climax (2018)
The Devils (1971)
Come Get Scared With Us
At Stage Fright, we’re not just telling scary stories. We’re reclaiming the genre. We’re flipping the script. We’re turning the monster into the main character — and letting them sing.
So come support our artists. Come scream, laugh, cry, and maybe leave a little bit changed.
Support more local art! Go see a play at PDX Theatre Alliance, and follow Stage Fright to keep up with new stories, performances, and ways to support queer horror in Portland.
