Shudder announced plans for a new documentary series that will focus on the influence of the LGBTQ+ community in the horror genre titled, Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror. The show comes from executive producer Bryan Fuller, Steak House, Kelly Ryan, and Phil Nobile Jr. The series is similar to an excellent 2021 effort on the network called Horror Noire that spotlighted African American-themed horror, which includes classics like Blacula, Demon Knight, and Tales From The Hood.

The four-part series will examine the role of the LGBTQ+ community in horror. It is sure to weave a complex tapestry of behind-the-scenes struggles during the earliest decades of cinema to the explosion of liberated cinema in the ’60s and ’70s, which brought gay characters to new heights and beyond with prominent titles like 1963’s The Haunting and cult hits like 1975’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

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The themes often present with marginalized people’s struggle for equality meld quite well for the horror genre, a world of brutality endured by survivors. Gay themes in cinema, in general, were sparse in the early decades of Hollywood, largely due to The Hays Code, which specifically forbade studios from depicting any form of sexuality that deviated from a traditional Judeo-Christian worldview. Germany, on the other hand, was already making great strides into the realm of homosexuality as early as 1924 with a silent film called Michael, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer.

While there hasn’t been a ton of detail about the upcoming Queer for Fear series, here’s what we know so far, as well as an inspired look at the gay community in horror.

Queer for Fear: Key Themes & Talent

     20th Century Fox

In the early decades of cinema, if the topic of homosexuality did arise, it was often treated as an affliction or handicap. Over the years, it has evolved to be much more honest. The struggle for equality can be tracked by studying its presence in cinema. The horror genre, in particular, was a natural place to house themes of sexual orientation struggles, sometimes in a metaphor where one’s body may be the focal point of terror, physical transformations, and where keeping a true or alternate self dormant is a common trope.

Count Dracula may be one of the earliest examples of sexual ambiguity in the genre. Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, two of the most iconic writers in horror, were, in fact, queer. The subtext of orientation struggles can certainly be found in more contemporary films like 1983’s The Hunger, 1985’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, and recent efforts like the Chucky series on USA and the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix.

It took a lot of social progress to get to where we are today, and the four-part Shudder series will likely be exploring many key components of the movement thanks to talent in front and behind the camera. Interviews with filmmakers such as John Waters and Clive Barker are likely, as well as Kimberly Peirce (writer-director of Boys Don’t Cry, 2013’s Carrie), Lea DeLaria (2000’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Orange Is the New Black), Jennifer Tilly (Child’s Play franchise), Karyn Kusama (director of Jennifer’s Body, Yellowjackets), Leslye Headland (creator of Russian Doll), Oz Perkins (writer-director of Gretel & Hansel), and many more.

Queer for Fear: Why It’s Important

     New Line Cinema

As gay and lesbian characters and themes continue to populate mainstream media in the United States, internationally, the struggle is far slower in making progress and more apparent than ever, with some countries forcing edits and changes to American films before they are approved for distribution.

Most recently, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Marvel’s first foray into horror, was the subject of controversy when Saudi Arabia demanded Disney remove a sequence that revealed the character America Chavez had lesbian parents. The film was also banned in Qatar and Kuwait, where homosexuality or even cross-dressing is met with capital punishment, fines, imprisonment up to life, and deportation. After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the now Taliban-controlled region is circulating a “kill list” populated with the names of those suspected of being part of the LGBTQ+ community. If discovered, public execution is common. The horror faced by those who are simply following their heart, and in many cases, their own genetics, is an appalling reality that continues to reinforce the challenges of human social progress across the globe.

Horror and homosexuality are intertwined on a level that is deeply profound. If the Shudder series goes the distance in exploring the harsh realities of what this particular marginalized group has endured over the decades, the show is likely on target to be one of the network’s most important yet.

Release Date

The four-part event will debut in Fall 2022 on Shudder.