It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

Product Information

A phenomenal collection of essays from various queer lovers of horror and their connections, interpretations, and understandings of their favorite horror films. Other standouts included: Carmen Maria Machado’s convincing reclamation of Jennifer’s Body for queer audiences; an essay on The Blob that morphed into a striking meditation on gendered bodies; an exploration of the remake of Candyman that probed connections between being gay, Blackness and San Francisco’s racist housing policies; a look at the unexpectedly queer erotics underpinning Spielberg’s Jaws; a lovingly nostalgic examination of the lesbian subtext of Hitchcock’s The Birds; slasher movies, the Aids crisis and the demonization of gay men; and an unusual take on Eyes without a Face and being trans. Both Ways (Jennifer's Body)" by Carmen Maria Machado, "My Hand on the Glass (Hereditary)" by Bruce Owens Grimm, "The Wolf Man's Daughter (The Wolf Man)" by Tosha R.

Manages to strike the balance between in-depth, heartfelt discussions of queer identity and the coming-of-age stories of people across the spectrum with a sense of humour and lightness of touch. The second reason: Some of the most interesting details were left as B-plots or insufficiently explored--teases that were frustratingly far more fascinating than what the author had to say about this or that film. Still, viewers often remain tasked with reading themselves into beloved films, seeking out characters and set pieces that speak to, mirror, and parallel the unique ways queerness encounters the world.When Army of Darkness came out, having seen the first two Evil Dead movies, we went in ready to laugh and had the whole theater chuckling with us by the end. The navigations and dissections of some of my favorite slashers through various queer lenses are akin to any great horror film: mind-blowing, eye-popping, and heart-ripping. His writing has also been listed as notable in The Best American Essays , and he is an active member of the National Book Critics Circle. Because these aren’t really about the movies themselves you can still appreciate the essay without having watched it. I will say, I skipped the essays for the movies I hadn't seen yet, but I really loved many of the essays I did read (around half).

If you have a hard time understanding what people mean when they say, "horror is queer," then read this book, and you'll have your answer.She has received support from Sundress Academy for the Arts, McGill University, the New York Live Ideas Fest, the Blue Mountain Center for the Arts, and the 2019 CUNY Graduate Center Adjunct Incubator Grant. That being said, there's one essay in particular I was more than just a little uncomfortable with and its presence in the collection makes it hard for me to recommend it.

It Came from the Closet is a heterogeneous anthology and even though the essays are short, the authors dig deep into their personal life experiences while using horror to reflect on their queer identity, and vice versa. It was a shame for two reasons, the first being the missed opportunity to create a really spectacular collection of essays on queerness and horror. I was exposed to queerness from birth as my mom got with her then-girlfriend the April after I was born. This is a must-read for horror fans wanting to find connection and community in challenging the heteronormative and patriarchal narratives that can still dominate the genre. But, most of these stories couch their analysis in fantastic storytelling of personal experiences of the authors.She is the author of Blood Box , winner of the Black River Editor's Choice Award, and the microchap Wolf Inventory . I was greatly surprised to see that her essay was based on a Cuban horror film, those, as she mentions are non-existing here, and even this movie is not widely known. Not all essays hit the same, but I blame it on not having seen some of the movies being referenced, but overall it was really interesting the interpretation from a queer lens. It Came from the Closet collects twenty-five takes on twenty-five horror films that make us cringe, crack up, turn away and turn back again—each piece lavishly queer in its intelligence, vulnerability, and wit.

Common tropes—such as the circumspect and resilient “final girl,” body possession, costumed villains, secret identities, and things that lurk in the closet—spark moments of eerie familiarity and affective connection. I've spent years dissecting horror films on my own and finding the queer-coding; however, it's only been recently that I've seen that reflected back to me. It’s a book that doesn’t ask many questions and allows readers to sit with each author’s interests in their own intersections of identity and love for a medium that a lot of queer people find drawn to in deeply personal ways. Haunted houses, forbidden desires and the monstrous can have striking resonance for those who’ve been marginalised.All in all I think this book really bridges a gap between a queer memoir storytelling and academic media analysis making the topics accessible to a wider audience. I hadn't really thought much about how my queer and transness related to these sorts of media until reading this text. An impressively diverse array of queer voices contributes their opinions on how and why particular horror movies made a personal and indelible impression on them.