It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

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He was just about to get past the Haunted Hall, the level that always seemed to bamboozle him, when Rex suddenly sat up in the corner of the room. Andrew had forgotten he was there and so when his eye was pulled towards the sudden movement, he lost his concentration, and a hoard of zombies covered his avatar once more. He just shrugged and drank his juice down and went to pour himself another one. The thump thump thump thump seemed to be starting up again, but he glanced over, and it was just Rex’s tail thwapping the floor, obviously caught up in some sort of dream. Or maybe a nightmare.

Carrow Narby’s “Indescribable” takes on the indeterminate monsters of The Blob (1958) and Society (1989). The latter film seems progressive and reactionary simultaneously. Much like Eyes Wide Shut (1999), its allegory about class has been taken up as truth by QAnon conspiracy theories in the last few years. It rages against the power of the rich, especially when it leads to the sexual abuse of young people. It also Others the upper class, however, as a threat to heterosexual men, turning them into an alien species given to incest and orgies in which they reveal their bodies’ fluidity. To lift one of the central ideas of Videodrome, Society is terrified of the New Flesh.

Both Ways

The collection, edited by Joe Vallese and with artwork from Bishakh Som, manages to strike the balance between in-depth, heartfelt discussions of queer identity and the coming-of-age stories of people across the spectrum (or ‘the alphabet mafia’ to use current nomenclature), with a sense of humour and lightness of touch. An essential look at how spooky movies so often offer solace through subversiveness.” —Electric Literature In their essay “Indescribable”, which meditates on the notion of gendered bodies and identities, Narby also finds relatability with the titular creature in The Blob. Society is so taxonomical regarding gender that it renders those without a gender identity indescribable. According to Narby, the blob also “resists legibility” and “dissolves boundaries” similarly. A brilliant display of expert criticism, wry humor, and original thinking. This is full of surprises.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review 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.

The relationship between horror films and the LGBTQ+ community? It’s complicated. Haunted houses, forbidden desires and the monstrous can have striking resonance for those who’ve been marginalised. But the genre’s murky history of an alarmingly heterosexual male gaze, queer-coded villains and sometimes blatant homophobia, is impossible to overlook. There is tension here, and there are as many queer readings of horror films as there are queer people. This book took me SO LONG to read, but not because I wasn't enjoying it. I just made it a point to watch ALL of the films shared in this collection BEFORE reading the essays based on them. There are several showdowns in the film’s climax and denouement: Needy interrupts Jennifer killing her boyfriend; later, she suits up and goes to Jennifer’s bedroom, where the two of them wrestle, levitating in the air before Needy plunges a box cutter into her heart. Needy is sent to an institution; she escapes. As the credits roll, Needy hunts down the band, killing them gruesomely in their hotel room. It Came from the Closet is an insightful collection of 25 critical essays about the relationship between horror films and queer identity and existence. This collection is less about film criticism and more about personal experiences told through the lens of horror cinema, making these essays accessible and appealing to both academic and general audiences. This collection weaves academic theory and personal memoirs together to produce incising, original pieces of film criticism.Unsurprisingly, there are a good number of essays that touch on the representation of the Other in horror films — the ostracized, the condemned, the villainized, and the judged. As a marginalized group, queer folks often see themselves reflected in horror media, providing unique insights into the genre. “It is our distorted mirror image, our secret self,” Carrow Narby writes. “We are as ambivalent toward the monster as we are toward ourselves.”