When I saw that It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror came out this month I headed immediately to my library catalog to request it and then proceeded to consume it over three evenings. By and large this is an excellent collection of essays featuring queer authors of many stripes taking a movie, sometimes two, and either pulling them apart to discuss representation, or explain why they became fixated on a certain film, or how a film can help them process part of their lived experience. The movies featured run the gamut of quality (is my understanding) and cover most types of popular horror. It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays explore the relationship the authors have with horror, both empowering and oppressive.
I should not be the audience for this book – I don’t really partake in horror movies or books. But… I love hearing people talk about their personal experiences with art, and horror movies are excellent, it seems, at getting people to think about what they’re feeling. This book is that unabashedly. I blame Screen Drafts becoming Scream Drafts each October for my growing interest in listening to people talk about movies I will never watch, and it is also through the guests on that podcast that I’ve been keyed into the idea that horror movies in particular hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community (it was something I was vaguely aware of, but this isn’t my genre). While historically horror movies can be misogynist, and often both homophobic and transphobic, they can also be inadvertently feminist and like so much other art open to subversive readings. It’s through these readings that common tropes can spark moments of familiarity and affective connection but often it remains with the viewer to read themselves into these films, seeking out things that speak to the ways their own queerness encounters the world.
I’ve already suggested this one to a friend who I think will enjoy it, and I hope it makes its way into lots of people’s hands – whether they think they like horror or not. I’m proof that you can read and enjoy this book without having seen most of the movies discussed. As long as you don’t mind spoilers.
Bingo Square: New (a new book – published October 11, 2022 – and a newish to me genre in horror and cultural critique thereof.)
Bingo #5: Minds, Adapt, Heart, Monster, New
Bingo #6: Bodies, New, Dough, Question, Elephant
