It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

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His work has appeared in the anthologies "Instant Classic (That No One Will Read)" (Night Beats / tRaum, 2023) and "It Came From the Closet" (Feminist Press, 2022), as well as in anthologies recognized by Lambda Literary: the 2021 finalist "Trans-Galactic Bike Ride," the 2012 finalist "Letters for my Brothers: Transitional Wisdom in Retrospect," and the 2011 winner "Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community. All of these essays are so articulate and intelligent and offer some beautiful and heartbreaking perspectives on queerness in horror films.

Obviously, with such a diversity of approaches (and author experiences of queerness), certain essays moved or resonated with me more than others did. some essays were more to my taste than others, but all of them were so well-written and well-organized that i can’t help but be overall impressed. It Came from the Closet is a fantastic collection of diverse queer perspectives—an accessible, provocative, and much-welcomed addition to the growing body of queer horror analysis of our favorite films, new and old.Because of these gaps, in terms of iconic queerness horror has to offer, this does feel a little incomplete to me. A really terrific collection of essays by a great selection and variety of different authors — both fiction authors, poets, and essayists — about the intersection between queer studies and queer identity and horror movies. no essay was particularly horribly written or totally uninteresting and i would recommend it to any queer horror newbie! 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. Of course, this will appeal to people who love and/or are interested in horror movies, but if you're worried you're not well versed enough in the genre to appreciate this book, fear not (or embrace your fear, it's what the book is all about).

As someone always seeking “the otherness” in storytelling because of my identity, these essays spoke to me on many levels. There is a wide diversity of contributors to this book from varying gender and sexuality labels and upbringings.These clear, insightful, and deeply personal essays reveal the real reasons why we've all been so scared. Covering class, race, and ability, this collection carefully untangles the threads of why we can’t look away, even when we desperately want to turn off the TV. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Every anthology has its lows and highs- luckily the lows were fairly enjoyable, perhaps needing some slight editing, but the highs were spectacular.

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. There are a couple essays in it that push past the line of pretentious academia enough to be mildly annoying. 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.There’s a moment in this book that’ll resonate with every single reader: undead, queer, or otherwise. But, most of these stories couch their analysis in fantastic storytelling of personal experiences of the authors. on that same note tho, i have not seen a single movie mentioned so i can’t really say i’ve felt/observed what the authors dive deep into. Others discuss how horror allowed them to escape from the real horrors of life, something I can definitely relate to.