Essentials: The Best Lesbian Horror Movies

Ah, horror, you oft-overlooked paragon of cinematic “low art.” While high-profile critics bend over backward every year to admit that they liked one scary movie (thanks, Hereditary), the horror fandom thrives and thrives. Whether bonded by a love of B-movie badness or semi-pretentious art films, we horror fans love just how varied the genre can be. Horror is teeming with transgression, experimentation, and out-and-out weirdness that just doesn’t seem to permeate any other genre in quite the same way.

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That weirdness necessarily attracts weirdos of all stripes (yes, even women), despite the genre’s stereotypically macho trappings. Horror’s innate flexibility leads to a lot of narrative and formal fluidity—gender, sexuality, and bodies flourish in fantastic proliferations within these liminal frames. And so, much like the makeup of a 2004 My Chemical Romance concert, horror movie audiences often encompass edgy gore bros, defiant women, and the unrepentantly gay.

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As a card-carrying member of the latter two camps, I feel it is my duty each October to extol horror’s Sapphic potential. Though the state of on-screen lesbianism is fraught at best, some of its earliest and most inventive iterations lie in horror. Perhaps the only film genre in which women are allowed to truly wail on the patriarchy (see: every rape-revenge film ever), it follows that horror’s gender-nonconformity and sexual rebellion occasionally culminate in images of two women kissing. Sometimes they kiss multiple times throughout the whole movie. Sometimes they’re actually in love. A lot of the time, they die. But every time, I love the absolute shit out of each and every one of them.

READ MORE: 15 Female Filmmakers That Could Kill It At Horror [Hi, Jason Blum!]

So here’s to lesbian horror on this fine Halloween. I hesitate to qualify every film on this list as “good,” but man, thank Hecate they exist. And speaking of, if you’re in New York, don’t miss A Woman’s Bite: Cinema’s Sapphic Vampires, a whole lesbian vampire series playing at the Quad Cinema screening landmark depictions of sapphic desire and sexuality onscreen. It’s also a nice companion piece to their other horror series, Très Outré: The Sinister Visions of Jean Rollin” a curation of le cinéma fantastique and the work of an overlooked French filmmaker into the obscure, weird and out there.

“The Haunting” (Robert Wise, 1963)
There’s some early cinematic lesbianism lurking in the frames of “The Haunting,” a horror classic from famed director Robert Wise (“West Side Story,” “The Sound of Music”). The film focuses on Nell (Julie Harris), a neurotic woman reeling from her mother’s death, after she joins a party investigating the supernatural in a nearby haunted house. Among the group is Theo (Claire Bloom), a lesbian psychic who immediately becomes territorial about Nell after they defend each other during a nighttime poltergeist attack. (We’ve all been there.) Theo and Nell’s chemistry may be chaste, but it’s definitely a.) there and b.) not written off as deplorable, which is incredible when you think about how “The Children’s Hour” only came out two years before. Though “The Haunting” received mixed reviews and pulled modest box office numbers, its fantastic production design and stylish visuals made it an inspiration for decades of haunted house movies to come. “The Haunting” is a must-see for any film buff. The relatable lesbian character is just a bonus.

“Vampyros Lesbos” (Jesus Franco, 1971)
One of the foremothers of the surprisingly robust lesbian vampire subgenre, “Vampyros Lesbos” is an exercise in campy insanity whose male-gaze-laden “lesbian sex” scenes and futile attempts at plot create a soft-core mess that is maddeningly fun to watch. This is the part where I would summarize the film’s plot, but it really doesn’t have one. Instead, a few questions: How does vampirism function in the world of this film? Why does one of the great vampire queens perform burlesque on the side? Does director Jesus Franco really think you can have lesbian sex without trimming your fingernails first? You won’t get any closer to these answers by watching the film, but you will get closer to eye-popping ‘70s technicolor, great fashion looks, and some mockumentary-style dramatic zooms.

“The Hunger” (Tony Scott, 1983)
The more straitlaced spiritual daughter of “Vampyros Lesbos,” “The Hunger” follows vampiric lovers Miriam (Catherine Deneuve) and John (David Bowie) as they pursue Dr. Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), a doctor they hope can genetically halt the process of aging. Dr. Roberts becomes intrigued by her cold new acquaintances, especially Miriam, leading to a truly life-changing love scene that all gets kicked off by Delibes, some red wine, and a cuffed white T-shirt. (Doesn’t it always start with a cuffed white T-shirt?) Both a gorgeous art film and a prescient metaphor for the oncoming AIDS crisis, “The Hunger” is an irreplaceable contributor to the horror canon. That viewers also get to see Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve, and David Bowie all on the same screen is an entirely separate blessing.