Queer Horror, Comics, Cabbages.

San Diego Comic-Con was a dang blast - I felt like a Gremlin on Christmas morning! This past weekend, I had the incredible honor of speaking on Prism Comics’ panel about QUEER HORROR moderated by Michael Varrati, one of my favorite queer horror filmmakers in the biz (he wrote/directed the ostentatious meta zombie flick There’s a Zombie Outside, messed up in all the best ways possible). The panel was stacked with a lineup of illustrious - and hilarious - queer horror creators. It made my heart feel so full to sit alongside them and kiki about our favorite subgenre (domgenre, let’s be honest). Some panels I attended at SDCC were lecture-based and some were Q&A-based, but I was most inspired by the ones that felt like organic conversations. I am glad that our Queer Horror panel gravitated toward the “roundtable chat” flavor of things.

Some of the major takeaways from the discussion:

• We want more queer horror that goes hard, doesn’t play safe, and embraces messy and dangerous queer characters. We’re done with polite and palatable representation!

• We don’t mind queer villains. We often adore them! We just don’t need to always see them predictably punished by story’s end.

• We’ll never reach a consensus on thorny movies like Sleepaway Camp, Cruising, Basic Instinct, and The Silence of the Lambs - queer audiences’ reaction to these controversial entries in the queer horror canon have so much to do with the surrounding cultural landscape, not just when these films were made but when and how they’re viewed today. (Personally, I’m a huge fan of all the above-listed movies except for Sleepaway Camp - it doesn’t offend me, it’s just kind of a mid movie that ends right as it’s finally revving up its boat engines!)

• “Queer horror” is kind of redundant, because horror - with its love of confronting monsters and embracing extremity - is inherently queer!

The discussion was lively, and the 50 minutes seemed to fly by as fast as Lestat en route to some post-concert orgy. While we discussed specific titles like I Saw the TV Glow, I had come prepared with tons of queer horror recommendations but didn’t get to share too many of them! Here are some recent queer horror gems I’d hoped to shout out:

• Swallowed

• Stranger by the Lake

• Knife + Heart

• Rift

• Serpent’s Skin

Here are some of my favorite horror movies with queer characters featured amongst diverse ensembles and/or in supporting roles:

• Deep Red

• Possession

• Blacula

• Bodies Bodies Bodies

• Climax

And here are some of my favorite queer-coded horror movie classics:

• Dracula’s Daughter

• The Invisible Man

• The Haunting

• Rope

• Hellraiser (duh!)

The rest of the con was an absolute tornado of activity. I came, I saw, I posed with an Avatar cabbage cart, I bought my weight in comic books and posters and stickers and T-shirts. My favorite T-shirt find was one with the Thirteen Ghosts poster on it - damn, what a dumb, loud, glorious shlockfest with some of cinema’s finest haunted-house production design. (All those glass walls! I doth covet!!) I’m now working my way through the comics I picked up, and my favorite so far is Toxic Summer by Derek Charm, which boasts all the jocular spirit of a smart-n-zippy Nicktoon. With its queer YA horror-adventure vibes built around a winning buddy-comedy act, it filled me with a specific glee I haven’t encountered since cracking open a Goosebumps book at the Scholastic book fair.

I did not even attempt any Hall H activity. But I did get to see panels featuring fan faves like Devon Sawa, Felicia Day, Alexis Denisof, and Michelle Hurd. My favorite panel featured showrunners Katie Dippold (Widow’s Bay), Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks & Recreation), and Damon Lindelof (Lost) discussing the challenges and joys of running some of the most beloved genre/comedy shows of the last two decades. It was mesmerizing to hear Dippold reflect on her sitcom past with Daniels, who was her old Parks & Rec boss, while comparing notes with Lindelof about the anxiety of creating a second season of an out-of-the-box watercooler TV smash hit. (“Good luck!” he offered, followed by knowing laughter from the audience, many of whom I can imagine are still reeling from the… interesting choices… of Lost’s final season.)

Honestly, though, the best part of the weekend was (buzzword incoming!) the community of it all. Sure, SDCC has become a big loud corporate-fueled juggernaut, but amidst all the logos and promo stunts and “activations,” I still found joy in connecting with my fellow queer horror panelists, the independent creators selling their wares in Artist’s Alley, and pop-culture-obsessed pals I had previously connected with online and met for the first time IRL at the con. That’s one of the coolest things about queer folks, horror nerds, and pop culture fandoms: we’ll gladly connect in any chaotic environ - as long as we get to geek out about the things that fill us with passion. After all, to paraphrase a certain pin-riddled extradimensional being, we have such sights to show each other!