It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

by Joe Vallese, various authors, Carmen Maria Machado (Contribution by), Bruce Owens Grimm (Contribution by), Zefyr Lisowski (Contribution by)

Overview

Through the lens of horror—from Halloween to Hereditary—queer and trans writers consider the films that deepened, amplified, and illuminated their own experiences.

Horror movies hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. Common tropes—such as the circumspect and resilient “final girl,” body possession, costumed villains, secret identities, and things that lurk in the closet—spark moments of eerie familiarity and affective connection. Still, viewers often remain tasked with reading themselves into beloved films, seeking out characters and set pieces that speak to, mirror, and parallel the unique ways queerness encounters the world.

It Came from the Closet features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on Jennifer’s Body, Jude Ellison S. Doyle on In My Skin, Addie Tsai on Dead Ringers, and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798212321792
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joe Vallese’s creative and pop culture writing appears in Bomb, VICE, Backstage, PopMatters, Southeast Review, North American Review, Narrative Northeast, and VIA: Voices in Italian-Americana, among others. He is currently clinical associate professor in the Expository Writing Program at New York University, and previously served as site director and faculty for the Bard Prison Initiative. Joe holds an MFA from New York University and MAT and BA degrees from Bard College.

Carmen Maria Machado is the author of several books, inclding Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. In the Dream House was longlisted for the PEN/Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Granta, the New Yorker, NPR, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Nebula Award and a Shirley Jackson Award and was a finalist for the Calvino Prize.

Krystal Hammond is a narrator/writer, cancer survivor, and nonbinary queer human. They grew up in rural North Carolina, nurtured by a steady diet of local Black Beard legends and Civil War-era ghost stories. These nuggets of folktale and myth fostered a lifelong love of storytelling and all the drama that goes with it, resulting in loads of trunk novels and dozens of audiobooks. They have a passion for science fiction, fantasy, and horror, YA and middle grade novels, and romantic comedies.

Graham Halstead, an Earphones Award and Audie Award–winning narrator, is a professionally trained actor and voice artist. As an actor, he has worked internationally in Edinburgh and London, as well as at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. His youthful, easy-flowing voice can be heard on television and radio voicing spots for Airborne and Allegra.

Aida Reluzco is a first-generation queer/LGBTQ+ American of Cuban and Filipino descent as well as a patron and contributor to the creative arts. Having received training in character studies, dialects, animation, and theater, she can usually be found enjoying life with her young family or reading.

Vikas Adam is a classically trained actor with numerous credits in stage, film, commercials, and television, in addition to his over two hundred recorded audiobooks. His narrations have garnered numerous awards and nominations, including AudioFile Earphones Awards, various Best of the Year lists, and the prestigious Audie Award. He was an inaugural inductee into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame.

Born in the United States and based in France, Hope Newhouse comes from a stage background ranging from medieval farce to contemporary drama to children’s theater. Now more often found behind a microphone, her warm and engaging voice has been heard on commercials, video games, e-learning programs, institutional films, and audiobooks.

Daniel Henning is a director, producer, actor, and writer. His work has been seen on HBO, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, MTV, Comedy Central, and on stages throughout Southern California. He won a 2017 Telly Award for "Best Writer" for the film version of his play The Tragedy of JFK (as Told by Wm. Shakespeare). As director and writer, his TV and film work includes MTV's Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory and the film Critic's Choice. He won the NAACP Theatre Award for "Best Director of a Musical" for The Wild Party.

He is the Founding Artistic Director of Hollywood's The Blank Theatre, winning over 200 awards for his productions, including "Best Production," from LA Drama Critic Circle, LA Weekly, Ovations, NAACP, etc. Henning has been inspirational to thousands of young artists through his creation of The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival (the only professional nationwide competition for playwrights aged nine to nineteen). He directed the first play by 2016 Tony Award Winner for "Best Play" Stephen Karam when Stephen was seventeen and a winner in The Blank's Young Playwrights Festival.

Henning has also been an acting teacher and coach and is known for his ability to spot young talent. He has given opportunities to many young actors who later went on to success in Hollywood including Tessa Thompson, Noah Wyle, Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer, and Sarah Michelle Gellar. He coached Sarah Michelle Gellar on her auditions for the landmark TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they shared a close personal friendship, even traveling to Australia together with family for New Year's Eve 2000, where the paparazzi photographed Henning and Gellar dancing. For several months, Henning was rumored to be dating Gellar in the Australian fan magazines (including Big Hit Magazine), which, of course, was inaccurate as Henning was traveling with his husband, Rick Baumgartner.
He is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Circle in the Square Theatre School, and American Conservatory Theatre. His work for LGBTQ Equality includes creating the fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the Black Cat Protests (the first major LGBTQ Demonstration in the US) and directing and hosting the 2017 LA City Council LGBTQ Pride Ceremony. He was recently honored by the CA State Legislature for his work in LGBTQ Equality and nurturing the future of the Arts.

He has also narrated dozens of audiobooks, both nonfiction and fiction.

Ron Butler is a Los Angeles–based actor, Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator, and voice artist with over a hundred film and television credits. Most kids will recognize him from the three seasons he spent on Nickelodeon’s True Jackson, VP. He works regularly as a commercial and animation voice-over artist and has voiced a wide variety of audiobooks. He is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company and an Independent Filmmaker Project Award winner for his work in the HBO film Everyday People.

Lindsey Dorcus is a SOVAS and IAA Award-winning audiobook narrator and classically trained actor. She has narrated over fifty titles for publishers like Penguin Random House, Disney Hyperion, Audible Studios, Scribd, and others. After receiving her BA in theater from Northwestern University, she worked as a theater artist and teacher in Chicago for over ten years, before shifting her focus to audiobooks. She especially loves narrating YA, science fiction/fantasy, and stories with LGBTQ+ themes.

Joel Froomkin is a UK transplant, having grown up with American parents in a British commonwealth. He is often cast for his unique ability to deliver native, authentic combinations of both American and British sounds. His wit and comedic timing also appeal to producers. He has developed a strong body of work for young audience, historical, fantasy, new-adult, romance, and m/m fiction.

Aven Shore is an audiobook narrator who is in love with the magical alchemy of storytelling. A dual United States/Canada citizen, she has a passion for sustainable living; feminist, gender, and sexuality issues; cognitive science and productivity; and trauma/cult memoirs. She currently resides in an off-grid tiny house in rural Canada.

Mike Cooper is a talented producer and voiceover artist who has served in a variety of roles at BBC, ITV, and BSkyB. With over twenty years of media experience, he works out of his home studio in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

Mark Sanderlin is a talented voiceover artist who has worked on numerous audiobook projects.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

PART I: AN EXCELLENT DAY FOR AN EXORCISM

“A Demon-Girl’s Guide to Life” by S. Trimble (on The Exorcist)

“Both Ways” by Carmen Maria Machado (on Jennifer’s Body)

“My Hand on the Glass” by Bruce Owens Grimm (on Hereditary)

“The Girl, The Well, The Ring” by Zefyr Lisowski (on The Ring and Pet Sematary)

“Imprint” by Joe Vallese (on Grace)

PART II: MONSTER MASH

“Indescribable” by Carrow Narby (on The Blob)

“A Working Definition of the Monstrous” by Ryan Dzelzkalns (on Godzilla)

“The Wolf in the Room” by Prince Shakur (on Good Manners)

“Three Men on a Boat” by Jen Corrigan (on Jaws)

“The Wolf Man’s Daughter” by Tosha R. Taylor (on The Wolf Man)

PART III: FATAL ATTRACTIONS

“Twin/Skin” by Addie Tsai (on Dead Ringers)

“Loving Annie Hayworth” by Laura Maw (on The Birds)

“The Same Kind of Monster” by Jonathan Robbins Leon (on The Leech Woman)

“Centered and Seen” by Sumiko Saulson (on Candyman) 

“Blood, Actually” by Grant Sutton (on Friday the 13th, part II)

PART IV: WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T FALL ASLEEP

“The Trail of His Flames” by Tucker Lieberman (on The Nightmare on Elm Street) 

“The Me in the Screen” by Steffan Triplett  (on Us)

“Sight Unseen” by Spencer Williams (on The Blair Witch Project)

“Bad Hombre” by Sarah Fonseca (on Eres tú, papa?)

“Black Body Snatchers” by Samuel Autman (on Get Out)

PART V: FINAL CUTS

“Long Nights in the Dark” by Richard Scott Larson (on Halloween)

“On Beauty and Necrosis” by Sachiko Ragosta (on Eyes Without a Face)

“Good Guys, Dolls” by Will Stockton (on Child’s Play)

“The Healed Body” by Jude Ellison S. Doyle (on In My Skin)

“Notes on Sleepaway Camp” by Viet Dinh (on Sleepaway Camp)

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/25/2022

Queer writers recall the horror films that touched their lives in this stellar anthology. Noting in the introduction a common “deep queer affinity” for horror, NYU writing professor Vallese lays out the conundrum at the center of the collection: “How can we find such camaraderie in the very thing that so often slights us?” There’s not a weak piece in the pack; among the standouts is “Both Ways,” in which Carmen Maria Machado pushes back against accusations of queerbaiting in the 2009 flick Jennifer’s Body, detecting in them a judgment against fluid bisexuality. “There is such little grace given to the perfect messiness of desire,” she writes. In “Three Men on a Boat,” Jen Corrigan makes a convincing case for Jaws as a queer film (“Is there really anything gayer than three men on a boat?”), and in “The Girl, the Well, the Ring,” Zefyr Lisowski writes searingly about The Ring and Pet Sematary, both of which present the idea that “the disabled were to be feared”: “These movies hurt me and I kept watching them.... They were all I had.” Taken together, the pieces are a brilliant display of expert criticism, wry humor, and original thinking. This is full of surprises. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

A brilliant display of expert criticism, wry humor, and original thinking. This is full of surprises.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A critical text on the intersections of film, queer studies, and pop culture that will appeal to both academic and public-library audiences.” —Booklist, starred review

“Wonderful off-road pieces that twist and turn with skeletal precision.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“An essential look at how spooky movies so often offer solace through subversiveness.” —Electric Literature 

“Unique and insightful.” —The Daily Dead

“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.” —Gothamist 

“An impressively diverse array of queer voices contributes their opinions on how and why particular horror movies made a personal and indelible impression on them.” —The Bay Area Reporter 

“In this wonderful and only somewhat disturbing book (the subject is horror, after all), queer and trans writers explore the horror films that have shaped them and most reflected their own experiences. Horror, the anthology argues, while often full of misogyny and anti-trans, homophobic tropes, is also uniquely subversive and queer.” —Shondaland

“This book is perfect for exploring the queerness of horror through a kaleidoscopic lens.” —them.

“Weaving elegantly between passages on theory to first sexual encounters and wrenching experiences with a surrogate, the essays take surprising turns and don't look for easy answers.” —BOMB Magazine

“Killers, monsters, and demons are frequently metaphors for what we don’t understand about our own humanity; they’re an attempt to externalize the “monstrousness” so many of us suppress within ourselves — or that others project onto unchangeable aspects of who we are… I finished [the anthology] with a new appreciation for the horror genre.” —Autostraddle

“A fantastic anthology of writing about horror, all from deliciously queer perspectives.” —Ms. Magazine

“A diverse collection of thoughtful and incisive essays that show that queerness and horror are natural (or occasionally, supernatural) bedfellows.” —Ghouls Magazine

“Revolutionary work.” —Monster Camp

“These essays are tender and funny, vulnerable and courageous.” —The Southern Bookseller Review

“There’s a moment in this book that’ll resonate with every single reader: undead, queer, or otherwise.” —Fangoria

“What does it mean to be haunted? To be enamored with the ghastly, with the monstrous, with the wrong? How do we find ourselves, as queer people, as disabled people, within a world of monsters? It Came from the Closet addresses these issues and more—beautifully and graphically and with a love of horror from all of the contributors.” —What Is Much?

"Why do queers love horror? What a gift to read writers I love and admire offer so many different answers. It Came From the Closet is at times beautiful, at times funny, at times gorgeously weird and baroque, and always as off-kilter brilliant as the genre, and queerness, itself. Horror teaches us about ourselves in all our thrilling extremes. Plus it’s just plain fun. Both of which are true of this deeply necessary collection." —Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir

"What is the monstrous and what does it mean to us? It Came from the Closet collects twenty-five takes on twenty-five horror films that make us cringe, crack up, turn away and turn back again—each piece lavishly queer in its intelligence, vulnerability, and wit.” —Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World

"Finally: a smart and serious yet playful book that interrogates the complex queerness of horror and the films that make a horror of queerness. These clear, insightful, and deeply personal essays reveal the real reasons why we've all been so scared." —Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men

"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. This is a must-read for horror fans wanting to find connection and community in challenging the heteronormative and patriarchal narratives that can still dominate the genre." —Jessica Parant, cocreator of Spinsters of Horror

"As someone who grew up with posters of Freddy Krueger and Frank N. Furter over my bed, It Came from the Closet is the perfect gay bible for me. The navigations and dissections of some of my favorite slashers through various queer lenses are akin to any great horror film: mind-blowing, eye-popping, and heart-ripping. This book will see you and destroy you!" —Drew Droege, a.k.a. "Chloe," drag queen and writer

From the Publisher

10/01/2022

Horror is a genre that has been reviled by the larger art scene since its inception, although it has received more intellectual interest in recent years. Decades of being told they were the real monsters by people who are homophobic and/or transphobic, has uniquely situated queer people to discuss its indelible effect on the culture. Edited by Vallese (expository writing, NYU; What's Your Exit?), this book features essays by 26 authors who each reflect on a classic or contemporary horror film and discuss its relation to their lives as LGBTQIA+ individuals. This translates into deep dives, often purposefully grotesque, into gender and sexuality that many readers will be able to relate to. It is less an anthology about queerness in horror movies than it is an exploration of the queer people who watch these movies and reinterpret them. Each section is also paired with a collage of images from the films at hand, paying homage to vintage horror movie posters. VERDICT An excellent purchase for any film or queer studies collection.—Halie Kerns

Library Journal

Queer and trans writers share the indelible impact that horror films had on their lives as LGBTQ+ youth and adults. This vibrant anthology of new and previously published essays is performed by talented narrators. Incisive reflections connect teen slashers, demonic possession, creature features, body horror, and more to the authors’ experiences with fractured relationships, unrequited love, disability and illness, fertility and parenting, and coming out. Graham Halstead’s porous performance illuminates hope and grief in Vallese’s “Imprint.” André Santana's emotionally attuned narration complements the complex dynamic of twin siblings explored by author Addie Tsai in “Dead Ringers.” This compelling production, with notable performances by Aida Reluzco, Em Grosland, and Ron Butler, will deepen listeners’ engagement with the horror genre. J.R.T. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2022 - AudioFile