Scream queen

The flick Hellbent, now making the rounds (though I can as yet see no Canadian dates), bills itself as "The first ever GAY Slasher film!!!"

Sure, okay. If you want to ignore the entire fucking history of horror cinema. Duh.

Horror movie equals gay.

The 1921 German "Nosferatu" was the world's first vampyre (I love the y!) movie, and it was gay gay gay, starting with director F.W. Murnau's homosexuality.

"Nosferatu" was completely stolen from the veddy British Bram Stoker's "Dracula," and the fang-meister's widow successfully sued to have Nossy destroyed. Thankfully, a few prints survived (though some scenes in the restored version I watched were barely there).

It's a silent, of course, but the DVD I rented included a scene-by-scene interpretation. The film's main human character is the real estate agent Hutter. And we first see his wife, Ellen, teasing a cat and then doing needlework which, the voice-over advises, tells us that she is sexually frustrated. (This I would not have figured out on my own, but having heard the thesis, I refrained from playing with the cats for the rest of evening, so as not to hurt my sweetie's feelings.)

We are told that the endlessly mugging Hutter has obviously refused to consummate the relationship, and he then runs off on a long and arduous trip to sell a deserted German mansion to "Count Orlock" (The Bad Guy).

"The film conceals allusions to homosexuality," reads this analysis, too. "Hutter leaves his wife for the Count and the dinner scene at the chateau resembles a seduction scene where the young man succumbs fairly easily. The vampire's bite can also be considered as a forbidden kiss between two men." I'll say. Vavoom.

In general, it sez here, "The monsters of cinema, indeed of popular culture in general, are troubled, and troubling, outsiders, their sexuality thwarted or altered, sometimes seductive and suave, other times repulsive and terrifying.... They can easily be read as doubles for societal views of homosexuals as predatory, amoral, perverse, possessed of secret supernatural powers, capable of -- and very interested in -- destroying 'normal life' and toppling such vulnerable institutions as the nuclear family, the church, capitalism, the heterosexual paradigm, or a combination thereof.

But a different film nut says Nosferatu is one of the few vampyre flicks that breaks the mold: "While this association [of the vampire with homosexuality] pervaded much of the Victorian era, by the beginning of the twentieth century, the sexual vampire gave way to a more horrific image, and the first vampire films, F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu and Tod Browning's London After Midnight (1925), reflect this trend. Early vampire cinema is remarkably heterosexist, belying the literary tradition that spawned it."

Either way, the horror genre is infused with gayness, though perhaps not all the time.

There's no doubt, by the way, that "Nosferatu" director Murnau was himself a big ole homo. "In Berlin, Murnau moved in artistic circles where homosexuality was accepted as a matter of course. In Hollywood, however, Murnau's homosexuality was the cause of much gossip, including the infamous rumor that his death on March 11, 1931 in an automobile accident was precipitated by his fellating his chauffeur while the latter was driving," it sez here. "While the scandalous rumors surrounding Murnau's death resulted in the appearance of only a handful of mourners at his funeral, one of those was Greta Garbo. She requested that a death mask be made, which she kept on her desk throughout her life."

Repetition is a time-honoured literary tactic, so again: horror flix equal gay gay gay. Tortured, angst-ridden monsters were homos just looking for acceptance -- or orgasm. So sure, its makers can consider "Hellbent" to be the first gay movie where actual out gay people are tortured and angst-ridden and slashed at, but they're darned proud and out gay people -- and, I guess, so very over the need to "destroy 'normal life' and topple such vulnerable institutions as the nuclear family, the church, capitalism, the heterosexual paradigm, or a combination thereof."