Standouts include a lesbian-coded vampire thriller and a Mexican folk-horror drama.
In horror movies, to be queer is to be different, “which cinema has continually rewritten as a form of danger,” Peter Marra writes in his new book, “Queer Slashers.”
Dangerous, queer, different: Sounds like my kind of horror movie. Here are some of my favorites.
‘Dracula’s Daughter’ (1936)
Rent or buy it on major platforms.
“She Gives You That WEIRD FEELING!”: That’s how one poster advertised Lambert Hillyer’s lesbian-coded vampire thriller, a follow-up to “Dracula,” a hit for Universal Pictures in 1931. Hillyer’s movie centers on Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), a Dracula progeny who kidnaps a young woman in Transylvania. Holden’s performance is predatory but feminine, menacing but soft-eyed — a powerful example of how lesbian subtext in early Hollywood paved the way for future Sapphic vampires.
‘The Seventh Victim’ (1943)
Rent or buy it on major platforms.
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Source: Movies - nytimes.com
