Editorials
‘American Horror Story’: A Very Gay Showcase
American Horror Story has been a reliable source of outrageous horror for over a decade. Creator Ryan Murphy struck gold in 2011 with season 1, retroactively titled Murder House, and blew the lid off anthology TV with its entirely different follow-up season, Asylum. This put the FX network on the map during a golden age of television that occurred at a time before the influx of eight thousand streaming apps oversaturated our screens and bank accounts. And while Murphy has had a slate of projects that were either overtly queer (Glee) or queer-coded (Popular, Nip/Tuck), AHS isn’t technically a “gay” series. Despite this, Murphy and his team have utilized the show’s platform to give the community a voice, whether by hiring out gay actors as significant players or by including queer characters and storylines on a show that isn’t necessarily about such. For something that was a big part of the cultural zeitgeist during its earlier years, it was pretty noteworthy to showcase members of the LGBTQ+ community and tell their stories in such a bold way. With June being Pride Month, we at Horror Press thought it a suitable time to pay tribute to what a very gay showcase American Horror Story has been all these years, so let’s go ahead and take a peek behind the rainbow curtain.
From its inception, AHS made strides in the industry by featuring multiple out actors like Sarah Paulson, Zachary Quinto, and Dennis O’Hare in prominent roles. We’re all aware of how fearful Hollywood is of out and proud actors because, after all, how could a gay person possibly play straight, or why would straight viewers care to watch people they have no chance at bedding? Murphy’s casting gave the one-finger salute to this ignorant train of thought. Over time, the show’s flamboyance and queer actor count progressed, incorporating the likes of Billy Porter, Matt Bomer, BD Wong, and Cody Fern into the fold. Of course, most of these actors had careers in their own right before the show, but including so many of them in a single series – and often playing queer characters – was simply unheard of. It should be acknowledged that there was an admittedly slow start regarding the casting of POC actors, with the introduction of Angela Bassett and Gabourey Sidibe to the series in season 3 being the only major POC actors until season 6. Still, I suppose we can never quite have it all…
Yet while the show’s cast was revelatory for the time, its fictional queerness had more humble beginnings. Later seasons could sometimes be so in your face with their excess and eleganza you’d think you were at a Pride parade, but the OG, Murder House, was much more subtle. Jessica Lange’s tour-de-force performance as insidiously nosy neighbor Constance Langdon fed the gays who worship at the altar of powerful women acting their asses off. While not explicitly gay, a presence like Lange’s, along with Connie Britton’s gorgeous mane and the framing of Dylan McDermott as an object of sexual desire (daddy, indeed), certainly supported the gay agenda.
This first season also includes a ghostly gay couple at the genesis of Rubber Man, a BDSM fetish suit that immediately became one of the series’ most iconic and recognizable frights. Depicting a realistically rocky relationship that met a violent and tragic end – as most things on AHS do – Chad and Patrick’s struggles were no different from those of the Harmon family at the center of the season’s drama. Rather than focusing on their relationship as “the other” to be juxtaposed with the show’s straight counterparts, Murphy and his writers integrated this gay couple seamlessly into the action, and sometimes that’s just as welcome as highlighting the differences in queer stories.
Asylum veered in the other direction by using the discovery of protagonist Lana Winters’ lesbian relationship as a MacGuffin to set her journey and the plot itself into motion. Set in the good ol’ days of 1964, Lana is forcefully admitted to the asylum under the guise of curing her “mental illness” of homosexuality. Unfortunately, horrific things like this did and still do occur in our world, and such a strong and fully realized queer character as Lana must be celebrated. Paulson’s performance sees her going head-to-head with the legendary Sister Jude. Their rivalry is one for the books, providing a feminine psychological intensity not seen since Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? The series’ darkest season even imitates some of Baby Jane’s campiness, giving us a brief reprieve via the frantic and silly Name Game sequence.
It’s not all dark and full of terrors on AHS, though, and seasons Coven, Hotel, and Apocalypse bring a delightfully mean-spirited sense of frivolity to the series. As previously mentioned, the gays love a feminal force of nature, and Coven provides us with an entire class of them. A gay fantasy of the highest praise, season 3 finds us at Miss Robichaux’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies or Hogwarts for bad bitches and the queers who love them. A Real Housewives of Salem-style battle for the literal supremacy ensues, and to borrow a meme-worthy phrase from scandalous Housewife Erika Jayne; it’s going to give the gays everything they want. The library is open, and these women aren’t holding back.
Coven is stacked, blessing us with a pantheon of devilish witches to root for. We have Misty Day (Lily Rabe), the lovably naive white witch with a penchant for Stevie Nicks; an extended cameo and performances (yes, plural) by superstar Stevie herself; venomous celebrity Madison Montgomery, embodied frightfully well by Emma Roberts in a way she emulates twice more in Scream Queens and Scream 4; Frances Conroy as every gay’s favorite quirky aunt, Myrtle Snow; and Kathy-friggen-Bates as a resurrected slave owner hilariously tormented for her sins by Gabourey Sidibe’s Queenie. Coven’s true indulgence, however, is Angela Bassett as the queen mother of voodoo Marie Laveau and her centuries-long feud with the witches. This finds her at odds with reigning Supreme, Fiona Goode (once again, Miss Jessica Lange). Eventually, the adversaries form a truce to team up and dismantle the witch-hunting patriarchy. Add to all of this a witch whose power is death upon any man she sleeps with, and it’s no wonder the season’s first episode is titled “Bitchcraft”.
Coven is later succeeded by season 8’s Apocalypse, an Avengers: Endgame level crossover event that finds the witches of Miss Robichaux’s fighting the supernaturally aged antichrist Michael Langdon, who was birthed during the climax of Murder House. Newcomer Cody Fern brings big pansexual energy to the role, and while much of the season is fan service, Murphy – once again – gives the gays everything they want.
These witches paved the way for what would become the series’ signature sense of wicked fun, but it’s season 5’s Hotel that brought the stuff of gay legend to our screens in the form of LADY GAGA as The Countess. Like most gays, I’ll never forget where I was when I learned she would be starring in the season, and while there was some apprehension concerning her acting chops (this was before her Oscar nomination), I think I can speak for the community when I say we were gagged. Thus, Lady Gaga ushered in what I consider to be the queerest season of television that isn’t inherently about gay culture. With high fashion and old school elegance, gore galore, a frequently nude Matt Bomer and Lady Gaga, exquisite cinematography, and a plot not unlike a soap opera set in Hell, Hotel plays out like a nightmare version of a star-studded perfume ad. It doesn’t all make sense, but really, who cares?
Jessica Lange’s spirit is also not forgotten, and as it’s the first season without her on the cast, Gaga & Co. do their damnedest to bring the drama in her honor. With one icon gone, two must become one, and The Countess is joined by former flame Ramona Royale – hello again, Angela! Their romance is beautifully presented as an elevator tableau, tracking its ups and downs through the decades as they come and go from the hotel’s lift. It’s a bittersweet sequence that portrays the demise of a couple with nuance and serves us haute couture to boot.
The character of Liz Taylor, played by Dennis O’Hare, is also one to look out for when it comes to nuance. As the aging transgender bartender of the Hotel Cortez, Liz takes in others’ pain while silently suffering in the shadows. O’Hare brings tragedy and levity to the screen in equal measure, and Murphy has yet to surpass Liz Taylor’s depth when it comes to writing queer characters for AHS. One scene, in particular, finds Liz coming face to face with her adult son from a life she has long since left behind. Something of a precursor to what Murphy would eventually do with Pose, the heartbreaking truth behind stories like this is essential queer storytelling.
Much more can be said about the very gay showcase that is American Horror Story. There is the homoerotic slasher throwback season 1984 that also debuts Angelica Ross as the series’ first black trans actor, Double Feature going full inclusivity with the bizarre pregnancies of gay males via alien experimentation, and underpinnings of gay panic seen through characters like the extremely possessed and sexually charged Sister Mary Eunice in Asylum and scantily clad serial killer Dandy Mott in Freakshow. And I haven’t even mentioned Jessica Lange performing David Bowie and Lana Del Rey or the queer warlocks of Apocalypse! Wow, this show is really gay, huh? In all seriousness, AHS has had its highs and lows of quality and critical acclaim, but its unapologetic and unabashed queerness deserves to be commended. On behalf of myself, Horror Press, and the month of June, we thank you American Horror Story for bringing queerness, warts and all, to the main stage. BALENCIAGA!!!
The United States spent most of this year celebrating its 250th anniversary. There have been parades, fireworks, and endless reminders of what the nation wants us to think are its founding ideals. Yet anniversaries are as much about what we choose to remember as they are about what we choose to forget. There is another anniversary this year. Five years ago this month, Candyman was released. The fact that both that film and America are sharing an anniversary this year may have been an accident, but that makes it no less significant.
Released amid another national reckoning over race, Nia DaCosta’s film asks a question that every celebration of America ought to confront: Is it possible to commemorate this nation without fully reckoning with the violence woven into its history? More than a sequel to a horror classic, Candyman is a meditation on the ghosts that haunt America because it has never fully reckoned with the past that created them.
How the Original Candyman Confronted America’s Racial History
The original Candyman understood this. Released in 1992 and set in the almost post-apocalyptic urban decay that was Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, Bernard Rose’s film arrived only months after the L.A. Race Riots, a moment when this country was coming to terms with the way the country’s relationship with Black folks was shaped by decades of segregation and racism.
Most audiences saw a supernatural slasher about a hook-handed killer summoned by saying his name five times into a mirror. But beneath the horror was a far more unsettling story. Candyman was about the lingering consequences of America’s racial history and the way white America has sometimes turned Black suffering into myth instead of confronting the systems that produced it.
The film’s true horror was never simply Candyman. It was the realization that monsters can be born from histories a nation refuses to face. That is exactly where the 2021 film expands the original’s vision.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman Turns One Ghost Into Many
Bernard Rose’s Candyman explored the legacy of a single act of racist terror. Nia DaCosta’s film argues that the tragedy wasn’t confined to Daniel Robitaille, the man who became the monster. The 2021 film posits that Candyman is not one man but many.
Daniel Robitaille was lynched for loving a white woman. Sherman Fields takes on the mantle of the supernatural slasher because he was beaten to death by police after being falsely accused of harming a child. Anthony McCoy ultimately becomes part of the same legend. Their stories span generations, but they are connected by a nation that repeatedly produces the same injustice under different names at different points in history. The genius of the sequel is that it transforms Candyman from an individual ghost into a symbol of America’s recurring racial violence.
Candyman Shows How History Repeats Itself
History, the film suggests, is not something that happened once. It is something that keeps happening. That is why Candyman is one of my favorite films to teach in my Film and Philosophy course.
Students walk into class expecting a horror movie. They leave wrestling with questions about history, memory, and justice. We spend little time talking about jump scares or gore. (Because, let’s be honest, there is not much of that in the film.) Instead, we ask why some histories become legends while others are forgotten, what societies owe their victims, and whether a nation can ever move forward without honestly confronting the violence that shaped it.
The Horror of Remembering What America Wants to Forget
A good horror film reveals what we fear. What makes Candyman great is how it reveals what we would rather not remember. That is what haunted me the first time I saw it, long after the credits had rolled.
Five years after its release, Candyman remains one of the most unsettling movies in recent years because the history it confronts is not safely behind us. The original film understood that America’s racial violence could not simply be buried, while the 2021 film showed how easily that violence can be reproduced across generations.
Its Unquestionable Legacy in Horror
As America celebrates 250 years, Candyman reminds us that commemorating the nation’s founding requires remembering all this country’s history, including the parts that make the celebration uncomfortable.
We cannot exorcise a ghost by refusing to acknowledge why it exists. Perhaps that is the film’s most important lesson. The past does not haunt us because we remember it. It haunts us because we don’t.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
