Editorials
Horror, Men, Queer Love, and Cars: ‘The Hitcher’ & ‘Christine’
When thinking about the historical and traditional symbols of heteronormative male culture, two main things come to mind; women and cars. Cars are such an essential part of this identity that an entire franchise is dedicated to the power of cars. So utilizing cars, and the culture around them, to tell stories about queer identity and sexuality is fruitful territory. Christine (1983) and The Hitcher (1986) take on these ideas but utilize them differently. Christine is a movie about a killer car that entices a nerdy boy desperate to be a man, while The Hitcher is about a man who accidentally picks up a killer that he becomes inexplicably attached to. Ultimately the two movies give our main characters two options; repress their identity or accept their transformation. In one tale, we see how this struggle drives two best friends apart, and the other brings two strangers together. Yet both highlight how our focus on traditional societal values and binary identity can cause immense harm, destruction, and death.
Queer Moments in Car Culture
While car culture is traditionally seen as a part of heterosexual male culture, these two movies have many queer moments specifically in and around the car. Both movies start with sexually charged scenes between the characters as they enter the car. In Christine, Dennis picks Arnie up to go to school. Immediately the conversation turns sexual as they talk about blowjobs which prompts Dennis to talk about how they need to “get Arnie laid”. Eventually, Dennis comments that Arnie “can count your life savings between your legs”. Insinuating that Dennis knows that Arnie has a big dick. In The Hitcher, Jim picks up John, making the excuse that he needs someone to keep him awake during his long drive. The first thing he says to John is, “My mother told me never to do this”. The time spent on the ride is filled with awkward first glances and touching. Eventually, someone stops them on the road, gets the vibe that they are a couple, and says, “Get going sweethearts”. These two first encounters show us how a car is a place where these men can be alone with each other. And the atmosphere often feels like an awkward first sexual encounter or a nervous first date. They offer a secluded location where the outside world does not influence these characters.
Symbolism of Cars in Christine and The Hitcher
Cars are used in other ways as well. By all accounts, Christine is meant to be looked at like a woman. The car is frequently sexualized by the camera. When she’s destroyed by Arnie’s bullies, it’s filmed like a rape scene. And there is the iconic “show me” scene in which she repairs herself in front of Arnie. It’s shot like a seduction scene. In The Hitcher, cars are not given a personality, but they are a tool. John rear-ends Jim, which has clear sexual allusions. They’re used as weapons and home to deviant behavior like the multiple murders that John commits. It is the mode in which the two can stalk one another. John uses cars as a weapon to destroy the heteronormative world, killing families, cops, and young girls. And it feels like a big coincidence that both movies have a scene with a flaming car, which in and of itself is clearly a queer implication.
When Jim and John are not in cars, they are frequently framed coming in and out of doorways, gates, and car doors. Jim is also frequently in gas stations, diners, and bathrooms. Several times we see Jim sexualized in the bathroom spaces. We see him constantly changing into “clean” clothes, and even showering. He tries to be clean, but John continuously brings him back into the dirt, filth, and everything deviant. Jim even dreams about John, his conscious and subconscious, wholly focused on this one man. As the movie goes on, they begin framing Jim the same way they frame John, a subtle nod to the transformation he is going through. By the end of the movie, when he is given the opportunity to move on and leave behind the events he has faced, he actively chooses to turn around to find John and become the deviant killer John wanted him to be. They constantly compare their actions up until the end, when they are truly aligned. Where Arnie has an unspoken supernatural connection with Christine, Jim has a similar connection with John. These forces can sense each other.
Barriers to Connection in Christine
In Christine, Arnie and Dennis are always positioned with something or someone in between them; girls, parents, tables, and even a case of beer. It alludes to how the two are constantly separated by status, societal pressure, and Christine. Arnie’s transformation aligns with a girl in a teenage comedy where the nerd takes off her glasses and becomes hot. There are also moments in The Hitcher when John and Jim are separated in a similar way, but as they consistently show us, all you have to do is reach across the table or divide to get to each other. This is evident especially in the scene at the diner when Jim pulls a gun at John, and John moves his finger closer and closer to the barrel. In The Hitcher, they constantly find ways to touch and be physical with each other. Whether by fondling each other with weapons, or John holding Jim’s face tenderly. They even swap saliva, licking or spitting on each other at different times. These strangers have an immediate physical connection, one that Arnie and Dennis would probably envy. Yet they cannot find it in themselves to act on or entertain these ideas. Ultimately Arnie and Dennis are doomed because they cannot take that next step, they don’t try to reach for each other.
There are also women in the movies that stand between the men. Both women are androgynous or masculine in style and appearance. Even their names are masculine (Leigh and Nash). Leigh has strong, traditionally handsome features like her dramatic jawline. She usually wears pants and tops with little to no hint of cleavage. This is a stark difference from Roseanne, who has a crush on Dennis but cannot get his attention. She is nerdy and has a similar stoic presence as Dennis. In the final scene, she is styled like Arnie and has a similar stoic personality to Dennis. She is a combination of the two, which makes her a perfect cipher for them. If they cannot be with each other, they can be with a woman that reminds them of each other. She is also part of the status symbol Arnie needs to be seen as a “man”. He has the car, the makeover, and the hot new girl, so he does not feel emasculated for the first time in his life. In the movie’s final scenes, Leigh and Dennis are immediately very physical, in a way he never could be with Arnie. So when Arnie is gone, she can fill the void.
Nash as a Symbol of Heteronormativity in The Hitcher
Nash has a short bob haircut, is very casual, and dresses in jeans and t-shirts (also styled similarly to the men). In The Hitcher, John sees Nash as a potential lifeline for Jim. She is the only person that believes he is not a killer. She represents a return to a heteronormative life for Jim. In John’s eyes, she needs to be destroyed. John acts like a jealous lover when confronting Jim about her. Nash never gets the opportunity to understand what is going on. She asks Jim, “Why didn’t he kill us?” and “Why did you pick him up?”. But Jim is never able to answer. He wants to believe that he is another victim or that he picked John up out of kindness, but the truth is perhaps more complicated. They have an unexplainable connection to the outside.
It is fair to question if John is a real live person or a representation of the “deviant queer” lifestyle that Jim is seduced by. John has no record, and the police cannot find any information on him. Jim is framed for John’s crimes because he is always at the same place the crimes happen. He even has evidence on him. So it all begs the question, are these just two strangers who are inexplicably drawn to each other, or does the idea of deviance entice Jim, and John is simply a part of him that he cannot suppress? It’s all centered in a desolate area tied to hitching and truck stops, and queer culture is essential to these ideas. Even the name John brings to mind the idea of “a John” like a client of a sex worker. It’s steeped in ideas in and around historically “deviant” sexual culture. Christine and John are strong forces influencing others, one towards repression and one towards acceptance.
Repression and Masculinity in Christine
Christine is centered around repression and masculinity. Arnie is emasculated because he is a nerdy gawky kid. He is the target of bullies. Even Dennis unintentionally emasculates him by being at Arnie’s side, constantly fighting his battles. If Arnie has romantic feelings for Dennis, it is covered by his resentment of Dennis. On the other hand, Dennis does this out of love. He wants the two to be close and gets visibly emotional as Arnie drifts further away from him. He is even jealous of Christine as soon as Arnie sees her. Dennis can be vulnerable and emotional with Arnie, but as Arnie transforms into more of a heteronormative man, he pushes their emotional connection aside. Much of it is distilled in the last conversation the two have when Arnie brings up the idea of love:
Let me tell you a little something about love, Dennis. It has a voracious appetite. It eats everything. Friendship. Family. It kills me how much it eats. But I’ll tell you something else. You feed it right, and it can be beautiful, and that’s what we have. You know, when someone believes in you, man, you can do anything, any fucking thing in the entire universe. And when you believe right back in that someone, watch out world, because nobody can stop you then, nobody! Ever!
Dennis wants this monologue to be about him, fears it is about Leigh, and finds out it is actually about Christine. Arnie always thought Dennis stuck around out of pity because of his internalized self-hatred. Yet these complex emotions are too much for these high school boys to unpack. So Arnie gets consumed by repressive gender norms and traditional values.
Repression vs. Acceptance
They both have a similar “kill your queers” ending. Unsurprising, although still too present in mainstream media. But the stories have subtle differences in portraying the last men standing. In Christine, Arnie is killed, and Dennis is welcomed back into the heteronormative fold. While in The Hitcher, Jim is no longer the sweet innocent boy he was at the beginning. He becomes the violent hard man John wanted. Dennis becomes normal, and Jim is a deviant, now living in the queer-coded world. Whether looked at as cautionary tales or happy endings, it is clear that ideas around identity and sexuality permeate these movies. Making them interesting thought pieces on socialization and how heteronormative and toxic masculinity culture have made “being yourself” difficult and often painful. Whether choosing to repress or accept, you might end up taking a ride in a flaming car.
My first feature film, Death Drop Gorgeous, was often described as its own disturbed piece of queer cult cinema due to its over-the-top camp, practical special effects, and radical nature. As a film inspired by John Waters, we wore this descriptor as a badge of honor. Over the years, it has gained a small fanbase and occasionally pops up on lists of overlooked queer horror flicks around Pride month and Halloween.
The Streaming Era and the Myth of Monoculture
My co-director of our drag queen slasher sent me a status update, ostensibly to rile up the group chat. A former programmer of a major LGBTQ+ film festival (I swear, this detail is simply a coincidence and not an extension of my last article) declared that in our modern era, “cult classic” status is “untenable,” and that monoculture no longer exists. Thus, cult classics can no longer counter-culture the mono. The abundance of streaming services, he said, allows for specific curation to one’s tastes and the content they seek. He also asserted that media today that is designed to be a cult classic, feels soulless and vapid.
Shots fired!
Can Cult Cinema Exist Without Monoculture?
We had a lengthy discussion as collaborators about these points. Is there no monoculture to rally against? Are there no codes and standards to break and deviate from? Are there no transgressions left to undertake? Do streaming services fully encompass everyone’s tastes? Maybe I am biased. Maybe my debut feature is soulless and vapid!
I’ve been considering the landscape. True, there are so many options at our streaming fingertips, how could we experience a monoculture? But to think a cult classic only exists as counter-culture, or solely as a rally against the norm, is to have a narrow understanding of what cult cinema is and how it gains its status. The cult classic is not dead. It still rises from its grave and walks amongst the living.
What Defines a Cult Classic? And Who Cares About Cult Cinema?
The term “cult classic” generally refers to media – often movies, but sometimes television shows or books – that upon its debut, was unsuccessful or undervalued, but over time developed a devout fanbase that enjoys it, either ironically or sincerely. The media is often niche and low budget, and sometimes progressive for the cultural moment in which it was released.
Some well-known cult films include The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Showgirls (1995), Re-Animator (1985), Jennifer’s Body (2009), and my personal favorite, Heathers (1989). Quoting dialogue, midnight showings, and fans developing ritualistic traditions around the movie are often other ways films receive cult status (think The Rocky Horror Picture Show).
Cult Cinema as Queer Refuge and Rebellion
Celebration of cult classics has long been a way for cinephiles and casual viewers alike to push against the rigid standards of what film critics deem “cinema.” These films can be immoral, depraved, or simply entertaining in ways that counter mainstream conventions. Cult classics have often been significant for underrepresented communities seeking comfort or reflection. Endless amounts of explicitly queer cinema were lambasted by critics of their time. The Doom Generation (1995) by Gregg Araki and John Waters’ Pink Flamingos (1972) were both famously given zero stars by Roger Ebert. Now both can be viewed on the Criterion Channel, and both directors are considered pioneers of gay cinema.
Cult films are often low-budget, providing a sense of belonging for viewers, and are sometimes seen as guilty pleasures. Cult cinema was, and continues to be, particularly important for queer folks in finding community.
But can there be a new Waters or Araki in this current landscape?
What becomes clear when looking at these examples is that cult status rarely forms in a vacuum. It emerges from a combination of cultural neglect, community need, and the slow bloom of recognition. Even in their time, cult films thrived because they filled a void, often one left by mainstream films’ lack of imagination or refusal to engage marginalized perspectives. If anything, today’s fractured media landscape creates even more of those voids, and therefore more opportunities for unexpected or outsider works to grab hold of their own fiercely loyal audiences.
The Death of Monoculture and the Rise of Streaming
We do not all experience culture the same way. With the freedom of personalization and algorithmic curation, not just in film but in music and television, there are fewer shared mass cultural moments we all gather around to discuss. The ones that do occur (think Barbenheimer) may always pale in comparison to the cultural dominance of moments that occurred before the social media boom. We might never again experience the mass hysteria of, say, Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
For example, our most successful musician today is listened to primarily by her fanbase. We can skip her songs and avoid her albums even if they are suggested on our streaming platforms, no matter how many weeks she’s been at number one.
Was Monoculture Ever Real?
But did we ever experience culture the same? Some argue that the idea of monoculture is a myth. Steve Hayden writes:
“Our monoculture was an illusion created by a flawed, closed-circuit system; even though we ought to know better, we’re still buying into that illusion, because we sometimes feel overwhelmed by our choices and lack of consensus. We think back to the things we used to love, and how it seemed that the whole world, or at least people we knew personally, loved the same thing. Maybe it wasn’t better then, but it seemed simpler, and for now that’s good enough.”
The mainstream still exists. Cultural moments still occur that we cannot escape and cannot always understand the appreciation for. There are fads and trends we may not recognize now but will romanticize later, just as we do with trends from as recently as 2010. But I’d argue there never was monoculture in the same way America was never “great.” There was never a time we all watched the same things and sang Madonna songs around the campfire; there were simply fewer accessible avenues to explore other options.
Indie Film Distribution in the Age of Streaming
Additionally, music streaming is not the same as film streaming. As my filmmaking collective moves through self-distributing our second film, we have found it is increasingly difficult for indie, small-budget, and DIY filmmakers to get on major platforms. We are required to have an aggregator or a distribution company. I cannot simply throw Saint Drogo onto Netflix or even Shudder. Amazon Prime has recently made it impossible to self-distribute unless you were grandfathered in. Accessibility is still limited, particularly for those with grassroots and shoestring budgets, even with the abundance of services.
I don’t know that anyone ever deliberately intends on making a cult classic. Pink Flamingos was released in the middle of the Gay Liberation movement, starring Divine, an openly gay drag queen who famously says, “Condone first-degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filth are my politics, filth is my life!”
All comedy is political. Of course, Waters was intentional with the depravity he filmed; it was a conscious response to the political climate of the time. So if responding to the current state of the world makes a cult classic, I think we can agree there is still plenty to protest.
There Is No Single Formula for Cult Cinema
Looking back at other cult classics, both recent and older, not all had the same intentional vehicle of crass humor and anarchy. Some didn’t know they would reach this status – a very “so bad, it’s good” result (i.e., Showgirls). And while cult classics naturally exist outside the mainstream, some very much intended to be in that stream first!
All of this is to say: there is no monolith for cult cinema. Some have deliberate, rebellious intentions. Some think they are creating high-concept art when in reality they’re making camp. But it takes time to recognize what will reach cult status. It’s not overnight, even if a film seems like it has the perfect recipe. Furthermore, there are still plenty of conventions to push back against; there are plenty of queer cinema conventions upheld by dogmatic LGBTQ+ film festivals.
Midnight Movies vs. Digital Fandom
What has changed is the way we consume media. The way we view a cult classic might not be solely relegated to midnight showings. Although, at my current place of employment, any time The Rocky Horror Picture Show screens, it’s consistently sold out. Nowadays, we may find that engagement with cult cinema and its fanbase digitally, on social media, rather than in indie cinemas. But if these sold-out screenings are any indication, people are not ready to give up the theater experience of being in a room with die-hard fans they find a kinship with.
In fact, digital fandom has begun creating its own equivalents to the midnight-movie ritual. Think of meme cycles that resurrect forgotten films, TikTok edits that reframe a scene as iconic, or Discord servers built entirely around niche subgenres. These forms of engagement might not involve rice bags and fishnets in a theater, but they mirror the same spirit of communal celebration, shared language, and collective inside jokes that defined cult communities of past decades. Furthermore, accessibility to a film does not diminish its cult status. You may be able to stream Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter from the comfort of your couch, but that doesn’t make it any less cult.
The Case for Bottoms
I think a recent film that will gain cult status in time is Bottoms. In fact, it was introduced to the audience at a screening I attended as “the new Heathers.” Its elements of absurdity, queer representation, and subversion are perfect examples of the spirit of cult cinema. And you will not tell me that Bottoms was soulless and vapid.
For queer communities, cult cinema has never been just entertainment; it has operated as a kind of cultural memory, a place to archive our identities, desires, rebellions, and inside jokes long before RuPaul made them her catchphrases repeated ad nauseam. These films became coded meeting grounds where queer viewers could see exaggerated, defiant, or transgressive versions of themselves reflected back, if not realistically, then at least recognizably. Even when the world outside refused to legitimize queer existence, cult films documented our sensibilities, our humor, our rage, and our resilience. In this way, cult cinema has served as both refuge and record, preserving parts of queer life that might otherwise have been erased or dismissed.
Cult Cinema Is Forever
While inspired by John Waters, with Death Drop Gorgeous, we didn’t intentionally seek the status of cult classic. We just had no money and wanted to make a horror movie with drag queens. As long as there continue to be DIY, low-budget, queer filmmakers shooting their movies without permits, the conventions of cinema will continue to be subverted.
As long as queer people need refuge through media, cult cinema will live on.
Most of my early happy memories are of being released by my mother, free to wander the video store. I was at my happiest roaming the aisles when it was my turn, but I always walked a little faster going through the horror section, as this was before my love affair with the genre started. There was one VHS cover that particularly scared me, so I always avoided making eye contact with the sinister face on the front of Child’s Play.
A Video Store Recommendation That Changed Everything
Many years later, as I would return to the video store on my own as a teen, I was on a mission to watch as many horror movies as possible. I was also a closeted queer teen harboring a massive crush on the girl who worked the counter, who happened to like horror, and I took any chance I could to talk to her. One night, feeling brave and definitely not overwhelmed by gay feelings, I worked up the courage to ask for her any recommendations.
“Hey! I have a three-day weekend coming up, and was wondering if you had any suggestions for some movies I can just dive into all weekend. Horror preferred.”
“Do you like slashers?”
“Love them! Michael, Jason, Freddie. The classics.”
“Well, and of course Chucky.”
“The talking doll?”
Her eyes widened, and she walked around from the counter, making me realize I had never seen her from the waist down before. She grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the horror section.
“Your homework for the weekend is to watch Child’s Play 1 through 5. The first three are great, but Bride of Chucky is really where it’s at. You’ll see what I mean when you get there. If you make it to Seed of Chucky, we’ll talk.”
With a wink, she left me to do my homework assignment, and of course, I wanted to be a good student, so I picked up the DVDs, grabbed some Whoppers and a popcorn, and went home to study.
Discovering the Child’s Play Franchise as a Queer Teen
Child’s Play was instantly a hit for me. Maybe it was my childhood fear of Chucky, or maybe it was Don Mancini’s anticapitalist take on a killer in the form of something much smaller and cuter than the hulking slashers I was accustomed to, but I had to see how they would bring back my new favorite guy. While I have love and affection for 2 and 3 (I later named my cat Kyle after Andy’s foster sister), I rushed my first watch because I wanted to get to Bride of Chucky to see exactly what Video Store Girl was talking about.
Bride of Chucky was like Dorothy going from sepia to full-spectrum color for me. Having seen Bound at a very formative time for me, Jennifer Tilly was worshipped as queer royalty in my heart. She was instantly magnetic as Tiffany Valentine. The sheer camp of it all, combined with the fact that it had one of the first gay characters I’ve ever seen that was just a “normal” gay person, captured my heart. I dreaded the death David would face for the horrible crime of being a gay man on screen, but to my surprise and delight, he wasn’t punished for it. He was dispatched in the same gruesome manner as any of Chucky and Tiffany’s other villains.
Seed of Chucky and the First Time I Felt Seen
I was excited to get to Seed of Chucky, both because by this point I had fallen in love with the franchise, but also because I wanted to do a good job and impress Video Store Girl. What I didn’t expect was to have my core shattered in a way that I couldn’t fully express until I was an adult. Seed of Chucky is about a doll, first named Shitface by a cruel ventriloquist, that realizes Chucky and Tiffany may be their parents. Throughout most of the movie, Chucky and Tiffany argue over the gender of their child, whom they named Glen/Glenda. The name itself is a reference to the classic Ed Wood movie about a character that we would now likely call genderfluid, who likes to wear men’s and women’s clothing. At the end of the film, it’s clear that for Glen/Glenda, they are two souls inhabiting one body.
“Sometimes I feel like a boy. Sometimes I feel like a girl. Can’t I be both?”
Those words felt like someone was skipping rocks across my heart. It felt like a secret I wasn’t supposed to know, but it was the answer to a question I had never thought to ask. Gender fluidity wasn’t something that was discussed in my conservative home of Orange County. Did Video Store Girl see something in me that I wasn’t hiding as well as I could be? I loved my weekend watching the Child’s Play franchise, but I asked my mom to return the movies for me, as I couldn’t face someone who had seen me so clearly just yet.
Rewatching Seed of Chucky as an Adult
Seed of Chucky, a script that had been rejected by Universal for being “too gay” came to me again as an adult upon rewatch. Where I had found questions, I could not find the answer to in Glen/Glenda, I found acceptance through an unlikely character: Chucky. It’s in Seed of Chucky that our main character, Chucky, gives up the ghost and decides, for once and all, that he no longer wishes to be human. He loves himself exactly as he is for the form he chose for himself, a doll. If a psychopathic killer doll could love himself exactly as he was in a body that he chose to present himself in, why couldn’t I?
Don Mancini and Queer Voices in Horror
One of the best parts of having the same writer at the helm for every entry into the same franchise is that, unlike other typical slasher villains, Chucky gets to experience character development and growth. And because Don Mancini himself is gay, his voice behind the experience has been an authentic beacon of hope for queer audiences. “It has really been nice for me, again, as a gay man, to have a lot of gay, queer, and trans fans say that movie meant a lot to them, and that those characters meant a lot to them as queer kids.” He says in an article by Rue Morgue.
Why Chucky Remains a Queer Icon
One of my greatest joys was watching all three seasons of the cancelled too soon series, Chucky. Jake (Zacary Arthur), the show’s new gay protagonist, goes from clashing with his homophobic father (who is quickly dispatched by Chucky) to his first love and found family. Chucky with his own found family in Tiffany, G.G. (formerly Glen/Glenda), Caroline, and Wendell (John Waters). While the show has ended, I hope this won’t be the last we see of him, and I’m excited to see where Don Mancini takes the character for future queer audiences. One standout moment from the series is when Jake sits with Chucky and talks about G.G.
“You know, I have a queer kid…genderfluid”
“And you’re cool with it?”
“I’m not a monster Jake.”
If a killer doll could love his genderfluid child, I expect nothing less from the rest of society. Growing up feeling the way I felt about my gender and sexuality, I didn’t have peers to rely on to learn about myself.
But what I did have was Chucky. My friend til’ the end.
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