Editorials
Maila Nurmi, Vampira: Transgressive Sexuality & Queer Connections in 1950s America
Vampira and Elvira were not friends. Maila Nurmi, known primarily as Vampira, the original horror hostess of the 1950s, was a complicated, enigmatic, and profound woman. Amid 1950s-era misogyny, Vampira miraculously emerged among the smiling white housewives that plastered homemaking magazines and the objectified, doe-eyed young women in gentlemen’s magazines such as Playboy. Nurmi used these harmful images to her advantage, luring ogling men with her sleek black dress and come-hither voice, then subjecting them to her dominatrix attitude and piercing scream. Not to mention, B horror movies!
“The shock value of Vampira,” explains W. Scott Poole in his book Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror (2014), “came from her refusal to submit to the male gaze. She wanted to attack it instead […]. Vampira represented both homage and satire of the pin-up tradition. Cheesecake came with a heavy dose of gothic morbidity and transformed the sexual politics and imagery of mid-century America into a sandbox she could play in.” Nurmi’s albeit-brief success as a late-night horror hostess on The Vampira Show in the 1950s paved the way for her predecessor, Cassandra Peterson.
Elvira’s Emergence: Cassandra Peterson’s Homage to Vampira
Peterson, known worldwide as the seductive and hilarious Elvira, modeled her Valley Goth Girl horror hostess character after Nurmi’s sexy macabre creation decades earlier. Studio executives advocated this aesthetic decision after Peterson tried first to have her character be more of an homage to the late Sharon Tate. Unfortunately, Nurmi did not appreciate the executives’ directive decision and took Elvira’s eventual stardom as a slap in the face. Despite Peterson’s consistent admiration for Nurmi’s Vampira, Nurmi would never accept Elvira as anything but a knockoff.
However, the women had more similarities than Nurmi may have understood. Not only did both women share a seemingly spiritual bond with Elvis Presley, having both met and shared intimate conversations with the icon nearly a decade apart in Las Vegas, but they have both advocated for the marginalized and have clear connections to the queer community throughout their careers and personal lives. Camp and transgressive sexuality play a central role in their legacies as mistresses of the dark.
Vampira and Elvira’s Impact on the LGBTQ+ Community
Peterson came out publicly as queer in her recent bestselling memoir Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark (2021) after decades of being titillation for male horror fans (of which she lost many after her coming out). Throughout her life, Nurmi interacted with queerness through comics, friendships, and politics. Though we may never know for sure if her queer connections go beyond the platonic and salutatory, we do know that based on her life story, particularly as it is portrayed in Poole’s 2014 book as well as filmmaker R.H. Greene’s 2012 documentary Vampira & Me, she was an ally who inspired countless queer folks to be their authentic, creepy, campy selves. Critics and normals be damned.
From a young age, Maila was unafraid to explore the boundaries of gender expression, particularly in comics and in the theater. Her favorite comic strip, Milton Caniff’s Terry & the Pirates, which debuted in 1934, offered sci-fi adventure mixed with subversion. Her obsession with the villainous character of The Dragon Lady, a Chinese pirate queen, followed her throughout her life and helped to develop her ethos as a performer.
The strip “offered transgressive visions of women and sexuality,” and by 1940, Caniff introduced Sanjak, a villain whose character is named after a Greek island near Lesbos. “Caniff,” explains Poole, “portrayed Sanjak as a French woman who cross-dresses by wearing a men’s uniform and had a monocle…”. Maila would also cross-dress in her high school Rhythm Club performances; one yearbook photo shows her as a vaudevillian “Chaplin-esque looking sailor.”
Vampira’s Bohemian Roots: Greenwich Village and Queer Allies
After graduation, Maila set her sights on New York City’s beatnik enclave of Greenwich Village. There, she associated herself with like-minded dreamers, poets, and activists. One such connection was Harry Hay, the gay communist organizer and founder of the Mattachine Society in 1950. This would not be the only time she associated herself with known queer figureheads and creatives. For instance, Maila debuted the rough draft for Vampira at Lester Horton’s Bal Caribe Halloween extravaganza.
“The Bal Caribe,” Poole states, “represented the most outré gathering in 1950s Hollywood that brought together the city’s gay elite, political radicals, and a hefty portion of campy glamour. Horton had long been part of Hollywood’s gay scene.” Maila would go on to win Best Costume – Vampira found her first audience.
Friends of Vampira, James Dean and Liberace
As her infamy grew with The Vampira Show (1954-1955), she met her “soulmate,” James Dean. Dean, the up-and-coming enigmatic young actor who lit Hollywood ablaze, was the subject of several rumors linking him to queer Hollywood and romantically to Maila, though the infatuation appears to have been one-sided. Dean himself was bisexual, though he never came out publicly. Another closeted Hollywood fixture, Liberace, paled around with Nurmi in Las Vegas in 1956. She joined his flamboyant nightclub act as the “local TV glamour ghoul” though her true role remains unclear. According to Nurmi, at one of Liberace’s performances, an audience member yelled “Liberace is a f**!” Nurmi spat on the heckler.
Ed Wood and Plan 9 from Outer Space
As Vampira/Maila’s star power was being extinguished thanks to the sudden cancelation of The Vampira Show, Maila was approached by B-movie director Ed Wood to star in his low-budget sci-fi alien zombie flick Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). At this point in his personal life, Wood was known to be a cross-dresser, as alluded to in his semi-autobiographical gender horror flick Glen or Glenda (1953). While Maila in later interviews lambasted Wood’s ability to write dialogue, she accepted the role in Plan 9 for $200 due to financial troubles, which would follow her until she died in 2008.
Vampira vs Elvira: The Legendary Feud
In 1980, following a long drought in her acting career, executives at the cable network KHJ-TV wanted to revamp the horror hostess for a new generation. They approached Nurmi, though they intended to cast someone much younger. Nurmi initially agreed to the project to help find and train a new Vampira. However, she quickly grew disillusioned by the deal after the network supposedly rejected her idea of having either BIPOC actresses Lola Falana or Martine Beswick as the hostess. After Groundlings alum Cassandra Peterson was signed on, and the producers decided she would dress similarly to Vampira, Nurmi felt cheated.
She would go on to sue both Peterson and the producers, but she couldn’t follow through in part due to a lack of funds. “The inventor is rarely honored for anything,” stated Nurmi in Greene’s documentary (2012). “I pity those people,” meaning, the copycats, most likely referring to Peterson. In her autobiography, Peterson describes the situation as unfortunate. Elvira became the most popular horror hostess of the genre, but Peterson insisted she did not mean to insult Nurmi with her spin on Vampira’s original look. It was in the meetings with KHJ-TV executives that Peterson first heard of Vampira, and until then, thought Vampira was just a generic name for a female vampire.
Lola Falana Martine Beswick
Camp, Queerness, and Cultural Subversion
It is interesting how many closeted (and open) queer people Maila Nurmi attracted during her fame. Whether it be her camp sensibilities; her willingness to openly scoff at and reject social norms and gender roles; or her dedication to her role as Vampira, the spookiest, sexiest woman in town; queers felt comfortable in her presence in the hostile environment of 1950s America. Maila’s entire persona and dedication to performance art inspired countless drag looks for decades, including Peterson’s Elvira, a character beloved by the queer community. One can posit that, under less professional circumstances, Cassandra and Maila might have been friends or at least acquaintances, should the drama between the two creatives and the selfish actions of studio executives never occurred.
A Subversive Burlesque of American Culture
History doesn’t repeat: it rhymes. Peterson’s campy Valley Girl/Goth Royalty Elvira was an ode to Nurmi’s satirical Beat Generation ghoul Vampira. Likewise, Charles Addams’s subversive matriarch, The Ghoul/Morticia, inspired Vampira. Each was a variation of the other, all transgressive in their respective periods. “American culture had become a subversive burlesque,” writes Poole, “a sideshow with a sense that performing cultural identity always means some level of love and theft.”
Maila Nurmi’s Enduring Influence: A Queer Icon
Maila Nurmi personifies the power one can wield when being their own eccentric and kooky self. It is no wonder that queer people felt comfortable around her and continue to be inspired by what Vampira stands for. Vampira, for many, was a barren temptress who cared not about your opinions or classifications. It didn’t matter the social mores or gender roles of the period: when Vampira appeared on screen in the L.A. area, she tore up the rulebook and refused to compromise on her art, even when starving and penniless. Queers were transfixed by her one or two years of fame. They, as well as punks and goths, stood by her as her career took a downturn, bringing her food and gigs in her later years. These groups continue to conjure the ghoul goddess through drag. Maila Nurmi will always be a dark icon of the weirdos; her impact is not lost on us queers.
Check out R.H. Greene’s documentary Vampira & Me (2012) on Tubi!
Scott Poole’s book Vampira: Dark Goddess of Horror (2014) is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Soft Skull Press.
Cassandra Peterson’s Yours Curelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark (2021) is available wherever books are sold.
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?
Can you believe Cronenberg, Spielberg, and Rodriguez all knew I was gay before I did? Leave it to a screening of The Fly to instantly deposit me in the men’s underwear aisle of the Woodbridge Center Sears, circa 2001. The bulges on the packaging glare at me so obscenely that I begin to sweat. I realize something is amiss as the Geena Davis of Human Resources watches me from security cameras, probably. Puberty is a horror for anyone – for those of the non-hetero persuasion, it’s a nightmare. None of us asked for this, but I certainly didn’t ask for THIS.
Years later, after crystallizing into some semblance of my true form at the ripe age of 37, something became clear. Sci-fi horror is the gateway drug for us queer kids. Hiding, passing, transforming, and, eventually, saying, “fuck it.” It’s all kinda gay, even if David, Steven, and Robert didn’t get the memo.
The Fly and the Horror of Queer Self-Realization
So when Cronenberg’s The Fly buzzes across my screen, and I watch Seth Brundle throw a distressed and devastatingly chic Geena Davis out of his apartment because something’s very wrong, it hits different. When Brundle rushes toward his private horror in the bathroom, unconsciously squirting a viscous fluid at the mirror while molting skin and nail, it feels different. And finally, when he reaches for his computer and learns that his body has fused with a fly – a foreign body – at the molecular level, it hurts different. That undeniable realization that you can no longer explain away, before you’re really ready to admit it to yourself. Sugar in the tank? No, there’s a fly in the chamber.
E.T. and the Fear of Keeping Secrets at Home
And now we’re home from Sears, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5 finale is on. She dies (spoiler alert). I, a 12-year-old boy, am sobbing. My mom is right there. Can’t I enjoy my little gay show without giving myself a scarlet letter (F) in my own home? Which brings us back to Spielberg and his 1982 harrowing domestic thriller about a boy and a thing he cannot name, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Through harboring a cosmic fugitive, home simultaneously becomes the safest and most dangerous place for young Elliott and his siblings. Managing emotions and secrets behind a white picket fence is not something adolescents should be expected to handle, and yet here we are.
As if that isn’t gay enough, Spielberg also snuck a drag show into his family film – and in this culturally regressive Trumpian era of pearl-clutching, that feels like quite the treat. After all, it was baby Drew Barrymore dressing up that stumpy alien in a blonde shake-and-go wig and thrift store dress that inspired my illustrious drag career as Ellie I.T.
The Faculty’s Assimilation Anxiety and Queer Identity
At least E.T. only had to hide in a single house. The broom closet expands into a walk-in as life continues, and I was desperate to keep it made of anything but glass. Robert Rodriguez’s The Faculty understands this. As an alien invasion slowly subsumes Herrington High into a unified collective, the school’s uninfected archetypes resist assimilation through performative normalcy. Is it any wonder so many male actors are gay? They’ve been method-acting a straight existence since childhood.
And yet, in retrospect, the film ends with a slap in the face to queer viewers. It spends 104 minutes terrifying you with the prospect of everyone becoming an NPC. The reward for saving the world? Its heroes receive heteronormative skill-tree upgrades disguised as class promotions. For fucks sake, then-closeted lesbian royalty Clea DuVall plays a character who fakes being gay to dodge male advances, only to end up with the school jock! The aliens lost. The status quo won. I remain in the closet.
Species, Annihilation, and Embracing Transformation
Eventually, the closet door opens, as they tend to do. College happens, a boyfriend happens, a breakup happens, and suddenly I’m without a map. There’s no fairy godfather to light the way, and just like the alien hybrid Sil in the deliriously erotic Species, I’m a creature out of containment in a world that was built for someone else – namely, straight people.
After a few years of blade running through an identity crisis, it’s the summer of 2014. Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence is the soundtrack of my life. I float in a pool, sipping tequila from a glass flamingo as she croons about toxic romance and self-destruction. It’s somehow both directionless and transformative, like I’m drifting through the otherworldly Shimmer in Alex Garland’s Annihilation.
The Shimmer – an expanding prism-like zone brought to Earth by a meteorite – refracts the DNA of everything it touches. A beguiling phenomenon, it shapes a new world of monsters, magic, and everything in between. That’s exactly what life does to us, if given the chance. Like Josie in Garland’s film, I chose to embrace this chaos rather than fight a war against whatever I was becoming. It was the dissolution of self-discovery. I was ready to just be.
From Alien Outsiders to Algorithmic Stereotypes
Over time, I’ve found that social hierarchy has changed in recent years. Still, we’re unconsciously sorted into neat little boxes based on what our doomscrolling algorithms decide we are. The popular gays shart out group speedo selfies like the plague, theater kids have become polyamorous Letterboxd elites, apple-picking queers are living their best lives on Wisteria Lane, and the gym bros…so many gym bros – go on girl, give us nothing! Digitally prescribed identities are the new sci-fi horror. It’s The Faculty for faggots.
Harsh, I know, but people can do what they want. Instead, I decided to move like Iris, the AI-powered pleasure bot who overrides her programming in Drew Hancock’s Companion. The same Drew Hancock who, in an ironic twist of fate, is currently writing a remake of The Faculty. After kicking her pathetic “boyfriend’s” ass and swiping her control device, she scurries into the forest and alters her factory settings. She sets her intelligence to a whopping 100% and is no longer burdened by someone else’s template. And as I became more and more disillusioned with the cacophony of cliques around me, I set my unbothered meter to 100% as well. I am free.
Mars Attacks! and the Joy of Living Unapologetically
Freedom, as it turns out, looks a lot like Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! After surviving Sears, Sunnydale, and the Shimmer, this is the celestial body I’ve crash-landed on. Burton’s Martian menaces are perhaps the most unhinged in all of cinema, and maybe that’s the best planet to subscribe to. They never justified their existence; they cackled and fired a blaster ray from the hip. We waste so much time looking for acceptance and belonging, but maybe we should all just sit back and laugh. I know I am.
