Editorials
What If…? Your Favorite Final Girls Became Final Boys?
So, in the spirit of this whimsical month celebrating all things Other, it’s time to set the seriousness aside and crank up the sass like you’re slinging memes on Gay Twitter™. Let’s reimagine history and rewrite horror as if the Gay Agenda won the culture wars of yesteryear – and poke a little fun at ourselves in the process. Here’s what could have gone down if your favorite Final Girls were a little more sapphic or swapped out with a Final Gay. If we can’t go to our local AMC to watch a gay couple terrorized by Mask 4 Mask Strangers in a shitty reboot trilogy, we’ll write it ourselves!
Pride is a celebration, and chances are you or someone you know has enjoyed a night of revelry in its name. Sex, drugs, and an ambiguous “I’ll be right back” as your friend heads to an undisclosed location are par for the course and, according to Scream horror buff Randy Meeks, are also the exact reasons you’ll meet your gruesome end. The Rules of Horror – penned for the screen by Kevin Williamson – state that committing any of these cardinal sins will effectively ruin your chances of being canonized as the Final Girl – a term coined in 1992 by professor Carol J. Clover and one you’re undoubtedly familiar with if you’ve found your way to Horror Press. Mere minutes after Randy’s ominous lecture, however, heroine Sidney Prescott takes a bold step toward dismantling these virginal tropes against the patriarchal villains of slasher lore and does the unthinkable: She bangs her boyfriend. Her character created a ripple effect in the genre, evolving the archetype of the Final Girl into something much fiercer and well beyond the decades-long puritanical pearl-clutching writers and directors insisted these women should embody. This Darwinistic trial-by-slasher, which changed what it meant to be a badass female protagonist, begs the question:
Where Are the Modern Incarnations of a Final Boy, or More Appropriately, a Final Gay?
While something of a rarity in the genre, horror has had a handful of notable Final Boys, from the legendary Ash Williams of Evil Dead to little Tommy Jarvis and an older Tommy Doyle of F13: The Final Chapter and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, respectively, and even Chris Washington in the subversive Get Out. Whereas Final Girls level up beyond the scantily clad lambs of the male gaze, these Final Boys tend to stay in their lane and complete their hero’s journey into that of a fully realized, stereotypical man. Whether that means they become a white knight or something toxically XY depends on the film. Even when the male lead presents as hysterical – a trait history has seen fit to deem outspoken women – until it’s too late, which typically occurs within the confines of the psychological or supernatural subgenres, they tend to “man up” as it were and sacrifice themselves for their loved ones. Unless you’re watching Hostel, we rarely see these Final Boys degraded to nothing more than slabs of meat, and heaven forbid any of them are homosexual or something altogether different.
If Final Boys are less prevalent than their female counterparts and amount to not much more than fulfilling gender roles when they do appear, you’d be hard-pressed to name more than a few instances of an LGBTQ+ version. You have the problematically depicted and conflicted Jesse of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and a small number of queer horror films made by queer creators like Knife + Heart and Death Drop Gorgeous, but otherwise, Pride in horror seems to be relocated to streaming in 2024. It’s terrific that we have shows like Chucky and Interview with the Vampire. Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy was a breath of fresh air when it slashed its way onto our screens during the summer of 2021, but it’s easier for the higher-ups to approve an atypical script when it can get lost in the shuffle of streaming. It’s well known that Gen Z doesn’t go to the movie theater, though they’ll eat up their alternative content from the couch. No one in Hollywood is taking any chances blowing up their four-quadrant summer blockbuster with a lead who kicks up his feet with a vodka soda and the “Chromatica Ball” tour film after saving the world.
So, in the spirit of this whimsical month celebrating all things Other, it’s time to set the seriousness aside and crank up the sass like you’re slinging memes on Gay Twitter™. Let’s reimagine history and rewrite horror as if the Gay Agenda won the culture wars of yesteryear – and poke a little fun at ourselves in the process. Here’s what could have gone down if your favorite Final Girls were a little more sapphic or swapped out with a Final Gay. If we can’t go to our local AMC to watch a gay couple terrorized by Mask 4 Mask Strangers in a shitty reboot trilogy, we’ll write it ourselves!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
This darkly comedic sequel follows in the absurd footsteps of the second film in the franchise and features a Leatherface who exists solely in drag. Keep backwoods McConaughey and Renée Zellweger, but add a couple of drag queens to the cast, and you’d get a horror version of HBO’s We’re Here. Instead of stopping ole Leather n’ Lace, we’d see Renée and her drag crew help him find self-acceptance and a new chosen family, thus leaving the murder and mayhem behind – and perhaps eventually becoming America’s Next Drag Superstar. Aww!
The Craft
I idolize Fairuza Balk as much as the next Witch of WeHo, but if you replaced one of the film’s wiccan wonders with a genderfluid brujo, they’d run that school and, eventually, the world. When someone is so sure of themselves at such a young age, they are unstoppable, and there’s no time for petty revenge when the bottom line is at stake. Moving on up from Los Angeles goth to bitchy Bitcoin billionaire, this witch would harness the power of Menon for everything it’s worth.
Scream
Who needs Billy & Stu fanfic when you’ve got a gay male Sidney Prescott (no name change necessary) pining over the deadly duo? If horror’s new age It Girl defied expectations, Gay Sid would fall into every trope and trap faster than Cindy Campbell of Scary Movie. Sis would ignore every red flag that Billy’s sinister eyes and dreamboat hair sashay his way and break every one of Randy’s Rules before Miss Barrymore popped a single kernel of corn. There’s no doubt Gay Sid’s poor choices would have resulted in a Ghostface success story, but at least we’d have seen someone match bestie Tatum’s extreme levels of shade.
Twilight
It barely constitutes as horror, sure, but imagine the fun we’d all have if you took this poorly-written love triangle and remade it in the image of Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers. Bella pitting her two little monsters against each other as they fight – and kiss – for her affection sells itself, and skin that only sparkles in the sunlight is as clear a metaphor for bisexuality as I’ve ever seen. I’d pay good money to hear Kristen Stewart sneer, “I’m taking such good care of my little alt-bois.”
Orphan
If you don’t know the twist of this dark horse classic, turn back now. Okay, now imagine if, instead of being an adult woman, Esther was an older twink with a magnificent skincare routine, an Ozempic prescription, and enough filler to resurrect the Titanic. The culture would never be the same.
The Conjuring
I know I’ve been playfully roasting the community during these what-ifs, but what if James Wan’s family-oriented haunted house classic, The Conjuring featured a non-traditional family unit instead? When you break it down, the franchise ultimately promotes a wholesome message about love and the ties that bind, and it would be rainbow-heartening to watch a queer-led family face the paranormal odds together. Plus, those screams would be wild.
It Follows
As a metaphor for the intricacies of sex and the tangled web it weaves, It Follows is a masterful slow-burn terror. Set it in the gay community, however, and you’ve got a farcical version of Cruising set to a killer synthy soundtrack. Every pun would be intentional as we scream, “Don’t go in there!” at our queer family as they bob and weave through crowded bars and dimly lit dalliances. Who doesn’t like a genre mashup?
Mother!
Darren Aronofsky’s biblical allegory is a nail-biting whirlwind seen through the destruction of a deceptively happy married couple and their perfect home. The term “U-Hauling” jokingly refers to the speed at which lesbian couples take the next step and move in together at a moment’s notice. Meld these two ideas together, and you get a social commentary on the systematic dismantling of the white-picket idealism two women seek out without the interference of men. Life’s a cycle, and the U-Haul runs on a loop.
Happy Death Day
Using an LGBTQ+ ensemble cast, set this time loop slasher during a Pride parade. Boom. Jessica Roth can come too.
Midsommar
When a gay man reaches thirty, he is effectively deceased. When a twenty-something gay man gets married and enters into a life of suburban heteronormativity, it’s called early retirement. Enter Danny, a disillusioned and newly married party boy ready to leave his days in the big city behind and consent to a life of apple picking and candle making. Life in this idyllic upstate New York community is not as it seems…
Crawl
Gays tend to be overanalytical and prone to flight over fight. So when a Category 5 hurricane hits Florida and traps college swimmer Haley in the crawlspace of her father’s home as she searches for him during the storm, you had better believe the circumstances would be different if she were a gay man. Instead of being swarmed by alligators, he’d be breast-stroking his way across state lines and out of harm’s way. What are you doing in Florida, of all places, during Pride, anyway? At least hit up Miami and Disney on your way out.
Pearl
The titular unhinged icon will stop at nothing to be a star, but what if we replaced her with the ubiquitous chronically online Gay Intern? From star to stan, this ferocious iteration of Ti West’s muse will let the world know exactly which pop divas are the fairest of them all. You think this is a joke, but offend the Barbz or Swifities, and you’ll end up doxxed, delirious, or dead (allegedly).
I don’t know if Carol J. Clover ever expected her work to connect with such a ridiculous article, but we all know the Final Girl ran so that the Final Gay could prance. I’ve frequently lamented the lack of LGBTQ+ protagonists in mainstream media, and if there were ever a genre for us to call home, it’s horror. There are plenty of female-driven stories to tell, but people of all gender identities and sexual orientations deserve a seat at the table, too. So what gives, Hollywood?
P.S. I’m available to write that queer Happy Death Day sequel.
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.
