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.