Editorials
‘May’ (2002): A Bloody Queer Allegory of Sexuality in Horror
A bloody, empty eye socket. The strangest Vet in cinema history. A bloody pair of scissors. A collection of body parts. Somehow, to this day, these compiled images make up one of the most honest, realistic depictions of Bisexuality and Pansexuality to date. Director Lucky McGee’s May might not have appeared like anything other than indie horror fare to audiences at release. Still, this tragic gorefest of an indie drama is oft-forgotten and underlooked as a queer allegory.
Angela Bettis’ Haunting Portrayal of a Queer Antihero in May
The film follows the titular protagonist, May, played beautifully by Angela Bettis. Bullied growing up for her lazy eye and strange demeanor, May’s only true friend was an eerie glass doll named Suzie. As an adult Veterinarian, she lives as a lonely introvert, awkwardly yearning for romantic attention. But as rejections build up, she begins to act violently, murdering those who mistreat her, and collecting body parts of failed romantic prospects to build a comfort of her own.
The film is a beautifully sad, mumblecore horror story that feels like a 2000s indie flick like Ghost World drenched in blood, with a tad of Carrie and Tim Burton thrown in for good measure. However, what is very little remembered is the film’s queer subtext. May herself is casually queer, and the film’s morbid finale is a clearcut analogy for bisexual desire.
The Subtle Power of May’s Approach to LGBTQIA+ Themes
What is fascinating about May is how casually it approaches its LGBTQIA+ subject matter. Unlike other films at the time, which usually made gay characters the butts of jokes, or when being sympathetic usually became trauma porn, May approached the subject maturely.
Most queer characters were additionally shoved into binary boxes of gay or straight, with bisexuality being a rare, if ever-thought-about concept. If a character had a same-sex interest, they were either confused and straight, or on the verge of having a gay awakening.
May is offbeat for many reasons, with her strange interests, shy demeanor, and lazy eye. Still, her experience with bullying and dealing with a hateful world stands parallel to the queer experience.
Breaking Binary Norms: Bisexuality in Early 2000s Cinema
May herself is bisexual, vying for affection both from men and women in the film. However, it is never obviously stated and forcefully approached. She just is, without it ever being a point of contention and something to be reckoned with. Her outsiderness, and feelings of lack of belonging resonate strongly with Queer audiences. Yes, she is a violent, murderous psychopath, which may not strike all Queer audience members fondly, but it is a deeply metaphoric allegory, a tragic story of a girl searching for belonging. Without the blood and guts, it would probably sit alongside dramedies of the time more akin to Juno.
Despite the bloodshed, what helps cement this character as a relatable one is how it truly is a stream-of-consciousness film. The movie focuses on its titular character the entire time, never leaving her headspace or treating her like a villain. Despite the deplorable actions done to characters who probably just needed a slap to the face instead of a knife to the neck, the movie creates a bleak atmosphere for her headspace. The world of May is a cold, uncaring, lonely place, and despite the violent overreactions, she feels justified every single step of the way.
May is, without a doubt, a complicated, deep character, her violent flaws a product of an unloving society. It is not hard to see the comparisons to more traditionally gay or bisexual protagonists, despite this one being written through the lens of some nasty kills.
The Metaphoric Frankenstein of Pansexual Longing in May
Throughout May, Angela Bettis’ character went through a plethora of victims. A young punk (James Duval) with a Frankenstein tattoo, snobby filmbro Adam (Jeremy Sisto) and his Girlfriend (Nora Zehetner), her Lesbian co worker Polly (Anna Faris), and Polly’s Girlfriend Ambrosia (Nichole Hiltz). Her murders seem to fall in line with her romantic interests, gender not seeming to matter in the slightest.
An androgynous punk, a straight couple, and a Lesbian couple all fall victim and simultaneously all interest her romantically. Her final act, teased throughout the film, is taking select body parts from each person to create her one true love, a Frankenstein’s Monster of a doll named Amy. After ripping out her own lazy eye (gross) and placing it on her creation, she has created a terrifying metaphor for pansexual or bisexual longing.
Pansexuality, essentially, is similar to but different than Bisexuality. It is an attraction to a person without any care for gender, whether they be cis, trans, non-binary, or any other gender identity. May seems to care only for these people’s souls, what gender they are is not as significant. At the end of the day, though, she chooses masculine and feminine characteristics alike to create an androgynous, genderless lover. It is an interesting symbol of queer longing, her attraction simultaneously existent for specific body parts of men and women alike, but also to make a creation that is ultimately neither.
May is definitely dated in some regards, yet it is miles ahead of its time. Its nuanced look at queerness, and morbid symbolism that is more sad than scary, makes it a cult classic. This pride month, May might be the perfect gem to watch. It is, pun intended, a dissectible film, to say the least, and has much more to say than 2002 audiences may have anticipated.
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?
