On my first day at Fantastic Fest 2025, I locked eyes across the courtyard with a dude wearing an American flag-emblazoned t-shirt proudly proclaiming that he was a straight, white man (as if any part of that wasn’t self-evident). Arriving in Texas as an unmistakable lesbian is always a little nerve-wracking, even if Austin is a chill oasis in a blazing red desert, so the t-shirt and its intended message immediately put me on edge. As soon as I stepped into the theater, however, that chest-clench reaction subsided. This year’s Fantastic Fest line-up included a wealth of queer genre content from around the world, programmed by a team that is clearly committed to championing LGBTQ+ voices and content at a time when others seek to stifle them. These films are funny, campy, sexy, heartfelt, and often downright beautiful. More than anything, though, they are utterly, delightfully unapologetic.
I wasn’t able to catch every LGBTQ+ movie at the 2025 festival (one can only see so much if they wish to sleep), but here are three that I’m already desperate to rewatch.
1. Body Blow
Unlike the other entries on this list, Body Blow is not a horror movie, but this erotic thriller demands to be seen. Written and directed by Dean Francis, the film follows Aiden Hardwick (Tim Pocock), a disgraced Australian police officer who goes undercover in the local gay scene. On night one, he meets and falls for seductive bartender Cody (Tom Rodgers), a drug-addicted twink being pimped out by the crime lord of drag, Fat Frankie (Paul Capsis). Unfortunately, Aiden is both addicted to sex and trying desperately to go cold turkey, a combination that leads him to make some staggeringly bad decisions. Now blackmailed by Frankie, the repressed copper is drawn deeper into a seedy world of drugs, sex, money, kink—and cock cages.
In his introduction at Fantastic Fest, Francis called Body Blow a “dirty rotten queer noir,” and he nailed it with that description. The film has all the corruption and betrayal you expect from classic crime noir, only the city streets are bathed in dreamy neon light and there’s nary a heterosexual in sight. It’s deliciously sleazy and steamy, yet the central romance is surprisingly sweet, both actors delivering fully committed performances that are mesmerizing to watch. If you don’t go into Body Blow with a kink, you might leave with one, but you’ll love every minute all the same.
2. The Cramps: A Period Piece
While writer-director Brooke H. Cellars’ The Cramps: A Period Piece isn’t explicitly queer in its subject matter, its deeply queer sensibilities leave me with no choice but to include it on this list (it twisted my arm, truly). If John Waters made a body horror movie about monstrous menstruation, it would be The Cramps.
Newcomer Lauren Kitchen stars as Agnes Applewhite, a shy young woman yearning to break free from her repressive home life. A job at the local salon offers a taste of freedom, with owner Laverne Lancaster (Martini Bear) and her eclectic staff welcoming Agnes with open arms. There’s just one problem: Agnes experiences debilitating menstrual cramps that begin to manifest in violent ways. Some dudes are about to find out the hard way why people who menstruate complain about the cramps.
In our interview with Cellars, she described finding acceptance in the queer community that she didn’t find elsewhere. Her love and appreciation for the community is clearly felt in The Cramps, in which the salon staff are explicitly framed as a found family who help Agnes find her confidence and discover who she really is. Cellars’ casting of drag performers in prominent roles is also pure Waters, and it’s wonderful to see both bearded queens and drag kings represented (Cellars herself has a cameo as Agnes’ late father). The old-school practical effects, including visual references to The Blob and Vincent Price-starrer The Tingler, add to the campy, B-movie feel of the picture. The Cramps is for the girlies and the gays, and it’s a hoot and a half.
3. The Restoration at Grayson Manor
The terrible, awful idea that you won’t give your parents the grandchildren you owe them is a stick that’s been used to beat many a queer person over the years, myself included. For Boyd Grayson (Chris Colfer), the bisexual son of Jacqueline Grayson (the iconic Alice Krige), this is clearly an argument that’s been hashed out many times already. At the outset of The Restoration at Grayson Manor, he’s acting out, bringing men home to fuck in the foyer just to piss his mother off. Their vicious sniping is abruptly cut off when a moving accident slices Boyd’s hands clean off, leaving him at the mercy of his mother and the team of experts she’s brought in to help build him a new pair.
Irish director Glenn McQuaid, who also co-wrote the script with horror author Clay McLeod Chapman, has clearly watched a lot of American soap operas, because The Restoration at Grayson Manor perfectly encapsulates the pulpy, melodramatic essence of two soap divas having a slap fight. The only difference is, one set of the slap-happy hands was constructed using advanced nanotechnology and scurries around on its own like Thing from The Addams Family. McQuaid splashes enough blood up the walls of the gorgeous manor house to stop the film descending too far into daytime TV territory, but it’s the relationship between the bitchy yet vulnerable Boyd and his conniving ice queen of a mother that makes The Restoration at Grayson Manor so engaging, even if Jacqueline’s evil plan is obvious from a mile away.
Body Blow, The Cramps: A Period Piece, and The Restoration at Grayson Manor all made their world premieres at Fantastic Fest 2025.