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The Refreshing Normalcy of Queerness in the Psychological Horror ‘What Keeps You Alive’

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Suspenseful twists, stereotypical psychopathy, and the normalization of queer relationships are central to the psychological thriller What Keeps You Alive (2018).

Jules (Brittany Allen) and Jackie (Hannah Anderson), a young married couple, head to Jackie’s family’s remote cabin in the woods by a large lake to celebrate their first anniversary. Once they arrive, Jules begins to learn unsettling details about her wife that point to something deeply sinister within Jackie’s nature. It sounds like a pretty generic plot for psychological horror, and it is. What makes this movie so exciting is its progressive portrayal of its LGBTQIA+ characters.

Horror films with queer characters are few and far between, let alone queer protagonists. That’s one element of What Keeps You Alive that makes this psychological thriller unique and compelling. Not only are the main characters in a lesbian relationship, but the most refreshing part is that there’s no specific plot reason why these two women are gay.

As the film progresses, Jules meets Sarah (Martha MacIsaac), Jackie’s childhood friend, where she learns that Jackie’s birth name is Megan, and that she had a best friend who drowned in the lake when she was a kid. Jules is upset, but Jackie regains her good graces by showering her with compliments, giving her gifts, and using emotional manipulation to explain why she never told Jules key details about her life.

The best part of the movie is when everything suddenly changes in a moment. Jules and Jackie go on a hike up to a beautiful cliff overlooking the wilderness. Jules stands close to the edge, gazing at the wonderful view, when Jackie suddenly lets out a battle cry, runs forward, and shoves Jules over the edge of the cliff with all her might.

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After that moment, Jackie changes completely. She calmly heads back to the house, practicing her pretend anguish for the 911 call. But when she returns to the cliff, Jules isn’t there. She survived and dragged her maimed body into the woods to hide from her wife.

As you can see, the movie would be pretty much the same plot-wise if one of the main characters were swapped out with a man, which is exciting because typically, queer characters are only seen in media when there’s an explicit reason why they need to be queer to make the story work. Instead, What Keeps You Alive’s protagonists’ sexualities are hardly relevant.

Jackie’s sexuality comes up as an excuse for changing her name from Megan, but that’s about it. The fact that Jules and Jackie are lesbians is not the film’s central focus, and that in itself is a breath of fresh air.

Instead, the movie centers around the fear that we can never truly know what’s going on in someone else’s head. It’s focused on the fear that those we love can hurt us the most. It’s brimming with suspense from the moment Jackie shoves Jules off the cliff. Jules hides in the woods as she slowly discovers the extent of Jackie’s psychopathy. Eventually, she manages to make it back to the house, but Jackie catches up with her when she takes a rowboat across the lake in an attempt to escape to Sarah’s house. Jackie’s disturbing behaviors continue to escalate, leaving the audience wondering just how far she’ll take it to murder Jules.

The one issue I have with What Keeps You Alive is Jackie’s characterization as a psychopath. All the stereotypical tropes of a psychopath are in there: Jackie’s innate ability to lie, her assertion that nature rather than nurture made her this way, and the reveal that this isn’t her first kill. Jackie’s character could have been much more compelling if the writers had chosen to push against some of those overdone tropes.

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Lastly, I want to talk about the ending. It’s tragic, but righteous. It’s extremely well done, and I didn’t see it coming at all. It’s worth the watch, so I won’t spoil it for you.

What Keeps You Alive is an excellent horror film because of the level of suspense in the story, the incredible performance of both lead actors, and how sexuality is handled in the story. The two protagonists are queer simply because that’s how life works: some people are lesbians, and their whole lives aren’t about being queer. Shocker, huh?

Hey! I’m Maya, a snarky, queer freelance writer, horror enthusiast, and history nerd. My hope is that my writing both entertains my readers and provides educational commentary on human behavior & society. In my spare time, I love to eat food, hang out with my girlfriend, and needle felt little monster sculptures.

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[Tribeca Film Festival 2025] ‘Queens of the Dead’: A Fresh—and Fierce—Take on Classic Zombie Films

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Queens of the Dead starts, as so many wild stories do, with a sketchy app-initiated hookup.

Drag artist Z Queen (played by Julie J) makes a pitstop at her church on the way home from a night out. She drops some cash into the donation box, says a few words of prayer…and gets a notification from the Grindr-esque hookup app Skins saying that someone in the building swiped right on her profile. Intrigued, she goes to look for the mystery suitor, but instead of a casual encounter, she finds a zombie priest who promptly attacks her.

Brooklyn Drag Show Meets Zombie Apocalypse

In a Brooklyn warehouse, DJ and party organizer Dre (Katy O’Brian) is preparing for that night’s Easter-themed drag show, contending with drama between the performers, a backed-up toilet requiring the plumbing expertise of her brother-in-law Barry (Quincy Dunn-Baker)—who is spectacularly ignorant about queer culture—, and her spacey but well-intentioned intern Kelsey (Jack Haven). When one of the headlining drag queens, Yasmine (Dominique Jackson), flakes in order to do a paid appearance at a vodka launch, her former friend Sam (Jaquel Spivey) shows up to resurrect his drag persona, Samoncé. Sam, now a nurse working with Dre’s wife Lizzy (Riki Lindhome) at a local hospital, hasn’t performed in a while; the last time he was supposed to, at a major party that Dre organized, he got cold feet, forcing her to refund everyone’s tickets, amounting to $9,000. Sam is there now, though, ready to help Dre and perform with his drag mother Ginsey (Nina West).

But then, another problem arises: the zombie apocalypse hits New York. Now, as a horde of slow-moving but ravenous undead descend upon the warehouse, the group must put aside their personal conflicts and work together to survive.

Tina Romero’s Hilarious Horror-Comedy Debut

In her directorial debut, Tina Romero serves up a delightful zombie horror-comedy that’s hilarious and heartfelt. Her film, co-written by Erin Judge and brought to life by an outstanding ensemble cast (rounded out with Shaunette Renée Wilson, Cheyenne Jackson, Samora la Perdida, and Becca Blackwell), is filled with quippy one-liners, energetic zombie scenes, and well-developed characters with believable relationships with each other. Costumes designed by David Tabbert and hair and makeup led by Mitchell Beck and Christina Grant, respectively, steal the spotlight. And yes, there are a few references to the OG zombie picture helmed by Romero’s father in the forms of an Impala named “Barbara”, a character quoting, “They’re coming for you, Barbara”, and the line, “This is not a George Romero movie.” Tom Savini even has a cameo appearance.

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Most notable about Queens of the Dead is that it was clearly made specifically for queer audiences (in the best way!). In addition to the cast being populated by iconic queer and trans actors, there are drag culture references, cishet men getting tripped up by third-person singular pronouns, a butch power dyke wielding a power drill, and some raunchy humor: in one scene, an influencer’s presumably straight (or “straight”) boyfriend unwittingly simulates fellatio on a penis-shaped cake pop; in another, Kelsey—injured by a poorly-aimed axe meant for a zombie—tells her worried fiancée Pops (the aforementioned power dyke, played by Margaret Cho) that she wasn’t bitten, but instead has an “axe wound”, leading to one of the queens telling her not to brag about it. The sound bite of Kelsey saying, “I got an axe wound”, is sampled and remixed into an upbeat, danceable tune that plays during the closing credits.

Queens of the Dead Addresses Real Queer and Trans Issues

Interwoven with the comedy and zombie-fighting scenes are plot points that explore real issues that impact queer and trans communities, such as pervasive drug use in drag scenes and healthcare trauma among trans people. The character Nico (played by Tomas Matos) is a drug dealing (and using) dancer and aspiring drag queen who feels ostracized and disrespected as an artist by Ginsey and Sam. Meanwhile, Lizzy’s patient at the hospital—and companion as they outrun zombies—is a young trans woman named Jane (played by Eve Lindley) who has been getting her HRT from dealers rather than licensed doctors. It’s important to note that Romero and Judge don’t showcase these issues through a moralistic lens; they’re presented in a matter-of-fact and deeply compassionate way.

Why Queens of the Dead Slays

Although there could have been a bit more gore, overall, Queens of the Dead is a thoroughly entertaining zombie flick that also manages to be deeply comforting for queer viewers. The central cast is funny without being relegated to the butt of the joke; the lesbian characters aren’t sexualized for the titillation of straight male audiences; the creativity and DIY prowess for which drag queens are famous is highlighted in the fresh context of zombie-fighting weaponry and armor. The characters are messy, complicated, and bitchy. They’re also smart, resilient, and loving. They, like the film as a whole, slay in every sense of the word.

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[REVIEW] ‘The Fly 2’: Less Surrealism, More Slime

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You’ll never change my mind on this: handing over the reins of a horror movie franchise to a special effects artist is always the right choice. Case in point, The Fly 2.

The Case for Special Effects Artists as Horror Directors

Mastercraft horror needs masters to put it together, and the FX and makeup artists who stitch together the on-screen monstrosities we come to know and love are much more experienced with the directing and photography than their title would suggest.

Lighting the monsters, blocking them, choreographing their motions and how they pass through the sets they’re inhabiting, and even understanding character motivations and emotions and how to portray them. They have skills that transfer over to head-on directing and dealing with actors quite nicely that we often overlook.

Today we aren’t talking about Screaming Mad George’s foray into gooey sci-fi with The Guyver, or Alec Gillis’s viral crowdfunded Harbinger Down, although I do hope to cover both of those sooner than later.

Spotlight on The Fly 2: An Unconventional Sequel

We’ll be touching on the unsung and unsuspectingly great sequel to David Cronenberg’s classic, The Fly 2. Picking up where the previous film left off, Veronica’s nightmare has come true: her child by Seth Brundle, the genius scientist turned insect abomination by his own ambitions, has come to term.

Bartok Industries, the company Seth worked for, has taken the child Martin Brundle into their stead to study his rapid growth and abnormal intelligence. Suffering from the same symptoms as his father, Martin attempts to get the telepods working again in a desperate ploy to repair his damaged DNA. Things, as expected, go horribly wrong.

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While this might seem like a straightforward sequel, its quirks make it anything but normal. The Fly 2 eschews much of its previous film’s more surreal and philosophical qualities, exploring the nature of humanity, and leans into the campy science fiction aspects to match its body horror.

Tonal Shifts and Quirky Energy

That doesn’t make it a less worthy sequel, but it does make it unexpectedly off kilter. Tonally, it’s a screwball, starting with some wildly nasty pregnancy horror as we see Martin’s birth in a larval form. Then, for roughly the first 30 minutes, it bounces between children’s adventure film energy, to a college romance, back to horror occasionally before settling into its sci-fi horror nest.

The sharp contrast between the especially dark moments like Martin interacting with a failed telepod experiment and him dancing with his girlfriend give The Fly 2 a very odd energy that in some aspects I’d describe as off the wall, which at the very least makes it more memorable.

Standout Performances Amid Script Challenges

Issues with the script itself become exacerbated by a lack of strong voices; with no Jeff Goldblum and a regrettably absent Geena Davis, the only really notably great performance is Lee Richardson who plays the mustache-twirlingly devilish Anton Bartok with all the corporate nastiness of Ned Beatty in Network.

Credit is due to a returning John Getz, whose portrayal of a now physically and emotionally scarred Stathis Borans is a fun challenge he embraces.  

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While the film does spin its wheels with an honestly completely uncompelling romance for a good chunk of its runtime (think Dan and Megan from Re-Animator with no Herbert to play off of; dreadfully unimportant in the grand scheme of things and not enough humor to derive a good time from), this is alleviated by the rest of the film focusing on the slimy degeneration of our main character, as Martin’s mutations are good and truly off the rails.

Stellar Makeup and Creature Design by Chris Walas

Director Chris Walas and the rest of Amalgamated Dynamics work here is every bit as fantastic as the first film, bringing us plenty of foul fluid and far-gone flesh to make you nauseous. Martin’s slow transformation I would argue is even better than Seth’s, even if the scenes of Martin lamenting and later accepting his change lacks a lot of the dark humor that came with Goldblum’s ambitions to become the first insect politician.

The technical skill on display with this makeup plays best on screen in the film’s climax, featuring the brand-new creature in the Martinfly; it has a greater range of motion than the original Brundlefly, and the sprawling industrial facility the finale takes place in takes advantage of that.

The Climactic Chaos of the Martinfly

Slamming through windows, spewing acid vomit, and swiping with chitinous claws should sell you on the twenty-some minutes of mayhem Martinfly causes.

The Fly 2 isn’t a masterpiece, but this is where my pedantic nature shows; as I said in the opening, it is a masterfully crafted film. It’s a truly admirable attempt at a sequel trying to follow up on one of the greatest horror films of all time, made by one of the most talented special effects artists in American film history. Cronenberg’s fingerprint may not be on it, but it shows a good deal of respect for the original creation it is working off of without turning into a complete retread.

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And for that, it deserves much more attention and love than it gets.  

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