Profs & Pints DC: Horror as Queer

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Horror as Queer,” a look at the influence and depiction of queerness in horror films, with May Santiago, adjunct professor of film studies at George Mason University and producer of the podcast Horrorspiria.

Horror was queer long before both Brad and Janet succumbed to the charms of Dr. Frank-N-Further in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In fact, one could make the argument that, for both better and worse, the history of horror films is the history of queers on film. Film scholar May Santiago will do just that, with plenty of vivid examples, in an encore of a talk that earned rave reviews last spring.

You’ll learn how queer authors, such as F.W. Murnau and James Whale, were there at the very beginning. Murnau played a central role in the German expressionist movement that gave rise to films such as Nosferatu, while Whale left a…