EPISODE 6 SHOW NOTES

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"We can relate to both the monster

and the victim.” 

— Oscar Montoya

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➡️🎬 Horror Films, Books & Pop Culture Mentioned

• The Howling

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

• Bride of Frankenstein

• The Invisible Man

• A Nightmare on Elm Street

• A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

• A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

• A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

• Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

• It Follows

• The Babadook

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show

• Blacula

• Candyman

• The Blackening

• Sinners

• Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror​

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➡️👻 Prominent Horror Artists & Figures Mentioned

Mary Shelley

Author of Frankenstein, which Oscar and Samuel examine through a queer lens. They discuss Frankenstein’s creature as an outsider who longs to belong but is rejected and targeted because of his difference, a dynamic they connect to queer experiences of otherness, assimilation, and repression.​

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James Whale

Queer filmmaker and influential horror director behind Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man. Oscar describes Whale’s work as deeply informed by a queer understanding of Shelley’s material, and points to Bride of Frankenstein in particular as an iconic example of queer horror.
 

Heather Langenkamp

Actor known for playing Nancy Thompson in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Oscar highlights Nancy as a quintessential “final girl” and connects horror survivors to queer resilience.

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Mark Patton

Actor who played Jesse Walsh in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Oscar and Samuel discuss the film’s unmistakable queer themes and the impact that public discussion of Patton’s sexuality had on his life and career.​​

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Dewayne Perkins

Queer Black writer, comedian, and actor who co-wrote and stars in The Blackening. Oscar highlights the film as a major example of Black and queer creators moving from the margins of horror into the mainstream.

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Jordan Peele

Filmmaker Oscar identifies as one of the defining contemporary voices in horror, particularly for bringing original Black stories and perspectives into mainstream genre filmmaking.​

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➡️📚 Queer Horror History References​

Frankenstein & the Queer Monster:

• Oscar and Samuel discuss Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a story about difference, rejection, repression, and the desire to assimilate. Frankenstein’s creature is intelligent and emotionally complex, but society defines him as monstrous because of how he looks.

• Oscar connects that experience to queer people navigating a world that may attempt to punish, destroy, or assimilate those who are different.

James Whale & Bride of Frankenstein

• Director James Whale was openly gay within his lifetime and directed some of early Hollywood’s most enduring horror films, including Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man.

• Oscar calls Bride of Frankenstein an especially potent queer film, pointing to its camp, glamour, gender performance, independence, and resistance to the roles its characters were created to fulfill.

Queer Monsters & Final Girls

• Oscar argues that queer viewers can uniquely identify with both the monster and the victim in horror.

• Queer people may recognize themselves in monsters who are treated as dangerous outsiders, while also identifying with final girls and other survivors who endure violence, persecution, and fear and nevertheless make it to the end.

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Freddy Krueger & A Nightmare on Elm Street

• Oscar jokingly declares Freddy Krueger a queer icon, pointing to the character’s theatricality and literal appearances in drag throughout the franchise.

• The conversation then turns to A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, a film that has become particularly notable for its queer themes and its gay lead actor, Mark Patton.

The Hays Code & Queer Subtext

• Oscar and Samuel discuss the censorship restrictions of classic Hollywood and how queer audiences learned to look for themselves in the “fine print” of films.

• Rather than eliminating queer expression, censorship often pushed LGBTQ+ creators and audiences toward coded, metaphorical, and subversive forms of storytelling.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

• Oscar and Samuel discuss The Rocky Horror Picture Show as both a queer film and a queer community experience.

• After initially struggling commercially, the film developed a legendary culture of midnight screenings, audience participation, costumes, callbacks, and shadow casts. Oscar describes seeing it surrounded by queer people and realizing, “This is for us.”

• They also compare the communal language and ritual of Rocky Horror screenings to ballroom culture: communities taking imagery and culture that were not necessarily created for them and transforming it into a space where they can celebrate one another and belong.

Queer People as “Collage Artists” of Pop Culture

• Oscar describes queer people as some of the greatest “collage artists of pop culture”—taking pieces of mainstream culture, including things that were never designed with LGBTQ+ people in mind, and remixing them into something meaningful.

• The conversation particularly recognizes Black and Brown queer people for creating cultural forms that are later embraced or appropriated by the mainstream.

Blacula & Imperfect Queer Representation

• Oscar discusses Blacula, an important Black horror film whose first victims are a gay couple.

• While he acknowledges that the characters are exaggerated stereotypes, he also points out that they are depicted as an established domestic couple with money, taste, influence, and social status.

• The conversation asks how we can acknowledge the flaws of historical queer representation while also recognizing what visibility may have meant to people who rarely saw themselves represented at all.

The Blackening & Contemporary Black Queer Horror

• Oscar highlights The Blackening as an example of how formerly marginalized perspectives are increasingly entering mainstream horror.

• The film features an all-Black central cast and was co-written by queer Black writer and performer Dewayne Perkins. Oscar describes seeing an openly queer Black creator telling a horror story specifically informed by Black culture as revolutionary.