Rebecca Mahoney is the author of Thrall, a queer vampire novel out now from Disney Publishing. Below, she writes about the long history of queer horror and monsters.

It’s no secret that many queer people love horror, villains, and monsters.

Oftentimes, it’s personal. It’s unfortunately never been much of a leap for many of us to connect to the feared and the persecuted. I live in the Boston area, and have spent many an overcrowded afternoon in Salem—well-known for its hub of dark tourism, and maybe a little lesser-known for its thriving queer community—and I remember once seeing a letter someone left at the memorial for the witch trial victims. I think I could have been you, was the gist of it. People think I’m strange, too. 

I always thought this queer love of monsters was more of a reclaiming, a decision to love and empathize with queer-coded villains created from a place of homophobia. There are many instances of that, for sure. But lately, what has really enriched my love of horror has been exploring how deep the history of queer horror goes, and learning about the queer writers who shaped it in every age. 

Several scholars have theorized that Bram Stoker was working through his repressed attraction to men as he worked on Dracula. James Whale, the godfather of the Universal Studios monster movie, was openly gay, and he enriched movies like The Bride of Frankenstein with queer themes. Even when you look at some of the classic villains outside of horror, you get characters like The Little Mermaid’s Ursula, who playwright and lyricist Howard Ashman lovingly crafted in the image of drag queen Divine.

Throughout history, queer fiction has had so many lines to toe: to be invisible, to be tragic, to be palatable. But in these villains, we get messiness and humor and camp that may not have been expressed otherwise. It’s bombastic. It’s cathartic. And it’s always fun.

So sometimes, the queer love of monsters is a reclaiming. But other times, it’s an intentional foundation that we are so fortunate to keep building on. I am so thrilled to have Thrall, which was queer from the second it was a tiny idea in my head, be a piece of that structure.