Queer for Fear : Horror Film and the Queer Spectator

A new analysis of the connection between the horror genre and the queer community.

Queer for Fear is the groundbreaking empirical study of the LGBTQ+ community that not only documents the opinions, habits, and tastes of the horror-loving queer spectator but also evidences how and why queers have a distinctive relationship to the horror genre. This interdisciplinary book makes impactful contributions to the fields of queer, film, horror, trauma, camp, and live cinema studies.

Queer for Fear analyses the relationship queer people have to horror film, building upon decades of theory that previously emphasised horror’s queerness as being subtextual, allegorical and figurative. This groundbreaking interdisciplinary empirical study of the LGBTQ+ community not only offers the first inclusive understanding of the horror-loving queer spectator’s opinions, habits and tastes, but also evidences how and why queers have a distinctive relationship to horror. Leveraging original survey data, in-depth oral histories and theory, Petrocelli evidences that queer people have ontological connections to the horror genre, and concludes that horror is queer to the queer spectator. This study also establishes that queer spectators actively engage with horror to work through their trauma, knowingly have a camp relationship to horror, and joyously commune through horror screenings featuring drag performance. Queer for Fear is an overdue contribution to the fields of queer, film, horror, trauma, camp and live cinema studies.