I just watched Fright Night (1985) and man before the internet if you thought some guy was a vampire you couldn't even google the word "vampire" about it, you had to physically go to a movie studio and harass Vincent Price. Fucked up.
Campires: The Homosexual Subtext of 1980s Vampire Films
I finally finished my film class final! If you enjoy queer film analysis and The Lost Boys/Fright Night, I think you'll enjoy! I could've easily written about this topic forever, but being as the assignment had a 5 page limit, I was as thorough as I could be!
Storytellers have been using vampirism as an allegory for queerness for over a century. Classics like Dracula and Carmila popularized this interpretation, using vampires to paint a picture of a seductive, evil being, luring partners to their dooms in horror stories filled with erotic tension. Particularly in the 1980s, the perception of queer people as threatening creatures of temptation was particularly poignant, heavily impacting vampire movies of the time. The films The Lost Boys (1987) and Fright Night (1985) use lighting, music and composition to create a subtext of the lure of homosexuality through the motif of the sensual vampire.
The Lost Boys first show of identity is their fashion. The leather-clad vampires all sport single earrings, a historically queer-coded fashion statement. They (for the most part) have long, styled hair, and dress in fishnet, chaps and leather, having a sexuality about them that has a distinctly hair metal flavor. Hair metal, of course, was infamously criticised for being gay, and overly feminine. From the moment the audience lays eyes on the boys, walking gleefully around the carousel, they are explicitly free, and wildly queercoded. They do what they want on the boardwalk, their outfits representing their actions. They couldn’t possibly care what people think about them or their sexualities, unlike Michael, the protagonist. Michael’s fashion is, for lack of a better word, straight. He’s a perfect 80s boy next door, from his short brown curls to his plain white t-shirt. That is, until he meets The Lost Boys. Within a night of coming into contact with the boys, he has bought his own leather jacket, fitting in with them more closely. The morning after their night together, his ear is pierced. Even from a visual perspective, The Lost Boys have a freedom in their presentation that Michael longs to emulate.
That night, despite the fact that Michael is apparently motivated by the affections of Star, his attention is entirely devoted to David. After getting him into the cave, David is positioned the closest to him compositionally and spot lit, while Star looms in candle light over his shoulder. Star is tethering him to an idea of heterosexual safety as David tempts and teases him with the idea of something else, something dangerous. The editing, primarily cutting between midshots of the two boys, creates an intimate tension between them. Food is offered, and David uses his vampiric abilities to make a carton of rice look like wriggling maggots, prompting Michael to spit out the mouthful he’d taken. David plays this off as a joke at Michael’s expense, before offering him noodles, which appear to be disgusting worms, just like the maggots he spit out moments prior. David then makes a show of taking a bite, partaking in an illusion of depravity that Michael couldn’t stomach. “They’re only noodles, Michael,” he reassures, taking the wind out of Michael’s panic. Through the camerawork in this scene, David is shown presenting Michael with something that disgusts him, his homosexuality, and indulges in it without fear. David is the catalyst for Michael exploring the sexuality that he is repulsed by.
When Marko presents David with the bottle, the atmosphere is changed from slightly off-putting, to something more sinister. The background chatter from the rest of the boys quiets, and Star crosses the room to be closer to Michael than David is. She sees Michael becoming malleable, being seduced by David. She is his fear, his last line of defense against temptation. Cold white light floods David’s face as the camera pulls in on him. He closes his eyes, leans his head back, and takes a drink. David has already built a commanding dynamic with Michael. He eats the noodles that Michael is afraid of, he dresses the way he wants, he doesn’t care about what people think of him. David is who Michael wants, and who he wants to be, in all his violent queerness. The bottle is passed to Michael, and he is faced with a choice: Listen to his fear, the idea that David, his desires, are dangerous (represented by Star), or give in, and become one of The Lost Boys, freely and unabashedly gay. As he goes to take a swig, Michael makes his choice. When Star warns him, “It’s blood,” Michael laughs. While being encouraged by his new band of friends, he stops being held back by his disgust and fear of his own wants. The shot moves from a close-up of Star and Michael’s faces, upwards, leaving a now fearless Michael alone in the frame as he finally submits to David’s temptation and becomes a Lost Boy.
A key feature in The Lost Boys that it shares with Fright Night is the music. Both films' titular vampires and antagonists are queued with seductive, primarily non-diagetic rock tracks that inform the audience on how they are to feel about these characters immediately. David is sly and dangerous, Dracula-evoking synths playing as he and his gang prowl the streets of Santa Carla. Jerry is methodically charming, his music more raucous, distorted electric guitar licks conjuring his supernatural seduction and power. The moment these two put their vampiric sides on display, their music kicks on, aiding their dangerous auras.
Fright Night opens directly with Jerry keeping Charley from sleeping with his girlfriend, Amy. After hassling Amy into eventually getting into bed with him, Charley is distracted. He looks out the bedroom window as Amy kisses him, spotting Jerry Dandrige and Billy Cole carrying a coffin. This first introduction of the two vampires establishes their relationship from the beginning. They are a lethal partnership, carrying a coffin together as a forewarning of the danger they bring to Charley’s neighborhood. The scene cuts between the two carrying the coffin, Charley watching them closely, and Amy readying herself in bed. This editing choice directly compares what Charley should want, and what actually intrigues him. He and Amy are a perfect, normal, straight couple, and despite arguing with Amy over wanting sex, now that the opportunity presents itself, he’s preoccupied with the handsome vampire next door, much to her frustration.
The next morning, Ed’s introduction paints him as exactly what he is: a weirdo. Ed is Charley’s best friend, a shrill-voiced teacher’s pet whose relationship with Charley is loyal, but mildly antagonistic at best. When Amy shoves past them in the hallway, Ed is delighted to poke fun, remarking, “She finally found out what you’re really like?” and prodding at Charley’s chest. Charley promptly tells him to “buzz off,” speaking his nickname for the first time, Evil. From the beginning Ed knows what Charley is really like, because he’s the same. However, while Charley has, up until this point, presented as a normal, heterosexual, well-liked nerd, Ed has been outcast and called Evil (literally) for his inability to hide his queerness sufficiently. When Charley is faced with the reality that the vampire Jerry is coming for him, he goes to Ed. Ed, despite not giving his vampire theories the time of day, knows how to deal with vampirism, i.e., preventing the danger of their persuasion in their small town.
The second night Charley goes to spy on Jerry, what he sees is much more explicit than two men carrying a coffin. Through his window, Charley watches Jerry with a young woman. Throughout the scene, however, Charley’s focus, as shown through the camera’s perspective itself, drifts to Jerry. Charley watches Jerry’s face as he leans back, fangs emerging from his mouth, once again distracted from a woman he should want by Jerry’s presence. Just as Jerry is about to bite into the woman, his eyes look to Charley, catching him watching. The way Jerry looks at Charley through the lens of the camera is confrontational. Not in the sense that Charley has caught him in the act, but that he has caught Charley sneaking a look at what he really desires. Charley then stumbles back shakily as Jerry continues to stare back at him, knowing his secret and calmly closing the window, breaking the fantasy. Jerry next sees Charley in his front yard, spying once again as he and Billy hide the woman’s body away. In the conclusion to this scene, Jerry confirms both his moral depravity, and the beginning of his pursuit of Charley.
Charley isn’t the only figure Jerry hunts over the course of the film, though. Charley is locked firmly in the closet, proving to be a challenge for Jerry to seduce. When Jerry finally does shadow the group, Ed is the first to be taken, and unlike the others, it’s voluntary. Jerry slowly stalks him down an alleyway, and Ed, previously unafraid, begins to run. Of course, Jerry, with the reality of his orientation and the stigma it holds, catches up to him. Throughout this exchange, close-ups of Ed and midshots of Jerry cut back and forth. Ed looks up at Jerry, the pale blue light shining predominantly on his face, making him look emotionally and physically vulnerable. Jerry is calm and collected, easefully luring him to “safety”. Ed sits, slumped against a brick wall as Jerry stands before him, explaining that he knows what it’s like to feel different, that Ed doesn’t have to be afraid of him, or by extension, himself. Jerry presents Ed with a deal: give in to temptation, be the monster everyone thinks he is, and their vitriol can’t hurt him anymore. Ed, brought to tears by Jerry’s words, takes his hand, being pulled into Jerry’s coat, and into the fold, as it were.
By the time the films come to a close, normalcy is restored through the destruction of the most alluring vampire characters, returning the hero of the film to the safety of his heterosexuality. David is staked after a tense, vamped-out, one-on-one brawl with Michael, pitting him directly against the desires he represents. Jerry is chased, his monstrousness forced into the light of day by Charley. Both protagonists land back into the arms of their comfort zones, Star and Amy, lauded by their compatriots and sent back home. Ultimately, the era in which these films were made forced them to conclude right where they began: in the closet.
#writing
#my chemical romance
#outer banks
#the freak circus
