A Top-to-Bottom Guide

A quirky look at the classic movie monsters from a gay perspective.

The monsters are coming out of the closet. Not to scare you. Not to eat you. To tell you something. They’re gay. They’ve been gay all along, but you didn’t know it. Part social commentary, part film history, We Belong Dead will change your view of the classic movie monsters.

In the 1930s and 1940s, when most of the classic monster films were made, American society was less accommodating to gay lifestyles than it is today. Many gays felt akin to the cinematic monsters: isolated, unloved, even persecuted. But mostly, different. The pitchfork-wielding villagers of the films, in real life, were often parents, friends, and neighbors.

From Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, and The Mummy, to Val Lewton’s Cat People and the comical coda of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Douglas McEwan teases out most elegantly the subliminal message in each of your favorite monster films.

Not gay? It doesn’t matter. You’ll enjoy McEwan’s incisive analysis of the films, and his many anecdotes about their production, their creators, and their stars. Gay? Welcome! You’re going to experience the classic movie monsters as you always suspected they behaved, back at their castles, or in their coffins, or in the deep, dark woods at night.

Because you never know what is coming out of the closet next.