‘Every creak, every groan, every tap in the wall, you'll think of me’: Spinning the Web of Trans*-Horror-Metaphors in Cobweb (2023)

Citation

Elliott-Smith D (2024) ‘Every creak, every groan, every tap in the wall, you'll think of me’: Spinning the Web of Trans*-Horror-Metaphors in Cobweb (2023). Monstrum [Video Essay and accompanying author notes] 12.2024. https://www.monstrum-society.ca/journal--revue.html

Abstract
First paragraph: As the Queer Horror Film and TV sub-genre matures, its focus turning to sub-cultural fears and anxieties within LGBTQIA+ communities, the hope that a more enlightened approach to queer fears might be more inclusive in their representations and metaphors also grows. In my previous works (New Queer Horror Film and TV (2020) and Queer Horror Film and Television: Masculinity and Sexuality at the Margins (2016)) I have argued that in recent years the sub-genre has shifted ‘out of the shadows’ of furtive symbolism whereby, as Robin Wood puts it ‘the monster is to “normality” as homosexuality is to heterosexuality’ (PG), and has matured into an art form that allows for informed cultural critique and devoted identification with Otherness for some that can be emancipatory. However Queer Horror emergence from its history of mixed and problematic representations from the past, is still in its infancy.

Keywords
Queer Horror; Trans Horror; LGBTQ Studies; Film Studies

Notes
Video available here: https://vimeo.com/1050836548

• Every Creak Every Groan: Spinning the Web of Queer/Trans Metaphors in Cobweb