The Devil is a gay-coded teen in ‘Fear No Evil,’ a shoddy horror with the most homoerotic shower scene ever
Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, we revisit 1981’s Fear No Evil, a confusing yet undeniably queer horror largely forgotten to time.There’s always been a close connection between the queer community and horror.
As a genre that has often used the figure of the “Other” in some of its most famous stories (from Frankenstein and Dracula to Freddy Krueger and Carrie White), there are many thematic connections that explain why we gravitate to creatures and monsters.
They, and the feelings of confusion, fear, and detachment from “regular” society, often represent ourselves.This traditional viewpoint that anything (or anyone) that is different is also inherently dangerous or evil has been ingrained very deeply in cinematic culture, particularly during its first two-thirds of history.
It’s no surprise then that many villains and horror antagonists have been queer-coded. Norman Bates in Psycho, Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca, practically every Disney villain… However, it’s been very rare that a gay-adjacent villain also happens to be the ultimate evil pesonified.With Halloween just around the corner, this week we’re going back to the underseen and under-discussed (unfortunately, for good reason) 1981 horror film Fear No Evil, in which the Devil himself comes back to Earth in the body of a teenage boy that… Well, let’s just say many of us would share a lot of common ground with him.The movie retells the biblical story of Lucifer, the angel that was banished from Heaven after thinking himself higher than God.
