All language subtitles for Engli 1

- It's a perfect night
for mystery and horror.

The air itself is
filled with monsters.

- I'm all ears.

Open up your pits of hell.

- As queer people, we are
considered outside of society

and I think horror is
outside of society.

- Horror stories upset
all the right people.

People who can't
handle ambiguity,

people who can't handle
violence or eroticism,

people who think of the world
in these very clear-cut terms.

- Most Americans are repelled

by the mere notion
of homosexuality.

The CBS News survey shows that
two out of three Americans

look upon homosexuals with
disgust, discomfort, or fear.

- What was that?

- The main thing
about horror was

that it was exciting
to get scared

and that there was
an honesty to it,

because I was responding
to how my body felt.

So, kind of like porn.

- Your blood starts pumping.

There is something very, very
primal about being afraid.

- Horror designed to make
you incredibly uncomfortable.

And I think that queer people

are just generally better
at being uncomfortable.

- Now kindly undo these straps.

- Because queer has
been seen as bad,

has been seen as the other,

of course we're gonna
put anything bad

and anything the
other as the monster.

- I know who I am now, Sam.

- You wait till mom
finds out, buddy.

- I always thought of
myself as a monster

or a freak or a weirdo.

- My, I'll bet you monsters
lead interesting lives.

- I'm Frankenstein, I'm
Dracula, I'm Mrs. Danvers.

- So many of us can relate

to being the the
monster in the room.

- I want to walk amongst
the commoners unnoticed.

A prince amongst paupers.

- The reason queer people have
latched onto these monsters

is because we see
in them that society

is always trying
to eradicate us.

And we're always
waiting to fight back.

- That's how we're
represented in film.

We're the bogeyman.

We're the ones who
are out to get you.

- A flood tide of filth
is engulfing our country

and is threatening to pervert

an entire generation of
our American children.

- You sit the fuck down!

- They constantly portray
abnormal sexual behavior.

They glorify unnatural sex acts.

- Show me.

- With so many queer creators,

we see this affinity
with the shadowy margins

of what's considered
respectable society.

- Are you a member?

- I'm looking for somebody.

- Aren't we all?

- The moment there's
some kind of queer lens

being used to create,

it immediately reflects
and reverberates

throughout the piece.

- The evolution of queer horror

really parallels the
evolution of queer liberation.

- They're waiting for you.

- You begin with queer artists

taking the spaces
we're allowed to have

and slipping what we can
say into those spaces.

♪ I'm afraid there's no denyin' ♪

♪ I'm just a dandy-lion ♪

- There's something affirming
about that vision in horror,

because at least
we know we exist,

at least we know
we are out there,

even if we're only there

to put the fear of God
into straight people.

- Through this material,
today's youth can be enticed

to enter the world of
homosexuals, lesbians,

and other sex deviants.

We know that once a
person is perverted,

it is practically
impossible for that person

to adjust to normal
attitudes in regard to sex.

- We queers have been a
part of the genre of horror

since the beginning, right?

Since the beginning.

- The horror genre as we know it

really dates back to
folkloric traditions

and then the gothic
tradition in literature

in the 17th and 18th century.

When you wanted to
write about queers,

you had to find a sort
of coded way to do it.

- We queers have always
had our own language.

- If you know, you know,

but otherwise it just kind
of goes over your head.

And if somebody sees
it, it's on them.

It's not quite on you.

- The gothic is literally
about sublimated,

hidden things coming to light.

The dead, or the
past, or desires,

or things that have
been pushed down.

The whole point is you
can't suppress the dead,

you can't suppress the past.

It's always gonna
come up and erupt

in some really interesting
and terrifying way.

- One of the defining
characteristics of those gothic novels

is that they are all
about transgression.

Resurrecting the
dead, drinking blood,

making Faustian
deals with the devil.

And tied to that is, of
course, sexual transgression.

- We've now reached
a sort of stage

with a very, very long
history of the gothic

in literature and in film,

where we can actually start to
look back at things and say,

"You know, that's not quite

what it appeared
to be at the time."

- The general names
from the 19th century

that we associate with horror

are really Bram Stoker,
Robert Louis Stevenson,

but before that is Mary Shelley.

She is an angel.

- You think so?

- It is no surprise that a
woman created the horror genre.

We're suppressed in
more ways than one,

especially a queer woman.

She had all the
ammunition in the world

to create monsters, and she did.

- Mary, what an icon.

I'm just gonna invent science
fiction in an afternoon.

Do you guys want anything?

Like, "Yeah, thanks.
Thanks, Mary."

- Mary Shelly is not only the
mother of the horror genre

and the science fiction genre.

She is a leading
feminist idealist

and also the goth-est
of the goth girls.

- Mary Shelley is so goth.

She lost her virginity on
her mother's gravestone.

- Here I come!

- We all know this
image of Mary Shelley,

hanging out in the graveyards,

and there's a much more romantic

and heartfelt way to look at it.

Her mother, Mary Goodwin,
was a prolific writer

before feminism was even a word,

was very much so of
the feminist spirit.

She died within weeks
of Mary being born.

The only way for Mary Shelly

to have a connection
with her mother

was to be in the space
that her mother left her

and to read her literature

and sort of piece
together a relationship

with this woman she
never got to meet.

- Mary Shelly was
pretty radical.

She was very sexually liberal,

experimenting, very open-minded.

And what was also great

was just her
equality with the men

that she was spending time with.

- Mary Shelley was married
to Percy Bysshe Shelley.

They were also part
of a who knows exactly

relationship with Lord Byron.

The trio was allegedly
booted out of England

because of their
notorious behavior.

- She was one of the
original hags, right?

I mean, she could
hang out, you know?

She was there for her gays,
and they were there for her.

Hanging out with these
sexually fluid men

and also having her own secrets

really speaks to
her being a pioneer

in the art of monsters and
of horror and storytelling

at that time when those
stories were so new.

- She's so goth.

- They ended up in
Europe at Villa Diodati

where they all decided
to write ghost stories

fueled by drugs and
sex and alcohol.

- She's really turning
it for the goths, honey.

- She's 18, she's hanging out
with her husband and his bros.

I shouldn't call them bros.

They were all having sex.

- It is an age of
dreams and nightmares.

- Yes, and we are merely
the children of the age.

- And she has a nightmare
about this shambling behemoth.

She writes it down, and she
kind of invents science fiction

and horror in the same moment.

- As the story goes,

Mary Shelley came up with
the concept of Frankenstein

when she was debating,

what's the scariest
story you can think of?

Kind of fitting
that a female author

would think the scariest
thing I can think of

is a man trying to create life.

- It's such a commentary
on a man's world,

and it's such a commentary
on the audacity of men

to think that they
could even create

a functioning creature
without a woman.

Like, the balls it
must have took for her

to put those words on that page.

- She's writing in an era
where there aren't a lot

of female authors to begin with.

It's certainly not
a respectable thing

for her to be doing.

Just by virtue of her
writing this book,

this is like this
radical statement that,

I, a bisexual woman, am capable
of these manly pursuits.

- The Frankenstein monster
is literally made up

of bits and pieces of other
people and other psyches,

is this extraordinary outsider.

- This idea that you can
recombine the elements

of a human to create something
is inherently terrifying.

But I think that that's sort
of what it means to be queer

is you're sort of taking
all these elements

of masculinity or femininity
and you're redesigning them

into the person that you are.

- The monster chooses to attack

and kill Victor
Frankenstein's wife

on their wedding night so
that they never consummate.

And from that point on,

Victor Frankenstein is
obsessed with his male creation

and is chasing the male
creation all over the world.

And if that's not a queer
narrative, I don't know what is.

- The literature
shows Frankenstein

as so much more articulate
and smart and charismatic

instead of this mumbling,
horrible creature.

- The monster and Frankenstein
are kind of constantly

ever changing, two
beings within the same

that are overlapping.

Frankenstein catches up with
the doctor and explains,

oh yeah, I learned language.

You know what I mean?

Like, here I am, I'm
you, which is a monster,

but I'm gonna reflect
back to you what you are.

- There is something very,
very dream girls about it,

of showing up at somebody's
doorstep and being like.

- ♪ And I am telling you ♪

- I am telling you
I am not going.

- ♪ I'm not going ♪

- You are going to love me and
if you're not gonna love me,

you are going to admit
that you don't love me

and you are gonna tell me why,

and you will not be
able to hide from that.

- My favorite part
of Frankenstein

is that Mary Shelly was queer,

because as many historians
love to argue against,

we have written texts from Mary
Shelly to her friend saying

that she likes to get
tousey-mousey with women.

- "April 8th, 1825.

When I return to Italy,

I shall not come
without my Jane,

who is now necessary to
my existence almost."

Girl, she's not going without
Jane, so don't even ask.

"I never saw a woman I
thought so fascinating.

Had I been a man,

I should certainly have
fallen in love with her

and had she taken the trouble,

she might have wound
me round her finger."

Oh girl, I bet.

"I was so ready to
give myself away,

and being afraid of men,

I was apt to get
tousey-mousey for women."

Tousey-mousey?

She was like, you know what?

Yeah, I was a
lesbian for a while.

I was like dating a girl.

No, you know, that
didn't work out.

I don't know.

I don't really like men.

She's so progressive.

I like her.

- Can you believe that bland

and lovely brow conceived
of Frankenstein?

- Such an audience
needs something stronger

than a pretty little love story.

So why shouldn't I
write of monsters?

- She saw it as a gruesome
story of what it was like

to create a version of
yourself from nothing.

That's her through line, I
think, through Frankenstein,

is she had to create
herself from nothing.

It was like all the
pieces just came together

and she was able to really,
I mean quite literally,

all the pieces came together

and she was able to
make this masterpiece.

- You wake foul dreams
of sensual life.

- What a strange poem.

Who wrote it?

- Brilliant young
Irishman out of Oxford.

His name is Oscar Wilde.

- Oscar Fingal
O'Flahertie Wills Wilde.

He's an extremely modern figure.

He became really a sort
of self-made celebrity,

but as a writer, he became
a phenomenon of the age.

- Oscar Wilde was so
brilliant and so successful

and so capable with language
and with the art form,

but he was keeping a secret.

- I like persons
better than principles

and persons with no principles

better than anything
else in the world.

Now I remember.

- Remember what, Henry?

- When I heard the
name of Dorian Gray.

- What's beautiful
about Dorian Gray

is he created the myth of
what happens with repression.

Ultimately, repression
will eat you up inside

and you will turn
into a monster.

- Each of us has
heaven and hell in him.

- But if this is true,

if this is what you've
done with your life,

it is far worse than anything
that's been said or done.

- The Picture of Dorian Gray

is one of those horror classics.

There's this guy who never
seems to get any older

and it turns out he
has a magic painting

that ages while he doesn't,

and it's becoming
darker and more decrepit

and there is something
horrible at the center of it.

- What is your secret, Dorian?

You don't look a day
older than you did

when that portrait was painted.

- Perhaps I'll tell you someday.

- Wilde's The Picture
of Dorian Gray,

which is a much more
queer take on this idea

of the multiple selves
that are contained

within someone and our capacity
for debauchery or evil.

- Dorian is sort of
an amoral character

and a very queer character.

Beautiful, vain,
consumed with pleasure.

If you're talking about
the horror continuum,

I think you can draw a
line from Dorian Gray

through a character like
The Talented Mr. Ripley

by Patricia High Smith,

all the way to Patrick
Bateman in American Psycho.

- The Picture of Dorian
Gray is very much about

the dangers of
being in the closet,

of having a thing that you
feel like you can't speak about

to anyone else.

- He is a wounded, deeply
tortured queer character,

trapped in a narrative that
he's desperately trying

to break out of.

- He's taking his and
our collective experience

of being suppressed and
repressed and punished

for who we are and
he's birthing it

into this beautiful metaphor.

That, to me, is wildly powerful
that he was able to do that

before it all came
crashing down.

What's amazing is that he's
also foreseeing where his life

is going to go once he actually
gets caught and charged

and then placed into jail
for his homosexuality.

- 1895 is two years before
Dracula is published.

The sort of high water
mark of so much of,

of what we associate is that,

that kind of gothic literature.

And that was the year that
Wilde fell from grace.

Buggery had been a
crime for centuries,

but it was rarely
prosecuted until

a man called Henry Labouchère
suddenly changed the rules

and Wilde was the first

and most famous casualty
of the whole thing.

But he was fascinatingly
given the chance to go.

I think it's either
a combination

of a very sympathetic magistrate

or actually the
establishment not wanting

to lift the rug on
an awful lot of stuff

they didn't want to come out,

but he decided not to go.

So he was arrested.

- It would've been
very easy for Wilde

to have fled the country,
to have become an expat,

to have run off to France to
avoid the prison sentence.

But you know, he
stood and fought.

That's a really great act
of heroism that I don't know

that Oscar Wilde always
gets the credit for.

- And then he was sentenced
to two years of hard labor

and for a man like him,
it was a death sentence.

The judge hideously
said he thought

it was completely insufficient

for the gravity of his crime

of daring to love
someone of his own sex.

He is conflated in the popular
imagination with monstrosity.

- Heaven, forgive me.

- Once his identity was exposed

and it was out there and
he was living with it,

it seems like it kind of opened
up corridors for him to use

all of that brilliance that
he had been sublimating

into a heteronormative structure

and then he kind of
found his own, to me,

authenticity and queerness.

- Wilde was a brilliant writer

who actually put his
genius into his life.

His life is why we
really remember him.

- There's no such thing as
a good influence, Mr. Gray.

All influence is immoral.

Why?

- Because the aim of
life is self development.

To realize one's
nature perfectly.

That's what we're here for.

- I think he was a man
who actually worried

that he was trivial,

that in the end he would be
remembered for some funny plays

and some funny quips,
and incredibly,

by not running away,
he became immortal.

- There've been a lot of
rumors about Bram Stoker

over the decades about what
his actual sexuality was.

- First of all, Bram
Stoker was kind of cute.

Like he kind of could
get just a tad bit.

That's one thing I wanna say.

- Even if Bram Stoker
was queer in some way,

my understanding is
that he was not out.

And I think that that can
be a very conflicted place

from which to create.

- A few years ago,

David Skal, a horror
film historian,

found a letter that Stoker
had written to Walt Whitman,

who was probably the
most famous homosexual

of the 19th century.

- His letters to Walt Whitman
are clearly love letters.

They sort of quake
with the quiet longing

that I remember having

for my secret male
crushes growing up

and he says everything
but, you know,

what he wants to
say and even then,

inferring that there
are some things

that he would rather
say in person.

I don't know, it feels
pretty darn gay to me.

"My dear Mr. Whitman,

Do not think me cheeky
for writing this.

I only hope we may sometime meet

and I shall be able to perhaps
to say what I cannot write.

I have to thank you
for many happy hours,

for I've read your poems with
my door locked late at night.

You who wrote the words
know them better than I do

and to you, who sing of
your land of progress,

the words have a meaning
that I can only imagine.

But be assured of
this Walt Whitman,

that a man of less than
half your own age here

felt his heart leap toward
you across the Atlantic

and his soul swelling at the
words or rather the thoughts.

How sweet a thing it is
for a strong, healthy man

with a woman's eye and
a child's wishes to feel

that he can speak to a man
who can be, if he wishes,

father and brother
and wife to his soul.

You have shaken off the shackles
and your wings are free.

I have the shackles
on my shoulders still,

but I have no wings."

- Bram Stoker feels emboldened
at some point to perhaps,

you know, start making
his way out of the closet.

Talking about his
correspondence with Walt Whitman

and then in light
of cultural events,

suddenly does a full 180.

- We know that he was part
of Oscar Wilde's circle.

He was another Irish expatriate.

- Stoker knew Oscar Wilde well.

They were friends
and contemporaries.

Wilde's arrest and and
prosecution detonated a bomb

in British society.

- After the Wilde trial, there
was a lot more burrowing,

a lot more marriages,
a lot more hiding

from what was obviously gonna
be a very unaccepting public.

- Stoker married Oscar
Wilde's ex, Florence,

which is a curious
turn of events.

Stoker's passion was the theater

and his great hero was the
English actor Henry Irving.

It was an extraordinary
relationship.

Irving treated him appallingly.

It's very hard not to interpret

from our perspective
as being sub/dom.

- Wake up, master.

- The character of
Renfield in the book,

I think there's a kind
of transference there.

- I will be one of those who
benefits from your generosity.

- That Stoker is putting
himself in the position

of this imprisoned madman
enthralled to his master.

- Good evening.

- Stoker's working out a lot
of his own issues in Dracula.

There's this idea of sexuality

as being this enticing force
and difficult to resist,

but one must, because ultimately
you know it's monstrous

and it's going to destroy you.

- Welcome to my home.

- Dracula is largely
more an expression

of a fear of queerness.

In that Dracula's modus
operandi appears to be

to enslave women and torture men

with a kind of psychological
psychosexual obsession.

- When the three vampire brides
try and feast off Harker,

Dracula appears and he's
absolutely furious and he says,

"This man belongs to me."

In Stoker's notes that
is written constantly.

Every time he comes back
to his notes over a period

of seven years, he
writes it again.

It's very important to him.

Seems to mean
something quite primal.

- After the
publication of Dracula,

Bram Stoker becomes
very vocally homophobic,

writing letters to
parliament saying

that gay writers should
all be put in prison.

One could argue that the
existence of Dracula itself

is as much of a dodge as those
letters to parliament were.

That Stoker is
basically saying, yes,

I know that sexuality
seems like something

that you really
want to give into,

but you mustn't or you will
be doomed for all eternity.

- And then obviously what
Stoker is famous for,

he drew together over a
period of several years

these myths and legends about
vampires into a book which

is originally called The Undead,

featuring a character
called Count Vampire.

It's very on the nose.

And then, brilliantly,
he came across the legend

of a real life
Transylvanian warlord.

Son of the Dragon, Dracula.

I've seen it, the actual
page of the manuscript,

and he's crossed out The
Undead and writes Dracula.

That's it.

It's a game changer,

the way that Shelley's
Frankenstein is a game changer.

Something happens there

which pulls all these
legends together

and starts to make the
vampire into a popular figure

that we all understand.

- Dracula becomes the sort
of heir text for vampires

and it's probably one of
the most filmed stories

of all time.

- As we see literary
storytelling giving way

to cinematic storytelling,

there are a lot of queer
artists who are there

to make sure that
that subtext survives

and in fact flourishes as
presented on the big screen.

- So, F.W. Murnau.

- After fighting in World War I,

Murnau is existing
in Weimar, Germany

and if we know
anything from Cabaret,

it's that Germany
was a great place

to be gay until it wasn't.

He got out when the
getting was good

and came to the United States
but not before, you know,

making obviously some
singularly iconic queer horror,

including Der Januskopf,
Faust, and Nosferatu.

- It's extraordinary to think

that he had his hand in
Dracula with Nosferatu

and he had his hand
in Jekyll and Hyde.

- Murnau made an
unauthorized version

of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde
in the early twenties

called Der Januskopf.

These themes of doubled selfs,

a self that is presented

to the world and a self
that is secret and hidden,

that is the more
libidinal, eroticized self,

appealed to him.

- In a film that is
tragically lost to us,

the metaphors are all just
kind of sitting there.

This thing inside me
that I can't control

and it wants to come out

and I mustn't let it
because if it does,

then horrible
things will happen.

- We can't help but express

this sort of duality
that we all feel.

And if you're aware
of being queer,

that parallel is sort of
unmistakable and delicious.

- The devil is almost
always portrayed as a man

because, you know, the Bible.

And so in a story like Faust,

you are left with one
man trying to show a man

all the possibilities
that life might entail

if only he'll sign up
for his dark forces.

You have the devil being
the person who's trying

to seduce the central figure
away from the beautiful

and wholesome love of a woman.

- There's always a neglected
woman over there, isn't there?

Faust is having to choose
between her and the devil.

And I think we might hope
that he gets taken for good.

I don't know, at least a
little part of me does.

To come up with some
of that imagery,

I think it requires a
willingness to play in the dark.

There are things that
go on in the dark,

there are freedoms to
explore in the dark

and Faust is very
much like Nosferatu

in that the world of
the so called devil,

enemy, evil figure,
is so intoxicating.

It makes it so clear why you
want to dance with the devil.

- Nosferatu is the one
that changed everything.

- Where do horror
movies really start?

They start with Nosferatu.

They start with
this coded, phallic,

vampire cinematic image.

That's where our understanding
of what a monster is begins

and it's no wonder that the
monster is so captivating

and so seductive even
as they're horrifying.

So much of that must have
come from F.W. Murnau's

being a queer artist, from Bram
Stoker being a queer artist.

That stuff is kind of in the
DNA of what a movie monster is.

- I love a lot of
the Dracula films,

but the one that hits closest
to home for me is Nosferatu.

All of the other depictions
of Dracula tend to be

a dashing romantic hero
and I've never seen Dracula

as a romantic hero.

I've always seen him as
hobbled and made sort of,

despite his power, pitifully
small by his monstrousness.

- Unlike in the book
where Dracula begins

as a hideous old man and
then gradually gets younger,

he stays hideous and Max
Schreck's look is iconic.

- On my bucket list was
always to play a vampire,

but the one I really
related to was Nosferatu

because he looked, he was
perceived to look as hideous.

He doesn't know that yet
and I kinda love that,

I find the beauty in that.

- Nosferatu actually evokes
this sniffling rodent

that is, I think in a way,

a truer expression
of the character.

And then because of that also
becomes strangely more human.

- 'Cause Murnau
was a gay director,

I think he sort of plays up

some of the gay
undertones in the story.

It features what
some scholars called

the beast in the boudoir motif,

which is where the monster
comes into the bedroom at night.

And in Murnau's version there's
a bedroom seduction scene

between Count Orlok, as
he's called in Noserfatu

and Jonathan Hutter or Harker.

- Having the monster
out at the edge of town

is a horror idea that
we keep coming back to,

but it also sort of
spoke to the place

that queer people
held in society.

- Nosferatu is sort
of a cornerstone

of what we would see over and
over again in vampire cinema

where there's the outsider,

and there's the sexual
nature of the bites

and the entrancement
and so yeah,

he is already, in
the silent era,

bringing this very
kind of queer coding

to this kind of storytelling.

- It's very simple to
find antisemitic overtones

in vampire movies from Stoker

through to Murnau's
film Nosferatu.

In the late 19th century,

many, many Jews arrived in
London from Eastern Europe.

You can easily map the horror

of the Eastern European vampire

to this new cluster of
immigrant communities.

- If I were sort of
around at that time

and I was aware of that bias,

sort of seeing Orlok as
anything other than a gay Jew

would be quite
difficult I think.

- Conflating Jews and
homosexuals as the evil, as the bad.

The fact that he
utilized any of that

in his making of Nosferatu,
of course it makes sense,

it's good to be good at your
craft and to scare people,

but it's also really,
really dangerous.

- This fear of the other,

whether that other is
homosexual or Jewish

or just an outsider,

he is certainly
relying upon that fear

as a driver of the movie.

- I just think, as a
Jew and as homosexual,

I'm very aware and scared
of these narratives.

- Nosferatu was the
first adaptation

of Bram Stoker's Dracula and
it was an illegal adaptation.

- He's basically doing
unofficial Dracula fan fiction.

- Florence Stoker sued
because it was just a rip off.

There was no royalty
paid to Stoker's estate

for making this
version of Dracula.

- The court ordered every
print of Nosferatu destroyed.

One print survived the
massacre of Nosferatu prints

and that one print gave
birth to every print

that has been circulated
around the world.

If it weren't for one
person who hid that print,

we would not know Nosferatu
the way that we know it today.

Nosferatu became, really
the first cult film.

The Bram Stoker estate actively
hunting down every print

of Nosferatu greatly contributed
to the success of Dracula

because it created this buzz,

at first on Broadway
and then at the movies.

- The early pillars of horror

were these Universal monster
movies starting with Dracula.

- I am Dracula.

- When I was a kid, I started
buying Aurora model kits

from Famous Monsters
of Filmland magazine.

And I remember my two
sisters on the floor playing

with Barbie and Ken and
I'm up there playing

with Frankenstein
and the Wolfman.

Oh I love them, I love all
the Universal monsters.

I like Dracula the best
because even though

I was a little kid, I
knew he was really sexy.

- Laugh all you like.

I think he's fascinating.

- Bela Lugosi's Dracula
presents as like

if elegance was a gender.

- Is it cyclical?

There are sort of
fashions in vampirism.

Bela Lugosi took over
it from Max Schreck

and Dracula became
much more urbane.

- Bela Lugosi's
Dracula has a certain,

it's this like glide
across the room energy

that I've always wanted.

- I once had said it was
manic bisexual energy,

but it is manic, pansexual,
omnisexual energy.

- Anything I can do, gladly.

- The Dracula costume
kit is basically drag.

You have face paint and then
you have blood red lips,

and then you slick your hair
back, you put on a cape,

you put on fancy antique jewels.

- I bid you welcome.

- And then you go
live in a castle

and you can turn into a bat.

So like, this to me is the
experience of being a gay man.

- I hope you will
find this comfortable.

- Thanks, it looks
very inviting.

- I think if Bram
Stoker were alive,

he'd probably have said
Bela Lugosi was his favorite

because he was
strange and exotic.

- The spider spinning his
we for the unwary fly.

The blood is the
light, Mr. Renfield.

- He had a quality to him.

You didn't think he
was that monstrous.

I mean, when the wolves
are baying and he says.

- Children of the night.

What music they make.

- It's kind of like, oh.

He has an aesthetic soul.

- When Dwight Frye, as Renfield,

first meets Bela
Lugosi's Dracula,

he practically gets the vapors.

- It's really good to see you.

- Dwight Frye commits
kind of a fruity,

over the top,
excessive performance.

- Yes, master.

- And how did he get
to be so over the top?

- It's just a scratch.

- He is bitten by Dracula

in the opening
sequence of the film.

And again, it's quite pronounced

that this is a homoerotic act

because he sort of passes out

and then Dracula
enters the scene

and then he bends down
in almost sort of like

a spider like crouch as he moves

in on the supine Renfield.

- Dracula?

I never even heard
the name before.

- It is a hysterical
over the top performance

that is perceived today
perhaps as being camp.

- Who wants to eat flies?

- You do, ya loony.

- Not when I can get
nice fat spiders.

- It is absolutely a
feeling of connection

that many gay people
have for that character

because it is
being marginalized,

it's being told
that you're crazy,

it's being told that
you don't fit in.

- Come along, now.

Come along.

- Yet absolutely
having a conviction

that nobody else shares.

Why, he's mad.

- The queerness of
that performance,

that's Todd Browning's reaction

to the world outside
of Universal Studios,

which was really
embracing the Pansy Craze.

- Tod Browning's Dracula
came out to the 1931

at the height of
the Pansy Craze.

- The Pansy Craze referred
to drag entertainers

who performed in
mainly nightclubs.

Some of the most
significant pansy clubs

were very close to
Universal Studios

when these horror
films were being made.

At that time, there was
a celebration of gay life

in a very big way in Tinseltown.

All the intelligentsia of
Hollywood came to these clubs

to hear these different
performers and see them

because they were witty, they
were smart, they were fun,

they were outrageous,
and they were daring.

- The wonderful thing
about the Pansy Craze

in cities like New York,
in Los Angeles and London

is this invitation
for the normies

to engage with the queers.

A lot of that had to do with
prohibition and it was one of

the only places where straight
people could get a drink.

- I never drink wine.

- Tod Browning used
a lot of gay actors.

David Manners,

who plays the romantic
interest in Dracula

- Mina.

You're so, like a changed girl.

- Who retired from
films because he was gay

and he couldn't be
cast as a leading man

when people knew
that he was queer.

- What's he done to you, dearie?

Tell me.

- He came to me.

He opened a vein in his
arm and he made me drink.

- There is this kind of
tragic subtext for Dracula

because he's never
fully in that life

that he's been dealt.

He becomes a perfect
metaphor in many ways,

I think, for queer people.

- What's always
worked for vampires,

even when they're monstrous,

is there's something that we
shouldn't like about them.

- He is meant to be the plague
and so it's very interesting

that there has been
adaptation after adaptation

after adaptation
of the Dracula myth

in which he becomes
the central character.

But in fact, that's not
the story of Dracula.

The story of Dracula is
ordinary people visited

by this terrible force.

- How long have you
had those little marks?

- Marks?

- The interesting
thing is to me,

he has always been a
ambiguous sexual figure.

He is the sort of definition
of forbidden desire,

whatever that may be.

- I think what made
Dracula so timeless

as a character is sex.

- I felt it's breath on my face.

And then it's lips.

- Something tapping at
the window is frightening,

but it's also quite sexy

'cause you never know
what it's going to be

and it's massively tied up

in all these kind of
oppressed desires.

It's representing
something very,

very powerful inside us all.

That actually, one night with
Dracula is worth dying for.