The Queer Monster: Putting Séance and Bit in Conversation

Abstract

This video essay places Bit (Brad Michael Elmore, 2019, US) and Seance (Simon Barrett, 2021, US) in conversation. I show how both of these queer horror films move beyond the questions of representation and investigate how the very genre of horror can be utilised to reflect ideas of queerness. I incorporate Robin Wood’s psychoanalytical perspective on the monster reflecting what society represses. However, unlike the films Wood analysed in the 70s/80s, these modern films do not just relegate queerness to subtext. Queerness is now present, alive, in the text. And here, I interrogate how the role of the monster in both films reflects ideas of queer lived experience.