Every October the streaming services roll out their horror rows, and every October we scroll through them looking for someone like us.
Usually we find the gay best friend. He gets the best lines, and he’s usually dead before the halfway mark.
Not on this list. In these 13 movies the queer characters are the leads, the couple you’re rooting for, and once or twice the reason the body count is so high. Several were made by gay filmmakers who wrote the movie they wish they’d had as scared teenagers.
A few are cult classics, most you’ve probably never heard of, and one only reached theaters this summer. Lock the doors and pick your poison.
1. Leviticus (2026)
In a deeply religious town in rural Australia, two teenage boys, Naim and Ryan, fall for each other. When their secret gets out, a “deliverance healer” is brought in to pray the gay away. What the ritual unleashes instead is a demon that takes the shape of the person you desire most, which for Naim and Ryan means each other.
Cast: Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen, Mia Wasikowska
Behind the Scenes: The title comes from the book of the Bible behind the verse so often quoted against gay men, and writer-director Adrian Chiarella remembers having it quoted at him at 13, at a religious school in Australia. “It all came from my own dreams and nightmares of experiencing real-world homophobia as a teenager,” he told Dazed. It premiered at Sundance in January, and Neon released it in the US in June.
Why it belongs at the top of your list: It’s this year’s big queer horror film, it’s sitting at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it’s that rare thing, a horror movie that doubles as a first-love story.
The setup is brilliant and cruel. The only place these boys are safe is with each other, and the monster wears the face of the one they love. If you were ever told, as a kid, that your feelings were the danger, you’ll know exactly what Chiarella is getting at. It’s frightening and tender in equal measure, which is exactly why it’s first on this list.
Where to watch: With a Prime Video subscription.
2. Spiral (2019)
In 1995, Malik, his partner Aaron and Aaron’s teenage daughter move to a quiet small town for a fresh start, where the neighbors couldn’t be more welcoming. Malik starts to wonder why they’re trying so hard.
Cast: Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Ari Cohen, Lochlyn Munro, Chandra West
Fun Fact: If Malik looks familiar, Jeffrey played Jay, the gay producer on UnREAL, and sat on the judging panel for the first season of Canada’s Drag Race. The film was shot in just 21 days in the small Alberta town of Irricana.
Why it’ll get under your skin: Spiral is built on a feeling plenty of us know: standing in a room full of smiling straight people and wondering what they say about you once you’ve gone home.
Malik has been attacked before, so when someone paints a slur on his wall, he quietly paints over it instead of worrying Aaron. From there, the film keeps you guessing whether he’s onto something or whether his past is getting the better of him. Critics gave it 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the ending hits hard.
Where to watch: Shudder and AMC+, or via Prime Video
3. Hellbent (2004)
It’s Halloween night in West Hollywood. Four gay friends head to the big street carnival, run into a shirtless killer in a devil mask and, assuming he’s cruising them, start taunting him.
Bad call, boys.
Cast: Dylan Fergus, Bryan Kirkwood, Hank Harris, Andrew Levitas, Matt Phillips
Behind the Scenes: Producers first approached writer-director Paul Etheredge-Ouzts, then an art director, about making a gay horror film back in 2000. The finished movie spent more than a year on the gay and lesbian festival circuit before a limited release in 2005, and its success kicked off a whole run of “gay slasher” films.
Why you’ll love it: Hellbent is widely considered the first openly queer slasher, and it has a ball rearranging the genre’s furniture. Instead of a summer camp, the killer stalks the WeHo Halloween carnival, and the Final Girl is now a Final Boy: sweet, hopelessly romantic Eddie, who falls for a bad boy on a motorcycle just as the bodies start piling up. Even the jock is in drag.
Yes, it’s low-budget, and some scenes are so dark you’ll be squinting. But nobody in it wastes a second agonizing over being gay. They’re out for a big night in costume, which is how your Halloween should start too.
Where to watch: It was recently removed from streaming, unfortunately – so for now it’s only available on DVD.
4. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
A squeaky-clean engaged couple get a flat tire on a dark and rainy night and knock on the door of the wrong castle. Inside, a mad scientist in heels is about to unveil his latest creation, a tall, muscular, handsome blond named Rocky.
Cast: Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Richard O’Brien
Behind the Scenes: This was Tim’s film debut, and making Dr. Frank-N-Furter talk like the Queen, as posh as humanly possible, was his own idea. Critics mostly ignored the film at first. It found its people at midnight screenings in New York in 1976, and more than 50 years later it’s still showing in theaters, which makes it the longest-running theatrical release in film history.
Why it’s a must: You’ve seen it, and that’s the point. Long before anyone talked about “representation,” a movie studio put out a film where the most charismatic person on screen is a gloriously queer mad scientist in fishnets who seduces both Brad and Janet before the night is out.
Audiences have been shouting back at the screen and turning up dressed as the characters ever since. It isn’t remotely scary, and in half a century nobody has complained about that once.
Where to watch: BroadwayHD, or free with ads on Fandango at Home Free (or rent it on Prime Video)
5. They/Them (2022)
A group of LGBTQ teens arrive at Whistler Camp, a conversion therapy camp whose smooth-talking owner swears nobody will be forced to change. You shouldn’t believe him, and that’s before someone in a mask starts picking people off in the woods.
Cast: Kevin Bacon, Theo Germaine, Carrie Preston, Anna Chlumsky, Austin Crute, Cooper Koch
Behind the Scenes: Writer-director John Logan, who is openly gay, wrote the scripts for Gladiator and Skyfall, and this was his first time directing. He grew up on slashers where queer characters were invisible, jokes or victims. “I know how much it would have meant to me when I was 12, 13, 14 to see a queer hero,” he told NBC News.
Why you should watch it: Fair warning, the critics weren’t kind, and the film never quite decides whether it’s a slasher or a support group. Kevin Bacon makes it worth your time anyway. He plays the camp director with a smile so warm and so fake you’ll want a shower afterwards.
And the kids get to be the heroes. The scariest thing at Whistler Camp is the idea that they need fixing, and in a genre that spent decades killing us off first, that still counts for a lot.
Where to watch: Peacock
6. Freaky (2020)
Thanks to a cursed dagger, a bullied teenage girl and a hulking middle-aged serial killer swap bodies. She has until midnight to switch back before it becomes permanent, and she has to pull it off from inside Vince Vaughn.
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Misha Osherovich, Celeste O’Connor, Alan Ruck
Fun Fact: Director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day) and his co-writer Michael Kennedy are both openly gay, and they shot the film under the working title Freaky Friday the 13th. Kennedy has said they deliberately skipped a coming-out story for Millie’s gay best friend, Josh. They wanted a queer kid who is “100% themselves.”
Why you’ll love it: Josh is nobody’s sad, sweet sidekick. He’s mouthy, a bit of a menace and a step ahead of everyone in town, and the funniest scenes in the movie are him and his best friend trying to process “Millie” suddenly being a giant, middle-aged man.
Vince Vaughn plays a teenage girl with total commitment, and he’s a delight. If your Halloween crowd likes plenty of laughs with its scares, start here.
Where to watch: Prime Video subscription
7. Swallowed (2022)
It’s Benjamin’s last night in town before he moves to LA to start a career in adult films, and his best friend Dom has a plan to send him off with some cash: one quick drug run over the Canadian border. All they have to do is swallow the packages. Neither of them knows what’s actually inside.
Cast: Cooper Koch, Jose Colon, Jena Malone, Mark Patton
Behind the Scenes: Writer-director Carter Smith wrote the role of Rich specifically for Mark Patton, the Nightmare on Elm Street 2 star whose story we told in our list of horror icons gay men adopted. The film was shot in Maine, in a cabin Carter’s father built, and it won the Grand Jury Prize at NewFest.
Why it’s worth it: You probably know Cooper Koch as Erik Menendez from Monsters. This came first, and it’s a much stranger, braver role. (He’s in They/Them too, if you’re keeping count.) Smith set out to make a film told entirely from a queer point of view, and you can tell: the camera adores these two men, and the friendship between Ben and Dom is the love story here.
It’s body horror, so a few scenes will test anyone squeamish. Eat beforehand.
Where to watch: Rent or Buy on Prime Video
8. Psycho Beach Party (2000)
It’s Malibu in 1962, and all Chicklet wants is to learn to surf with the boys. Unfortunately, she also has multiple personalities, keeps blacking out, and might be the one leaving bodies all over the beach.
Cast: Lauren Ambrose, Thomas Gibson, Nicholas Brendon, Amy Adams, Charles Busch
Fun Fact: Writer Charles Busch is a drag legend who made his name playing the leading lady in his own camp plays, and in the original 1987 stage version he played Chicklet himself. For the movie he decided a 16-year-old would be a stretch, so he wrote himself a new part: tough-as-nails police captain Monica Stark.
Why it’s a hoot: Picture a Gidget beach movie, a ’50s psychodrama and an ’80s slasher thrown in a blender and served with a paper umbrella. The dialogue is ridiculous on purpose, the surfer boys are very easy on the eyes, and a pre-fame Amy Adams turns up as a surfer’s girlfriend.
The real treat is Charles himself, playing the hard-boiled lady cop completely straight. Eagle-eyed viewers will also spot Andrew Levitas from Hellbent among the surfers.
Where to watch: Free with ads on Tubi, or on Metrograph, or with a Prime Video subscription.
9. The Fear Street Trilogy (2021)
In the cursed town of Shadyside, “Murder Capital U.S.A.,” a series of killings drags Deena and her friends into a centuries-old witch’s curse. Deena has bigger problems, though. Her ex-girlfriend Sam just moved to the rich town next door, and she’s very much back in the closet.
Cast: Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Benjamin Flores Jr., Fred Hechinger, Maya Hawke
Behind the Scenes: Based on R.L. Stine‘s teen books, all three films were shot back-to-back in Georgia in 2019 and released on Netflix a week apart. Director Leigh Janiak co-wrote them with Phil Graziadei, who is gay, and she built the whole town around the idea that everyone in Shadyside feels like an outsider for one reason or another.
Why it’s perfect for Halloween: Technically this one belongs to our lesbian friends, but we’re claiming it too. It’s a full weekend of horror (1994, 1978 and 1666), and each part tips its hat to a different era of scary movies, from Scream to summer-camp slashers.
Running through all three is a queer love story. Deena and Sam are the reason the whole thing works, and by Part Three you’ll be yelling at the screen on their behalf.
Where to watch: Netflix
10. Rift (2017)
Gunnar gets a worrying phone call from his ex, Einar, who is alone at his parents’ remote holiday cabin in the Icelandic wilderness and doesn’t sound right. So Gunnar leaves his new boyfriend at home and drives out to check on him.
Cast: Björn Stefánsson, Sigurður Þór Óskarsson
Behind the Scenes: Writer-director Erlingur Thoroddsen is a gay filmmaker who noticed there were almost no Icelandic movies with a gay story at the center, and set out to change that. Rift closed the Gothenburg Film Festival and won him an award for artistic achievement at Outfest.
Why you’ve got to see it: This is the one nobody’s heard of, and it’s a find. On the surface it’s a slow-burn ghost story. Underneath, it might be the most honest movie on this list about exes, the one you never quite got over and the way an old relationship keeps haunting you long after it ends.
Small things do the work. The cabin door won’t lock properly, there are noises outside at night, and all that empty Icelandic landscape starts to feel worse than any haunted house. Watch it alone with the lights off, and maybe leave your phone in the other room in case you’re tempted to text an ex afterwards.
Where to watch: Free with ads on Tubi, or on Dekkoo (or rent it on Prime Video)
11. Knife+Heart (2018)
In Paris in the summer of 1979, Anne produces gay adult films, and her girlfriend has just walked out on her. Then a masked killer starts going after her actors, one by one.
Cast: Vanessa Paradis, Nicolas Maury, Kate Moran, Jonathan Genet
Behind the Scenes: Anne is loosely based on Anne-Marie Tensi, a real producer who specialized in gay films in 1970s and ’80s France. The movie competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and its pulsing synth score is by the French band M83.
Why it’s a must for horror buffs: If you love the lurid, color-soaked Italian giallo thrillers of the ’70s, this is that, except it’s queer from top to bottom and set in the nightclubs and adult cinemas of pre-AIDS gay Paris.
It’s sleazy, it’s often very funny, and by the end it’s surprisingly moving. Vanessa Paradis is magnetic as a woman coming apart, and her little film family of actors are the warmest people on screen. Strictly one for after dark.
Where to watch: Dekkoo or Philo, or free with a library card on Kanopy (or buy it on Prime Video)
12. Queens of the Dead (2025)
It’s the night of a giant warehouse party in Brooklyn, and the drag queens and club kids are already knee-deep in their usual drama when the zombie apocalypse kicks off. Now the frenemies have to work together, ideally without losing a wig.
Cast: Katy O’Brian, Jaquel Spivey, Margaret Cho, Cheyenne Jackson, Nina West, Dominique Jackson
Fun Fact: Writer-director Tina Romero is the daughter of George A. Romero, the man behind Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. “I learned to walk on the set of Day of the Dead,” she told Out. Her dad’s legendary effects man Tom Savini even pops up as the mayor.
Why you’ll love it: Think George Romero’s zombie apocalypse, with glittery gore. The gang is mostly queer apart from one token straight dude, and the cast is stacked with LGBTQ talent, Nina West and Margaret Cho among them.
It’s far more comedy than horror, so you’ll sleep fine. What you get instead is a lot of laughs and the best use of a drag queen’s survival skills ever put on film. Critics liked it too, giving it 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Where to watch: Hulu and Shudder via Prime Video
13. Stranger by the Lake (2013)
Franck is a regular at a secluded lake in the south of France, a spot where men go to sunbathe and cruise, and he’s instantly drawn to a handsome stranger named Michel. Then one evening, Franck witnesses something terrible at the water’s edge, and discovers he still can’t stay away.
Cast: Pierre Deladonchamps, Christophe Paou, Patrick d’Assumçao
Behind the Scenes: Director Alain Guiraudie won Best Director in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, plus the festival’s Queer Palm. French film bible Cahiers du cinéma named it the best film of 2013, and Pierre won the César for Most Promising Actor.
Why it’ll haunt you: Technically it’s a thriller, but it’s the most quietly terrifying film here. Almost all of it happens on the same stretch of beach and in the woods behind it, and the dread builds so slowly that you only notice it once you’re holding your breath.
Mostly, it’s about desire and how much we’re willing to ignore for it. A heads-up: it’s a very adult movie, so watch it on your own or with your partner. Not with your mom.
Where to watch: Metrograph, or free with a library card on Kanopy (or buy it on Prime Video)
Whether you’re in the mood for camp, chills or a good cry between the jump scares, there’s a movie here for your night in. Make the popcorn, and check the locks.
Want more? Here are the gay movies where nobody dies, for when you need a break from all the screaming.