Horror Movies That Are Secretly Love Stories

Will-they-or-won’t-they fall in love and stay alive? That might be one question on your mind when you watch the following horror movies, where there is a beautiful or gory romance alongside the terror.

Vampires sink their fangs into gay subtext, and opposites attract while catching a slasher icon. Expect spoilers for some of the entries, because the love story in the plots is not always apparent; some are even part of a twist ending.

These are the horror movies that are secretly love stories.

The Lost Boys (1987)

The Lost BoysCredit: Warner Bros.

Michael (Jason Patric) moves with his mother and brother to the seaside town of Santa Carla, where he gets drawn into a gang of vampires led by David (Kiefer Sutherland).

Michael wants to get with David’s girlfriend, Star (Jami Gertz), and they do hook up, but none of their scenes have the chemistry that lies between the brooding young guys. “Be one of us,” David tells him, after handing over a bottle of blood. His magnetic pull brings Michael further into the gang’s nocturnal activities.

Directed by openly gay filmmaker Joel Schumacher, The Lost Boys takes a bite into teen angst, punk rock aesthetics, and so much homoeroticism among the male characters. That’s how you can view this supernatural horror-comedy as a love story by looking away from the straight romance that is obvious.

Unlike how overexplaining a joke will lose its humor, overexplaining gay subtext usually is what’s needed to get certain viewers on the movie’s same wavelength.

Scream 2 (1997)

“Page forty-one. Deputy Dewey oozed with inexperience.”

Scream 2Credit: Dimension Films

A new Ghostface killer wants to make a real-life sequel by leaving a trail of bodies on their path to the survivors of the first movie.

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