Twenty-five years ago, when I was still a closeted teen in a small town secretly seeking-out lesbian and queer woman rep in films and novels, I eventually learned—like so many queers before me—that I could find us in the Horror/Gothic/Thriller aisles: even if I didn’t always relate very much to the typically disparaging depictions I happened upon. Rebecca’s Mrs. Danvers might be a brooding, lurking lesbian ice queen, but she was my ice queen, dammit. And while the Hammer Studios film The Vampire Lovers might have had a few more pastel-hued-soft-focus-gowns than I was initially prepared for, its Carmilla (see below) not only seduces women, she wants them to belong to her forever. (If you’re tempted to make a lesbian UHaul joke here, I forgive you—but Carmilla probably won’t.)
This discovery of the history of fictive depictions of Sapphics as entwined with depictions of horror wasn’t a small one for me: it was formative. It’s fueled many of my film and literary interests (and obsessions) since. Certainly, it was front-of-mind while I was writing my novel Plain Bad Heroines, which, among other things, tells both the gothic story of a cursed, gilded-age boarding school for girls in coastal New England, and also the story of the making of the controversial, present-day queer horror film about that curse.
Happily, lots of other writers and filmmakers share these interests. So, for your reading and viewing pleasure, the following list contains a double feature of 3 creepy books paired with 3 creepy films, each also bringing some WLW characterization for your run-up to Halloween. (Or for anytime, really.) With one notable exception, I tried not to choose the most obvious pairings, but instead to think of these books and films as in conversation with one another (thematically, visually, and/or in terms of subgenres and tropes) if also containing significant differences. For a list of strict book-to-film adaptations, see the bonus section.
(1) Carmilla & Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl
Book: Carmilla
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (author) Carmen Maria Machado (editor) (2019, Lanternfish Press)
First published in serial form in the 1870s, Carmilla is not only the prototypical lesbian vampire story, it’s foundational to any discussion of Sapphic Gothic lit. It’s all there, from the “monstrous” desire, to the mysteriously revealing anagram-name, to the bloody nightclothes. (I mean, there’s even a huge black cat. C’mon!) If you’ve never read it, or did so long ago, this recent edition, with Machado as our thoughtful, witty, and very queer guide, is a must. As Danika Ellis put it in her review for TheLesbrary.com, “In this version, it isn’t queer women who are trying to alter the author’s intention in order to claim Carmilla. Instead, it’s Le Fanu whose heteronormativity has obscured the real story, which can now be unearthed in its true form.”
Film: Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl (2016)
A.D. Calvo (director)
Given that Carmilla’s influence is so wide and deep, there have been many, many filmmakers who have adapted it for big and small screens. (See, The Blood Spattered Bride, 1972 or Carmilla the web series, 2014-2016. And this is even before we get into the other Sapphic vampire films that are necessarily in its shadow.) Because of this, I chose a (perhaps) lesser-known film to pair it with here, and Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl’s setup couldn’t be much more gothic: Adele, a shy young woman, is sent away to live with her ailing but wealthy Aunt Dora as a caretaker, the two of them very lonely indeed in Dora’s otherwise empty Victorian house. Enter glamorous and seductive Beth (played by out actress and filmmaker Quinn Shephard). (The Carmilla-comparisons in their courtship should be evident from here on out.) A.D. Calvo’s nods to 1970s (horror) films are stylish without feeling gimmicky, and Shephard and Erin Wilhelmi (as Adele) couldn’t be more perfectly cast. The filmmakers didn’t seem particularly interested in subverting expected tropes (see: Beth’s corrupting influence), but they sure knew how to slow-burn the desire and build that mysterious atmosphere.
(2) Wilder Girls & Annihilation
Book: Wilder Girls
Rory Power (author) (2019, Delacorte Press)
Set at an island boarding school for girls, this novel is sometimes described as a feminist Lord of the Flies: teachers have died from the Tox and the quarantined students, now also infected in complex ways, are left to fend for themselves. The story follows a trio of students—Hetty, Byatt, and Reese—and explores the contours of their friendship when it’s put to extremes. At turns gruesome, at turns romantic, and just about always thrilling, this tale of survival kept me unsettled throughout. And while the attraction between Hetty and Reese doesn’t provide the novel’s primary stakes, the story’s range of queer characters feels effortless and true.
Film: Annihilation (2018)
Alex Garland (director)
No surprises in this pairing: some reviewers even refer to Wilder Girls as the YA Annihilation (this film being an adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel of the same name, the first book of his Southern Reach Trilogy). What you’re in for is a beautiful and very scary (Body horror! Jump scares! Psychological horror!) sci-fi film with a diverse cast built entirely of women, including Gina Rodriguez as Anya, whose queerness is made explicit, though certainly is not the fulcrum around which her story spins. There’s no time for that: they have to investigate “the Shimmer” and try to stay alive and sane.
(3) White is For Witching & Thelma
Book: White is For Witching
Helen Oyeyemi (author) (2014, Riverhead Books)
Lyrical and labyrinthine, White is For Witching is (among other things) a gothic novel (one “about” generations of trapped women and twins and mental illness); a coming-of-age college story, complete with a Sapphic romance; a political allegory about immigration, xenophobia, and racism; and a haunted house novel where the house-in-question, 29 Barton Road, is alive, even speaking to us as a POV character. For me, reading this novel felt a bit like entering a hedge-maze draped in fog, scenes and images (some quite disturbing) emerging and then disappearing again as I moved along, deeply unsettled and fearful throughout. It’s a shapeshifting novel that begs to be re-read and reconsidered.
Film: Thelma (2017)
Joachim Trier (director)
This supernatural thriller (from Norway) earns its “an updated Carrie” comparisons largely because of college student Thelma’s uncontrolled psychokinetic powers and strict religious upbringing. (And also because of the film’s exploration of the consequences of repressed desire in young women, though that’s a horror mainstay far beyond Carrie alone.) What those comparisons don’t tell you, though, is just how deliciously moody and atmospheric (the Guardian reviewer called it an “ecstasy of disquiet”) Thelma is, and also how just much in the debt of folklore and Gothic lit much of its imagery, and even some of its plot, is: which is very. (These, plus its college wlw storyline, are also the areas in which it overlaps most with White is for Witching.) Thelma also contains 100% more Sapphic yearning than Carrie, remarkable underwater scenes, and a night at the ballet sequence I’m still thinking about. Watch it! (Then argue with your wife about the scene with the snake in the throat.)
(Note: I went back and forth about instead pairing White is for Witching with Good Manners—a 2018 werewolf film from Brazil directed by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra—but ultimately decided that despite some thematic and stylistic connections, tonally the stories are just too disparate. However, Good Manners somehow manages to charm as horror-fantasy-musical-social-drama (I know!) and is worth a watch on its own.)
Bonus Options for taking Dr. Fauci’s advice of: “hunkering down this fall and winter.”
In the following five pairings, each film is a direct adaptation of the listed book. Plenty here to occupy those endless nights.
Novel: Fingersmith Sarah Waters (author) / Film: The Handmaiden Park Chan-wook (director)
Graphic Novel: Alena Kim W. Andersson (author) / Film: Alena Daniel di Grado (director)
Novel: Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier (author) / Film: Rebecca Alfred Hitchcock (director)
Novel: The Moth Diaries Rachel Klein (author)/ Film: The Moth Diaries (2011) Mary Harron (director)
Novel: The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson (author) / Film: The Haunting (1963) (Please don’t mistake this for The Haunting (1999). Please.)
