The mingling of monsters and homosexuality has been present in horror film since the first socially-deviant monsters took to the big screen. But no longer relegated to the subtext, gay gothic horror may be the next biggest phase in GLBT theater. Here’s a handy list of the most notable horror films containing homoerotic subtext.

Redemption can only be found by being with the right woman. The film includes both the sexually ambiguous Dr. Pretorius, who steals his creation away to “procreate” in isolation and the first onscreen, loving, same-sex household, as Frankenstein settles into loving domesticity with a blind hermit.

Also by James Whale (Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein), The Old Dark House is a tale of two families who are at odds. In the film, the Femm family represents everything that is homosexual, from a repressed lesbian/hyper-zealot religious sister to a patriarch that is enacted by a woman. The very erotic connection of Morgan and Saul is less than subtle.

Tod Browning’s epic sadomasochistic piece is one of the standard bearers for homoeroticism in horror films. Browning’s Dracula is uptight, dominating and commanding, while his subject is an apologetic, pandering sycophant, intent on pleasing his master.

Gene Fowler, Jr.’s 1957 horror masterpiece I Was a Teenage Wolf explores homoerotic subtext using a man-boy dominance relationship. A young teenager seeks help from a hypnotherapist, but finds the doctor has other plans for the young boy — like turning him into a werewolf. This perverse portrayal of the relationship parallels society’s perception of the gay male as a predator.

The first lesbian horror film allows the gorgeous Ingrid Pitt, who, in real life, survived Hitler’s concentration camps, to sink her teeth into more than one female victim/lover. The real catch here is that the Countess (Pitt) isn’t satisfied with just preying on her victims, but has an emotional need to pull them over to her side and become intimate before she sups at their bosoms.

Riding the success of Shaft, where cinema presented its first Black hero, Blacula is a film that couples the “blaxploitation” and horror-film genres. Who can resist a suave, sophisticated, handsome African prince with a chiseled face framed in chops sideburns rescued by two interior decorators? Scream Blacula Scream was the equally engaging sequel.

Tom Holland wrote and directed this horror film where two men move in next door to a teenage horror-film fan, Charlie. Charlie immediately understands the relationship as a vampire and his undead day guardian. The camp factor skyrockets when Charlie enlists TV-host Vincent Price to help rid the neighborhood of these male predators. While the two men are portrayed as monsters, it does, says Benshoff, represent a fairly realistic representation of what a loving, same-sex, suburban relationship might resemble.

Wes Craven’s sequel to the blockbuster Nightmare on Elm Street features several homoerotic situations. To begin with, there is the masochistic gym teacher who is dismembered in the school shower room in what Benshoff describes as a “gay panic” scene. In fact, the entire film’s premise is that villain Freddy Krueger attempts to come into our world through Jesse, a closeted, effeminate high school boy, thus continuing the theme of the older man dominating a younger apprentice.

Oscar-winning horror film The Silence of the Lambs continued the queer-as-monster subtext with the Jamie Gumb character, who, as Davis points out, “is this confused transsexual that represents everything we fear about gays — they are a thing to be feared and do nothing but prey on society.” It didn’t hurt that lesbian-icon Jodie Foster plays the FBI agent forced to confront her fears.

Anne Rice’s blockbuster hit starring Antonio Banderas, Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise (with a young Kirsten Dunst) brought to the big screen the complex relationship between Louis and Armand. While much of the book’s homosexual undertones were omitted for the film, Rice (who wrote the screenplay for the project) did not disappoint fans with her dark, handsome duo’s near-onscreen kiss.