Waking up to a golden cadaver; witnessing an astronaut suffocate in space; watching a woman be torn apart by dogs; wincing as a man’s head decompresses… the world of Bond has given many of us nightmares. Perhaps it’s this transgressiveness which makes both Bond and horror films such good (death)bed mates. Callum McKelvie investigates.

Golden Ghouls and Scary Sharks

A few weekends ago my partner and I found ourselves in London the weekend that the Prince Charles Cinema happened to be showing Goldfinger as part of their 60th anniversary season of screenings. Despite not being a Bond fan himself, he knew this was my favourite and quickly relented to my excited pleas.

The night before the showing, as we chatted in a quiet corner of Ku Bar surrounded by twinks necking Jägerbomb, he told me about how he had seen the film as a child at his grandmother’s and had been terrified by it. For the life of me I couldn’t quite see why - though admittedly Connery’s romper is something else. The golden girl, he explained, he had not realised had merely been painted and his adolescent self believed that the titular villain had physically turned her into gold. To his young mind, Goldfinger quite literally was ‘the man with the Midas touch’. The next day, as we sat in the darkened auditorium sipping Gordon’s G&T from a can, I detected a slight buzz of excitement, and perhaps even the memory of fear, as Connery turned on the light only to be greeted by the gleaming cadaver of Jill Masterson.

Of course, my partner is not alone in having found a Bond film frightening. A friend informed me how, during a TV showing of Moonraker, he shook with fear as Corinne was hunted through the woods by the hounds of the maniacal Hugo Drax. His mother desperately assured him that “don’t worry, they won’t get her, James Bond will save her…any moment now…” And… well you can probably guess the rest.

I myself remember being terrified that sharks were swimming around my bed and would eat my legs just like they ate Felix Leiter’s in Licence to Kill.

Or shivering with shock at the horrified screams of the Soviet agent thrown down a pipe and into the waiting blades after seeing A View to a Kill. Perhaps most chillingly of all however, was the moment the mysterious spacecraft swallowed the American capsule at the start of You Only Live Twice, leaving a lone astronaut to drift helplessly into the dark void. A moment which still gives me goosebumps.

Are these simply the reactions of children hitherto not exposed to sequences of violence in film? Possibly, though I would disagree. James Bond, for all its pedigree as a series of action adventure films, is one that I believe manages to deliver the chills alongside the thrills. The horror genre, at least to me, is intrinsic to Bond as both a literary and cinematic franchise. Yet it is also a genre with a huge queer fanbase and a rich history of LGBTQ+ creators. In fact, with a strong transgressive element at its core that has often led to it being critically and culturally spurned, there’s something intrinsically queer about the macabre. Scratch beneath the surface of the Bond franchise and you find the same transgressive delight in the ghoulish, an element which I think not only has a strong link to my adoration for it, but which speaks to my identity as a gay man.

Horror, Bond and Me

Finally let me tell you about a rosy cheeked, blonde boy who has always been in love with the gothic and the gruesome. As a child I remember my mother dancing me around the living room as she blared Danse Macabre (by queer composer Camille Saint-Saëns) and told me stories of skeletons dancing happily around their graves.

She also took me on a ghost tour of York, the city closest to where I lived and fed my passion for the grisly and the gothic with the purchases of numerous Scooby Doo VHSs - perhaps the closest thing to horror films for a five-year old. As I got slightly older I began to watch the classic series of Doctor Who, but again my preference was always towards the darker, more macabre episodes. My reading tastes mirrored this, having always enjoyed collections of classic ghost and horror stories. Finally, in my teenage years I fully immersed myself in the world of horror.

And why do I enjoy horror? Well like most things I don’t think there’s one simple reason but I do believe that it’s rooted in my own queerness. My own taste often pushes me towards the obscure and slightly more flamboyant horror titles. Whilst I enjoy almost all horror, If I had to pick out a few sub-genres I would probably say the British Hammer Horror films of the 1960’s (which in some ways share numerous Bond connections), Italian horror of all eras and folk horror. To me one of the key attractions of the Horror genre is how it has always sought to challenge public taste, presenting purposefully frightening, disturbing or shocking imagery as art. Yet there has always been something purposefully transgressive, and I believe, queer about horror.

A Potted History of Queer Horror

In some ways horror has always been a queer genre. In a 2017 interview with Weird Fiction Review, James Jenkins and Ryan Cagle, the masterminds behind Valancourt Books (a publisher of forgotten and out of print works, specialising in queer literature and horror that I highly recommend interested readers check out) briefly discussed the connections between queer persons and early gothic literature:

“For whatever reason, gay authors and horror go hand-in-hand and have since the beginning of the genre.”

…

“In addition to Francis Lathom, early Gothic novelists like Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto, 1764), Matthew Gregory Lewis (The Monk, 1796) and William Beckford (Vathek, 1786) are widely believed to have been gay, and gay subtexts abound in Victorian horror like The Beetle and Dracula.”

When horror made its transition from the page to the screen, queer creators were there too. The 1930s is considered the birth of not only the American horror film but also the seed from which much other horror cinema sprung. In 1931, Universal Studios built on a number of successful silent horror classics and released Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. However, whilst the film is certainly important - it is stagey and flat. It was the gothic splendour of the follow up, 1931’s Frankenstein which truly defined the rest of the decades (and the followings) horror boom. James Whale, the director of that influential classic (as well as 1932’s The Old Dark House and 1933’s The Invisible Man) was an openly gay man. Indeed, the last of his works in the horror genre, 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein, has been noted by historians such as Elizabeth Young, Gary Morris, David J. Skal and Vito Russo as having an intentional queer subtext and it can most certainly be called an exercise in high camp.

During the 1980s there was a whole new wave of queer horror cinema and literature. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) is a notoriously homoerotic romp - despite the filmmakers always denying that this was their intention (though in the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again, writer David Chaskin would confess to some of the themes being deliberate). Don Mancini, the mastermind behind the Child’s Play franchise, is an openly gay man and the most recent TV series explores issue of sexuality. Perhaps the most notable addition to the queer horror canon during this period is the work of Clive Barker, perhaps most remembered for the Hellraiser series of films as well as his superb horror literature, such as The Books of Blood short story collections. Barker is an openly gay man and the first Hellraiser is noteworthy for it’s BDSM subtext, something, according to an article by Little White Lies, Barker was personally interested in.

Now the Boulet brothers host the gruesome alternative to Drag Race, the wholly inclusive Dragula on Shudder, the largest horror streaming service.

Shudder also released the 2019 movie Spiral, which purposefully confronted LGBTQ+ issues in a horror context, as well as having a dedicated section of their site to films which have some connection to the queer community. The recent years have seen something of a boom in horror cinema with queer content. Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy had at its heart a lesbian romance whilst the amazing Knife + Heart (2019), one of my personal favourites, utilised the tropes of the classic italian murder mystery/slasher genre Giallo but moved the setting to a gay pornography studio in 1970’s France.

This builds on the work of creators such as Ryan Murphy who, during the last decade, created the tv mega-hit American Horror Story and steadily (but persistently) incorporated queer characters and plots.

Horror in the James Bond novels

Of course it would be wrong to suggest that horror has been exclusively shaped by queer creators and not by persons of all sexualities, genders, abilities and race. However I think it is important to note the rich, and particularly long, history queer artists have had in the genre - especially when exploring the Fleming bond novels. The aforementioned Bride of Frankenstein is a masterpiece of macabre black comedy and high camp. It’s transgressive and challenged the conventions of acceptable violence, in much the same way that the Fleming novels were often objected to on counts of sadism. I believe that Fleming's Bond novels are transgressive in a similar fashion that much of horror fiction is. I also believe it’s these transgressive elements that make horror indelibly queer and Fleming’s use of horror tropes and techniques, give them an added air of appeal to the queer Bond horror fanatic - namely, me.

The Bond novels, most likely due to the juggernaut popular film franchise they would spawn, are not often remembered as having initially been somewhat controversial. A 1958 review of Dr. No in the New Statesman quite famously stated that the novel had “the sadism of a schoolboy bully” and indeed you don’t have to wait long for moments of transgressive and shocking violence to surface within the Bond novels. Casino Royale’s famous conclusion which seems Bond tied to a cane chair with the seat cut out and tortured with a carpet beater, still makes of for shockingly violent reading. It’s a far cry from what Fleming would often describe as “old Bulldog Drummond's baseball bat” knocking the hero on the back of the head.

But there are a number of Bond stories which explicitly revel in the macabre and share some of the DNA of the horror genre. The aforementioned Dr. No is one which certainly has more than its fair share of horror moments. And the short stories, The Hildebrand Rarity and Octopussy have strong elements of the macabre throughout. To me however, You Only Live Twice is the Bond novel which perhaps most closely resembles a work of horror.

In some ways this is obvious, for example it purposefully utilises gothic tropes. Blofeld now resides in a castle surrounded by a ‘garden of death’ (an aspect left out of the film and but translated to screen, admittedly in a rather disappointing manner, in No Time to Die) which allows Fleming to indulge his macabre side. Chapter 16, titled ‘The Lovesome Spot’, in particular is Fleming at his grimmest as Bond witnesses first hand why it is called ‘The Garden of Death’. “Down the path,” Fleming begins one particularly chilling section “came staggering a man, or what had once been a man. The brilliant moonlight showed a head swollen to the size of a football, and only small slits remained where the eyes and mouth had been. The man moaned softly as he zigzagged along, and Bond could see that his hands were up to his puffed face and that he was trying to prise apart the swollen skin round his eyes so that he could see out. Every now and then he stopped and let out one word in an agonising howl to the moon. It was not a howl of fear or of pain, but of dreadful supplication”.

These frequent images of death populate the novel, giving it an increasingly gloomy atmosphere.

It might not come as any surprise then that You Only Live Twice is one of my favourite Fleming novels and I think the pinnacle of his horror writing. The strange, dreamlike quality as well as the pervading sense of death, both literally and also metaphorically in regards to how Fleming stretches this to discuss the decline of the British Empire, is intoxicating. Perhaps most of all, it is the gruesome, macabre imagery and nightmarish logic which keep me returning to You Only Live Twice over some of Fleming's works. Yet like the best works of horror, the violent and disturbing imagery is not included purely to cause upset. You Only Live Twice is Fleming at his darkest, picking up his hero’s adventures following the death of his wife in the previous novel and taking him as far into hell as he dare before having him rise from the ashes anew. You Only Live Twice is a book about Bond confronting death, written whilst his author was consumed with increasing melancholia and, perhaps, confronting his own.

Staring death, or at least Blofeld, in the face. Illustration by George Almond.

The Fleming novels were certainly transgressive in their violence and shared some of the initial critical scorn often thrown at the horror genre. Yet perhaps the peak of Fleming's nasty streak, You Only Live Twice, succeeds as a work of horror in much the same way as some of the best of the genre does, by being an easily read metaphor for the darker aspects of life. If Bride of Frankenstein is a metaphor for queer loneliness, it is equally a treatise on loneliness in general. Perhaps then, You Only Live Twice with its recently singled protagonist facing off against the most monstrous of couples, dying once to be born again, can also have an appeal to the queer reader through either loss of a partner or perhaps cause them to muse on their coming out? Like the best works of horror, the opportunity for queer readings are endless - and deserved.

Horror and the James Bond films - The Macabre

Like the Bond books, the levels of violence during the early films were shocking. In the first film alone multiple people are shot, one is burnt to death by a tank disguised as a dragon and the villain boils in a pool of bubbling radioactive water. This is nothing on the level of gruesomeness by the time we reach Goldfinger. People are electrocuted, gassed, shot, sucked out of aeroplane windows and of course beautiful girls are suffocated to death by being painted in gold. Not to mention the titular villain's quip following a character’s corpse having been squished in a car crusher that he: “must arrange for my gold to be separated from the late Mr Solo”.

As the film franchise progressed, the level of gruesome horror only increased. Standouts include the henchman falling into the ice shredder in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Dr Kanaga inflating like a balloon and exploding in Live and Let Die, Stromberg’s assistant being munched by sharks in the Spy Who Loved Me, Corinne’s death at the jaws of a vicious pack of dogs in Moonraker, Milton Krest being locked into a pressure chamber until his head erupts in Licence to Kill… The list goes on and we’re not even at the Pierce Brosnan films which include people being soaked in liquid nitrogen, disembowelled with a drill and sliced with lasers.

Now it’s become something of a trademark for the series, with sites such as ScreenRant or Den of Geek running lists with titles such as “Top Ten James Bond Deaths”. Each of these deaths is meant to affect the audience in much the same way as those of a slasher movie, to gross us out and to make us squeal with delight at the deliciously mean-spirited spectacle being placed on screen. For many it’s the catharsis of seeing a cruel and evil villain finally get his just desserts in an over the top and spectacularly violent way.

But it was not only in what was onscreen that the Bond films revelled in the macabre, but also in how the character would react in the aftermath. Think back to Goldfinger’s remark regarding Mr Solo. Perhaps most strikingly, Bond himself became known for his twisted humour. To have a hero electrocute a man and comment ‘shocking, positively shocking’ or throw another into a pool of piranha fish and coldly state: “Bon Appétit”, is still surprising in the level of macabre humour on display.

It’s no surprise that this became one of the recurring (and for my money of the best) jokes in Mike Myers’ Austin Powers films, with the titular protagonist making tasteless quip after tasteless quip only to be met with a look of disgust from the heroine.

Of course tastelessness is something which queer culture has owned for decades, just look at John Waters, whose most famous film, 1972’s Pink Flamingos, includes a sequence where the drag queen Divine consumes dog feces. As a queer child I think I delighted in moments of the grotesque in Bond, which still seemed to shock the sensibilities of my grandmother, despite the fact she had only been in her thirties during the early films’ releases. Of course I was allowed to watch them, but I do remember her slight alarm during a TV screening of Diamonds are Forever as I let out a giggle of delight as Mr Kidd photographed Mrs Whistler’s body, proclaiming that she: “Did want some pictures of the canals for the children”.

Of course this crass gallows humour is not unique to the Bond films. However, it did become one of their defining features and, accompanied with their over the top violence and scenes of gruesome deaths, certainly helped them appeal to a young queer horror fan figuring himself out.

Horror, Bond and Me 2 (The gorier sequel)

The point of horror, I have always felt, is two-fold. Firstly, as a medium for artists to explore the darker side of our existence and secondly as collective catharsis. These scenes which frighten us or showcase dark, insidious acts of sometimes comic book violence are a safe way for us to let go of our own fears. But there’s a danger factor, we are never sure exactly what we’ll see or the fear we’ll feel in the process of this catharsis.

Indeed, I think it was this ‘danger factor’ which appealed to me as a child. Around the same time I was developing a love for the classic series of Doctor Who (this was several years before it’s successful relaunch). It was always the ‘scary ones’ which appealed to me most and the covers of the BBC VHS releases, most photo montages compiled by the company Black Sheep and aimed strictly at an adult audience, featured images of the hero and villain/monster against an enigmatic, swirling background. Just check out their cover for The Ambassadors of Death, The Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks or Four to Doomsday.

These things were terrifying to a seven year old, which made me want to watch them all the more. Even after practically wetting myself during a tv screening of the episode ‘Spearhead from Space’, I kept going. The Bond films were much the same. It says something that despite being traumatised by Licence to Kill and You Only Live Twice, it’s not an altogether unpleasant memory and I still feel a slight thrill when those scenes come on. Indeed the dreaded ‘big spaceship swallowing a little spaceship’ opening of You Only Live Twice is one of my all-time favourite moments in the entire series.

This ‘danger factor’ is perhaps horror's most important element, the very heart of what it is. It’s this transgressive element, which has often pushed horror away from mainstream audiences and critics - afraid that it may shock them in ways that offend their sensibilities. In much the same way, the Bond franchise in its various forms has used elements of horror in a similarly transgressive way. However, like the best horror films there’s always something deeper at the core. Corrine’s death in Moonraker is a shocking moment of brutal reality in a film full of over the top comedy, which fully sells the horror of its villain. To bring ourselves full circle, the death of Jill Masterson in Goldfinger serves much the same purpose. An indelibly macabre image which burns itself into the mind of the viewer in the same way as Boris Karloff’s Frankenstein.

But this element, this danger factor, is to me an intrsincally queer one. Some of the very best queer art has always pushed the boundaries of acceptability. In addition to the films of John Waters, look at the art of Andy Warhol and underground drag troupes like The Cockettes (whose controversial history is briefly explained here). Perhaps even more so, queer horror. The work of Clive Barker, despite launching a huge film franchise, almost exists in a space of its own, the leather clad fetishsized Pinhead making the boiler suits of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, and the knitted sweater of Freddy Krueger seem prudish. Indeed, on cold nights at University when I sought the company of a fellow homosexual, I often found that of all the horrors I owned - it was more often than not Hellraiser which they reached for. Say what you will, it’s a queer classic.

Horror, by both challenging societal norms and being spurned by them contains elements which strike to the very heart of queer culture. Of course why all queer persons are attracted to horror cinema I can’t definitively answer and the above is simply my musings. But in some ways, the James Bond films, with their shocking moments of over the top violence and outlandish visuals were almost my first door into the world of Horror. A world where you are never quite sure what lurks around the corner. And that’s the appeal.

The Bond films are often accused of being safe. After all James Bond almost always wins (recent films notwithstanding). But this ignores the elements of the macabre running through them. He may win in the end, but what gruesomeness are we going to bear witness to in the process?

In the day, Callum McKelvie works for a history magazine. At night he writes short fiction (often with a horror theme and often queer focussed), eats and drinks too much and does his best to live the Bond life on a budget.

Additional reading

‘What is it with gay men and horror?' asked Mickey Keating in Instinct Magazine in 2020.

‘It Came From The Closet: How Horror Is Queer’ by Maya Lotus for Sociomix

Licence To Queer’s David Lowbridge-Ellis explored James Whale, born not far from his home town, in this 2021 article for Gayly Dreadful.

Spectre-al Visions: Queers, Horrors and Bond