Beyond the Lesbian Vampire

Beyond the Lesbian Vampire is a groundbreaking dive into the pervasive archetype of the violent lesbian, examining this historically problematic figure within cultural and cinematic imagination – from witch to vampire to murderer – and identifying her resurgence in seven critically acclaimed queer horror films of the late 2010s.

Each case study depicts multidimensional lesbian characters trending toward more justifiable narrative reasons for violence. Additionally, this new iteration of the violent lesbian self-consciously references earlier portrayals, including her popular vampiric form, despite shedding her literal fangs. The combination of excessive citation alongside narrative shift gestures towards a reclamation of the violent lesbian within queer horror.

The author weaves textual analysis and scholarly debates around assimilation and the legibility of lesbianism’s queerness to reveal the cultural salience of the violent lesbian, and of the queer and lesbian fears and pleasures she evokes. Beyond the Lesbian Vampire is a vital contribution to lesbian studies, horror studies, queer studies and feminist studies.

‘This volume is a lively and thoughtful analysis of recent horror films including The Neon Demon (2016), Knife + Heart (2018), and Lizzie (2018). Exploring these films within the contexts of New Queer Horror, Tabet shows how they rescript the “violent lesbian” to explore concerns specifically related to LGBTQ+ audiences, including assimilation, family and race. Filled with brilliant insights and detailed analyses, Beyond the Lesbian Vampire is an important contribution to the ever-growing field of queer horror scholarship.’

Professor Harry M. Benshoff, University of North Texas

‘Why does the violent lesbian haunt film screens, and what does she want? Beyond the Lesbian Vampire traces the resurgence of this figure in seven queer horror films released between 2016–19, in which the violent lesbian is reimagined as a complex character shaped by trauma, context, and agency. Through close readings of works such as Thelma, The Perfection and Knife+Heart, Tabet analyses how the selected films both reference and revise earlier portrayals, reframing the lesbian’s violence as a site of queer resistance and desire. Long shrouded in invisibility, the lesbian emerges in all her contradictions: powerful, disruptive, excessive and uncontainable. Engaging with debates about queerness, assimilation and representational politics, Tabet situates the violent lesbian as a culturally charged white figure that continues to evoke both fear and pleasure within lesbian and queer communities. Beyond the Lesbian Vampire is at once an examination and a reclamation, an essential intervention for an era marked by conservative populism and cultural extremism. Tabet’s detailed analysis investigating how the violent lesbian subverts patriarchal norms is a critical contribution to horror studies, lesbian studies, queer theory and feminist cultural criticism.’

Heather O. Petrocelli, author of Queer for Fear: Horror Film and the Queer Spectator

"I thoroughly enjoyed this ethnographic study of the queer horror spectator. Petrocelli is a master of the interdisciplinary, genre-defying queer theoretical framework and applies it expertly."

Pace Warfield, Supernatural Studies

"Petrocelli is very transparent with their scholarly approaches and any areas of potential critique or ‘missed opportunities.’ When bold steps are taken, they are thoroughly backed up both through in-text citations and in extensive notes. The work in its entirety is airtight and rigorous. Great care regarding marginalized populations is taken throughout."

A. Rose Johnson, Revenant Journal

"Petrocelli provides a critical intervention central to the book’s overall purpose. They argue persuasively that queer horror viewers have the potential to expand the cinematic horror genre beyond its current conventional iterations. Queer viewers’ unique societal, communal, and political positionings bring new clarity to a genre that has often faced “critical disapproval and disparagement” from the academy (21). Queer for Fear proves the necessity for studying horror as a queer phenomenon. Petrocelli’s research will be vital to scholars and queer horror fans alike as they continue building a queer horror canon."

Sophia Schrock, Film Quarterly

"Petrocelli buries the assumption—laid out by Carol J. Clover and Linda Williams among others— that teen boys are the primary audience for horror films. Building on a similar audience study, Petrocelli carves out a space that is different from Brigid Cherry’s late 1990s study of women horror fans and from queer theorists Benshoff and Darren Elliott-Smith who focus on a presumed male viewer. These interviews include a range of non-binary, trans, genderqueer, and agender horror lovers."

Karen Herland, MONSTRUM