7 Halloween Movies for Gay Kids

When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday -- no gifts of football equipment, no hanging out with boring relatives,  no Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."  Instead, you got to do things that were usually forbidden: dress up, roam around the neighborhood late at night, and accept candy from strangers.

Halloween movies are as likely as Christmas movies to have heterosexist plotlines.  But here are 7 where the gay subtexts outweigh the boy meeting the girl:

1. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966).  Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin to rise from the pumpkin patch, Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating and gets rocks instead of candy, and there's disappointment and heartbreak all around.

 2. Mad Monster Party? (1967).  Dr. Frankenstein invites all of the Universal monsters, plus his human nephew Felix, to a party to celebrate his discovery of "the secret of ultimate destruction": a nuclear bomb! Felix falls in love with the creature Francesca, and triggers the bomb, killing all the monsters and probably everybody else!  Oh, and he turns out to be mechanical too. But in spite of his strange hetero-romance and genocidal tendencies, Felix is "queer," an oddball outsider among both monsters and humans.

3. Hocus Pocus (1993). Teenage Max (Omri Katz, who would grow up to star in at least one gay-themed movie), fights three lesbian witches played by gay icons: Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker.  Max gets a girlfriend, but the climax involves saving his little sister and two of his male classmates, a gay bully couple.  Plus "pocket gay" Jason Marsden as Binx, a boy transformed into a black cat.

4. Halloweentown (1999). Grand dame of campy movies Debbie Reynolds is the gay-vague grandmother of a teen witch who embraces her heritage in Halloweentown.  Plus Luke (Philip Van Dyke, top photo), a cute guy who was once a goblin, and the gay-vague brother Dylan (Joey Zimmerman, left).   The sequels are no good.

5. Underfist: Halloween Bash (2008).  The minor characters of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, including Fred Fredburger, General Skarr, Boomer the Giant Spider, Hoss Delgado, and Irwin, team up to fight giant candy monsters who eat trick-or-treaters.  Like the series itself, lots of gay subtexts: Boomer and Skarr are gay-coded, Hoss and Irwin have a thing going on, and there's a surprising amount of beefcake.  It's never been released on DVD, but you can see it on youtube.

6. Paranorman (2012).  It's not set on Halloween, but you've got zombies, ghosts, a witch, and a gay teenager.

7. Hotel Transylvania (2012).  Single Dad Dracula (Adam Sandler) and his teenage daughter Mavis run a hotel for monsters.  Lots of gay symbolism in the "we are a persecuted minority!" and "we can't reveal who we really are!" rhetoric.  The human Jonathan (gay-positive Andy Samberg, left) accidentally arrives and woos Mavis, but also shares a big gay subtext with the Dad. Check out the scene where he plops into Dracula's lap in the sauna.  And the PG-13 jokes about the Invisible Man's nudity.