The Destruction of the Gendered Body: Magical Transness and the Making of the Modern Horror Film

This paper reads three contemporary horror films, the 2022 Hellraiser remake, the Philippous’ Bring Her Back, and Cregger’s Weapons, to evidence the impact of black magic and/or occultism as act of gender destruction in each film. By practicing occult traditions, characters like Gladys in Weapons, Connor/Oliver in Bring Her Back, and Voight in Hellraiser demonstrate societal and mediated fears over secretive religion and gender change. I argue that the interchange between occult and trans bodies continues the conservative impulses of modern horror, solidifying fears of gender transgression, BDSM, and the violation of the child. In doing so, I read these three films with trans monster theory by reading Hil Malatino and Susan Stryker together, in their articulations of trans monstrosity, Stryker’s 1993 “My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix” and Malatino’s 2019 Queer Embodiment: Monstrosity, Medical Violence, and Intersex Experience.