I have been out as bisexual for most of my life. I was openly out in college when I started back in 2003, and I am grateful for the freedom I have had to be myself. While I did waffle back and forth on choosing that particular label for myself it is the one that I am most comfortable with as an adult. So when Terry asked for pitches for Gayly helpful I wanted to write about two things that are very important in my life, being bisexual and horror films.

My mind flew to my favourite character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Faith Lehane, the third Slayer from the series. Faith is troubled in so many ways that are familiar to me. I embrace her particular brand of chaos whole heartedly. Even though it is not explicitly stated that Faith is bisexual, Eliza Dushku that actress that portrays her has stated that she thinks Faith definitely “swings both ways”. Faith’s character goes through an arc of a troubled teen who has been traumatized, and is looking for love—platonic, familial, and otherwise. When she makes a simple mistake, she panics and assumes the worst and does the worst and finds that love she so desperately seeks in something evil.

Eventually Faith works towards redemption and turns herself over to the police. While she escapes eventually to fight the evil she once aligned herself with, she is an outcast, still extremely comfortable in who she is, and part of that is her sexuality. Pondering Faith as a bisexual character moved me to think on other bisexual characters in horror. Are they all at some point the “bad ass bisexual” tip toeing the line between good and evil? Is it always a euphemism for “not choosing a side” And so began my research.

However, my search quickly halted as there is barely any bisexual representation in the horror genre. While there may be some queer-coded bisexual characters, there are only a handful of explicitly scripted bisexual characters that are easy to find. More often than not bisexuality is just there, but it’s not overtly stated that the character is bisexual. Within the horror genre it can become difficult to discern if bisexuality is a quality of reality. In 2001’s Souls Survivors, Eliza Dushku’s is once again walking the line between good and evil with her character Annie. The “bisexual badass” trope comes out to play when we see Annie heading to every goth kid’s dream, a club located in an abandoned gothic cathedral. She is the unrestrained party girl, comfortable in her own skin and not afraid to speak her mind. She is openly engaging in a sexual encounter outside of her relationship. This can be a harmful stereotype, as one of the biggest misconceptions bisexual people face is that they’re promiscuous and not able to be monogamous in a relationship. Bisexual representation in this movie is not the best, but it is nice to see it regardless.

Within the horror genre you can find some examples of positive representation in characters that are confident and strong-willed, such as Catherine (Basic Instinct) and Jennifer (Jennifer’s Body). On the other hand we can look at more timid characters like Dr Dakota Block from Planet Terror whose relationship with a woman was born out of being in an unhappy marriage, or May (May) whose bisexuality isn’t necessarily framed as negative but whether or not she is considered a villain, or just a lonely individual is up for interpretation.

A much more clear example of a bisexual character is 1983’s The Hunger with Catherine Deveneau as the main character, the centuries old vampire Miriam. Her current partner is John (played by David Bowie), but his immortality is beginning to fade and he is aging. While looking into cures Miriam comes across Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon) and is immediately smitten. While her character isn’t overtly evil, she is who she is, and she wants companionship and sexual intimacy with someone who will be by her side for a long time. Miriam does however turn Sarah into a vampire without her consent, and it is found that all her past partners are living in a permanently withered state locked in coffins in her attic. With all that being said, I don’t feel that Miriams malevolence connected to her sexual orientation at all, she just happens to be bisexual.

I took to twitter to ask if perhaps all vampires are bi/pansexual. Whether it stems from modern romantic vampirism and the notorious bisexual summer of Shelly, Byron, and Polidori; or the idea that when you are eternal your sexualiy evolves into a more fluid state; or that vampires are truly bloodsexual and turned on by the humans blood and their gender bears no matter, it seems to be a resounding yes to all vampries are queer. Despite this agreement, without markedly showing or stating that a character is bisexual (or anything but straight) we do not truly have the representation that us little ol’ bisexuals truly are in need of. This does leave it up to the community to decide and code characters how we see them, as there is always that room in art to interpret what you see.

Initially I set out to see if there were tropes used, if bisexuals were cast in a positive or negative light in horror films, but with the small number of films I found in the time I had to write this piece, I could not accurately try and draw any conclusions. It appears so far, the genre does not leave us with much to look to for bisexual women so we can see ourselves on the screen. My search will not end here, and I hope as we see more and more queer characters on the screen, there will be new films with spectacular characters for us to see ourselves in. It was disappointing to find so little, but I do hope to find more in the troves of indie horror out there that I have not watched yet. Perhaps my foray into seeing what kind of representation easily exists in horror film will inspire the creation of more bisexual women (and men) in the medium I so truly love.