Horror Movies That Are Secretly Love Stories

Will-they-or-won’t-they fall in love and stay alive? That might be one question on your mind when you watch the following horror movies, where there is a beautiful or gory romance alongside the terror.

Vampires sink their fangs into gay subtext, and opposites attract while catching a slasher icon. Expect spoilers for some of the entries, because the love story in the plots is not always apparent; some are even part of a twist ending.

These are the horror movies that are secretly love stories.

The Lost Boys (1987)

The Lost BoysCredit: Warner Bros.

Michael (Jason Patric) moves with his mother and brother to the seaside town of Santa Carla, where he gets drawn into a gang of vampires led by David (Kiefer Sutherland).

Michael wants to get with David’s girlfriend, Star (Jami Gertz), and they do hook up, but none of their scenes have the chemistry that lies between the brooding young guys. “Be one of us,” David tells him, after handing over a bottle of blood. His magnetic pull brings Michael further into the gang’s nocturnal activities.

Directed by openly gay filmmaker Joel Schumacher, The Lost Boys takes a bite into teen angst, punk rock aesthetics, and so much homoeroticism among the male characters. That’s how you can view this supernatural horror-comedy as a love story by looking away from the straight romance that is obvious.

Unlike how overexplaining a joke will lose its humor, overexplaining gay subtext usually is what’s needed to get certain viewers on the movie’s same wavelength.

Scream 2 (1997)

“Page forty-one. Deputy Dewey oozed with inexperience.”

Scream 2Credit: Dimension Films

A new Ghostface killer wants to make a real-life sequel by leaving a trail of bodies on their path to the survivors of the first movie.

What many people think about the Scream movies they tend to put attention on Sidney as a complex final girl, the meta commentary on movies and horror, or which Ghostface killer is their favorite. I think what is just as integral to this franchise is the romance for the leads.

It’s a misdirect or plot twist over whether the boyfriends of each movie’s main final girl are the next Ghostface, but the best love story in Scream is between Gale (Courteney Cox) and Dewey (David Arquette), as we see their relationship take them from exes into marriage and post-divorce across five installments.

And their hottest romantic arc is in Scream 2, which deepens them both as characters from what we saw in the first movie, exploring how their different personalities are an example of opposites attracting. They even get a sensual love theme in Scream 2 — which was really a Hans Zimmer track pulled from Broken Arrow.

28 Days Later (2002)

‘28 Days Later’Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens from a coma to find a virus has spread throughout London and abroad, turning nearly everyone into infectious, angry, and fast predators. The few people who have survived are left on their own.

After Jim is rescued by Selena (Naomie Harris), the two embark on a journey to find shelter, and learning to trust one another leads to them falling for each other in a very subtle romance plotline. They begin at odds, with Jim having to catch up to the survival mindset that Selena has already taken on.

When he wonders how fast she would kill him if he got infected, she is blunt: “If it happens to you, I’ll do it in a heartbeat”. But that friction softens as they escape from the Infected and grieve personal losses. When Jim becomes as barbaric as the Infected while rescuing Selena from dangerous soldiers, she hesitates to kill him.

“That was longer than a heartbeat,” he says. 28 Days Later finds hope within all the despair, and the Jim-Selena love story represents how, after losing so much, they can still be a reason to live. And it’s heavily implied that they went on to have a child together in the legacy sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Jennifer’s BodyCredit: 20th Century Fox

Teen besties Needy (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer (Megan Fox) are going to have a very bad school year after Jennifer turns into a demonic succubus with a hunger for the boys in their class.

Needy has a boyfriend, Jennifer hunts down male victims, but the relationship between the two girls is the more intimate dynamic in the movie. There is the famous makeout scene when Jennifer sneaks into Needy’s bedroom, tempting her to let her guard down. There are the taunts, “I go both ways,” and “Do you buy all your murder weapons at Home Depot? God, you’re butch.”

The finale, where this time Needy sneaks into Jennfier’s bedroom, is a final battle with the succubus that is full of sexual undertones. Jennifer’s Body is a tragic love story because of that.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody has even gone on to say in a 2024 interview, “We didn’t get to go there, at least not as much as we wanted to. Luckily the subtext was there, and people were able to take that away.”

The upcoming sequel might be what gets to go places the first movie couldn’t.

High Tension (2003)

High TensionCredit: EuropaCorp Distribution

Marie (Cécile de France) joins her friend Alex (Maïwenn) at her family’s home in the countryside. That same night, a sadistic killer attacks Alex’s family, kidnaps Alex, and Marie goes after them both to save her friend.

The opening line teases the big twist, with Marie repeating, “I won’t let anyone come between us anymore.” It may not make sense on a first watch, but High Tension at least tries to play somewhat fair with audiences by teasing the ending and not having it come completely out of nowhere.

All the killer’s horrific acts of violence have been committed by Marie, who has only been imagining herself as the heroic final girl wanting to save her friend. Marie is unstable and obsessed with Alex. In this throwback to exploitation flicks and slashers, High Tension is not the most progressive queer horror movie, but you can’t deny how nerve-racking the initial cat-and-mouse suspense is.

The one-sided infatuation that Marie has for her friend makes for one heck of a mean-spirited love story.

It’s a Wonderful Knife (2023)

It’s a Wonderful KnifeCredit: RLJE Films | Shudder

After Winnie (Jane Widdop) becomes a final girl by stopping the Angel killer, she is having an especially blue Christmas, causing her to make a wish that she was never born. It suddenly brings her into a dystopian, alternate reality where the Angel killer is still at large. As a slasher take on It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), this 2023 movie has a sneaky last-minute twist that makes you realize there has been a major love story unfolding the whole time.

The only person who believes Winnie is the outcast Bernie (Jess McLeod), and the two team up to stop the Angel. The girls weren’t friends in the original timeline, but they form a bond that they both need in this darker reality. And it seems like a friendship, but after saving the town in the finale, they kiss.

Screenwriter Michael Kennedy, who wrote It’s a Wonderful Knife, shared in a 2023 interview that he wanted to satirize Hallmark movies, which he found to be, “so straight and so heteronormative, I thought, let’s do the opposite.” That included having queer supporting characters and the relationship that develops between Winnie and Bernie over the course of this slasher.

Do you have a favorite love story in a horror movie?