We all know the formula: A group of horny teens (or 20-somethings pretending to be teens) hole up in an isolated location to party, and a nutter with something pointy arrives to dispatch them in increasingly inventive ways. For many people it's a Halloween tradition; for others, it's a year-round obsession. It's the American slasher movie.

With roots in the increasingly violent thrillers of the early '70s, the slasher film became a mainstay of the American cinema between 1979's breakout indie hit Halloween and the mid-'80s, when it was pretty much phased out in favor of other subgenres. It seemed like every week boasted a new set of bowling-pin teens just begging to be skewered by Jason Voorhees, Madman Marz, Michael Myers or any one of their many imitators. America's kids were suddenly caught in a highly visible life-and-death situation; issues like acne, grades and who to ask to the prom were Mickey Mouse stuff compared to the bloody morality plays that were splashed across our screens for $4 a ticket.

Considering the amount of nudity, violence, and all-around sleaziness that slasher pics boast, it's no surprise that the genre has been the subject of a lot of scrutiny by critics, academics and conservative media watchdogs. The overriding criticism of the genre is that it is demeaning to women and encourages sexual violence in young men.

But other readings of the genre argue that the mucky morality of the teen horror film is actually far more complex. The genre actively promotes gender cross-identification (the hero is almost exclusively a young girl) and places enormous weight on the ideals of purity, hope, responsibility, accountability and good overcoming evil. And you just thought it was about hacking up drunken sluts.

So what about the queers? Seeing as how we're constantly encouraged to believe that Hollywood is the Gayest Place on Earth and that leftist, Commie, tree-hugging, gay-seeming subtext is being crammed into everything from Harry Potter to shampoo commercials, what does the horror genre hold for the homos?

It's actually not what one might think. Considering that the common perception of horror movies is that they're about as sensitive as a dead co-ed when it comes to gender politics, and that anything not immediately understood by hygiene-challenged men who live in their parents' basements is verboten, the facts about gay representation in horror are surprising. In order to gain a better understanding of how gay characters are treated by the horror genre, I've created the Gay Characters' Guide to Surviving a Straight Horror Film.

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