It should come as no surprise that a known gay director, James Whale, brought to life some of the most iconic Universal Monsters during their peak in the 1930s. Whale imbued his movies, often about the ultimate outsiders, with a gay sensibility: In Dark House, five people are brought together when they’re forced off the road by a storm and end up taking shelter in the same isolated home. Taboo topics like homosexual behavior, androgyny, and sexual deviance are all hinted at throughout the movie. Whale also cast the famously campy actor Ernest Thesiger to play one of the Femm siblings. This is an Ur -text for haunted-house cinema - and one of the gayest films of its decade.

Whale also directed a sequel to his hit Frankenstein, this time using the scheming Dr.