Serious Discussion: The Use of Conversion Therapy Camps in Horror Stories
Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2024 8:40 am
So I've talked a bit about the movie Cuckoo staring Hunter Schafer but while reading up about the film on TV Tropes I learned there was another horror story written by a trans woman, Gretchen Felker-Martin, also called Cuckoo.
Aside from the name and both works including a trans woman the two have nothing in common. While both are horror one is more of a psychological horror while the other is a body horror, the LGBT nature of the movie Cuckoo is not really focused on (we don't even know if Schafer's character, ironically named Gretchen, is trans in the movie or cisgender) while the book Cuckoo the characters being gay is the main focus of the book.
But what makes Cuckoo the book so interesting is the setting which is a Conversion Therapy Camp.
I have to admit setting a horror story in a CTC is honestly kinda brilliant as CTC are already terrifying due to the nature of Conversion Therapy which is, let's be real here, a form of torture. I remember reading about a family who had sent their son to one of these camps which resulted in them suing said camp because their son came back wrong saying how he seemed to have been hollowed out and his smiles weren't real.
Turned out that he was abused both physically and emotionally the entire time he was at the camp in ways that I don't even want to talk about. And this is the norm for every CTC around the world. This is made all the more horrifying because while efforts have been made to get these places shut down they still exist even in countries that have worked to give the LGBT equal rights. Made worse by these places trying to insist that Conversion Therapy does work despite a Zero success rate which manages to convince the worst sort of people that Conversion Therapy does work so they will be able to "fix" their kids.
Like I said, CTC are terrifying so setting a horror movie in such a place is brilliant.
Sadly I've only seen this concept done twice the first of which was with the film They/Them which failed to utilize this concept with an average film that lacks any sort of unique ideas beyond it's setting. But Cuckoo, this is a book that takes full advantage of this concept while also leaning utilizing a few other horror tropes.
I won't spoil it but let's just say this book is loaded with Paranoia fuel with it basically being a cross between John Carpenter's The Thing and Stephen King's It with a little touch of Lovecraftian Horror.
But it never loses sight of it's central premise, these are kids in a place where they are surrounded by people who hate them just for existing and were sent here by people who are suppose to love and protect them because they were true to who they are.
Honestly, I hope this book gets an adaptation because this is really good and I'm not even that big of a fan of horror. This is what They/Them SHOULD have been, a gripping horror set in one of the scariest places which paints itself as some place that only wishes to "Help" kids and "Fix" them.
Aside from the name and both works including a trans woman the two have nothing in common. While both are horror one is more of a psychological horror while the other is a body horror, the LGBT nature of the movie Cuckoo is not really focused on (we don't even know if Schafer's character, ironically named Gretchen, is trans in the movie or cisgender) while the book Cuckoo the characters being gay is the main focus of the book.
But what makes Cuckoo the book so interesting is the setting which is a Conversion Therapy Camp.
I have to admit setting a horror story in a CTC is honestly kinda brilliant as CTC are already terrifying due to the nature of Conversion Therapy which is, let's be real here, a form of torture. I remember reading about a family who had sent their son to one of these camps which resulted in them suing said camp because their son came back wrong saying how he seemed to have been hollowed out and his smiles weren't real.
Turned out that he was abused both physically and emotionally the entire time he was at the camp in ways that I don't even want to talk about. And this is the norm for every CTC around the world. This is made all the more horrifying because while efforts have been made to get these places shut down they still exist even in countries that have worked to give the LGBT equal rights. Made worse by these places trying to insist that Conversion Therapy does work despite a Zero success rate which manages to convince the worst sort of people that Conversion Therapy does work so they will be able to "fix" their kids.
Like I said, CTC are terrifying so setting a horror movie in such a place is brilliant.
Sadly I've only seen this concept done twice the first of which was with the film They/Them which failed to utilize this concept with an average film that lacks any sort of unique ideas beyond it's setting. But Cuckoo, this is a book that takes full advantage of this concept while also leaning utilizing a few other horror tropes.
I won't spoil it but let's just say this book is loaded with Paranoia fuel with it basically being a cross between John Carpenter's The Thing and Stephen King's It with a little touch of Lovecraftian Horror.
But it never loses sight of it's central premise, these are kids in a place where they are surrounded by people who hate them just for existing and were sent here by people who are suppose to love and protect them because they were true to who they are.
Honestly, I hope this book gets an adaptation because this is really good and I'm not even that big of a fan of horror. This is what They/Them SHOULD have been, a gripping horror set in one of the scariest places which paints itself as some place that only wishes to "Help" kids and "Fix" them.