Serious Discussion: The Use of Conversion Therapy Camps in Horror Stories

[Winter]

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.

[CharlesPhipps]

I confess that I go to horror movies to escape real life horror and have fun with bratty idiots getting murdered by serial killers.

[ProfessorDetective]

I confess that I go to horror movies to escape real life horror and have fun with bratty idiots getting murdered by serial killers.

I have a similar thing with True Crime works. It feels exploitatively and depressing when it's real people dying or killing. Give me Poirot or Blanc, any day.

[McAvoy]

I go in with whatevee I feel like at that for horror. Slasher, gore fests, psychological, etc. Whatever.

Though I do confess intrigued by the concept of body horror. Such as The Thing. Like exactly where does the person end and The Thing emerges. Like how does it work? Once The Thing gets ahold of you does it just straight up take over your mind and body or is a slow process. Something you may not even know until it's too late. Do you feel pain if you are still in there when The Thing experiences pain?

Its just a interesting concept to me, like overwriting data on a hard drive.

[hammerofglass]

The problem with a setting like a conversion therapy camp is that the baseline is so horrifying that throwing a serial killer or supernatural threat into the mix just lightens the mood.

[CharlesPhipps]

The problem with a setting like a conversion therapy camp is that the baseline is so horrifying that throwing a serial killer or supernatural threat into the mix just lightens the mood.

You could also make the serial killer chopping up the adults.

Like a redone SLEEPAWAY CAMP where the protagonist is trans and goes on a killing spree.

Not that we'd ever root for the bad guy. No sir.

[Nobody700]

The problem with a setting like a conversion therapy camp is that the baseline is so horrifying that throwing a serial killer or supernatural threat into the mix just lightens the mood.

You could also make the serial killer chopping up the adults.

Like a redone SLEEPAWAY CAMP where the protagonist is trans and goes on a killing spree.

Not that we'd ever root for the bad guy. No sir.

They did that. They/Them. Actual film with Kevin Bacon.

[Winter]

The problem with a setting like a conversion therapy camp is that the baseline is so horrifying that throwing a serial killer or supernatural threat into the mix just lightens the mood.

I don't know, if the story is well written enough then it can convey the horror of something real even if a supernatural or extra terrestrial is involved. In this book the horrors of Conversion Therapy and the people who run the camp are just as terrible as one would imagine and the monster of the book is a part of that horror.

Again, it reminds me of the story I read about a kid who was sent to one of these camps and his parents were horrified by what happened to him that they ended up suing the camp. What's so interesting is that as terrible as the monster of this book is the human villains are much more loathsome and any sympathy we might have for them is shown to be undeserving because in the end they're all shallow and horrible people who do what they do for a stupid reasons.

This book might have an actual monster but in the end but it doesn't subtract from the monsters on two legs.

[hammerofglass]

From that description I'm just rooting for the monster is the problem.

[Winter]

From that description I'm just rooting for the monster is the problem.

Well, there's a twist to that but I'd rather you read the book and find that out for yourself.