“Petrocelli is a master of the interdisciplinary, genre-defying queer theoretical framework and applies it expertly to the analysis of the Queer for Fear Oral History. This volume is essential for anyone hoping to learn more about the horror audience, particularly the queer audience who has for too long been understudied and underrepresented by the academic side of horror studies.”

Supernatural Studies

“Petrocelli is very transparent with their scholarly approaches and any areas of potential critique or ‘missed opportunities.’ When bold steps are taken, they are thoroughly backed up both through in-text citations and in extensive notes. The work in its entirety is airtight and rigorous. Great care regarding marginalized populations is taken throughout.”

Revenant Journal

"Petrocelli provides a critical intervention central to the book’s overall purpose. They argue persuasively that queer horror viewers have the potential to expand the cinematic horror genre beyond its current conventional iterations. Queer viewers’ unique societal, communal, and political positionings bring new clarity to a genre that has often faced ‘critical disapproval and disparagement’ from the academy (21). Queer for Fear proves the necessity for studying horror as a queer phenomenon. Petrocelli’s research will be vital to scholars and queer horror fans alike as they continue building a queer horror canon." 

Film Quarterly

"Petrocelli buries the assumption—laid out by Carol J. Clover and Linda Williams among others— that teen boys are the primary audience for horror films. Building on a similar audience study, Petrocelli carves out a space that is different from Brigid Cherry’s late 1990s study of women horror fans and from queer theorists Benshoff and Darren Elliott-Smith who focus on a presumed male viewer. These interviews include a range of non-binary, trans, genderqueer, and agender horror lovers." 

MONSTRUM

"Queer for Fear is the first major empirical study of queer horror spectators, their diversity and lived experiences. It offers a new understanding of camp, queer community, queer trauma, queer live cinema, the importance of drag and camp laughter. Queer for Fear is an original, intelligent and thought-provoking study of the complex relationship between queerness, horror and the cinema. A must-have book for queer lovers of horror—and everyone else!"

Barbara Creed, author of Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema

"Queer for Fear is a rigorous, field-changing deep dive into queer horror spectators and their relationship with the 'queerest genre'. Beginning with the bold claim that 'horror is queer', Petrocelli crafts a convincing and thoroughly researched argument that leaves no stone unturned. This large-scale empirical study breaks open the field of horror studies as Petrocelli expansively connects the experiences of queer spectators to horror through queer identity, camp, live performance, and more."

Laura Westengard, author of Gothic Queer Culture: Marginalized Communities and the Ghosts of Insidious Trauma