Emma Seligman’s newest film, Bottoms (2023), tells the story of two queer best friends navigating their senior year of high school while chasing down the one thing that plagues so many classic teen rom coms: sex with cheerleaders. Much of the humor in the first half of the film comes from PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) trying to impress the two cheerleaders they have crushes on; this leads to the film’s central premise, in which Josie accidentally lies about creating a fight club, and PJ makes the fight club a reality. The humor in the second half of the film comes primarily from the absurdist, messy, and even gory, violence. At the climax of the film, which features a bloodbath between the all-girl fight club and the all-boy rival football team, many football players wind up dead—one is even impaled on a sword—while the leads all wind up covered in their blood. They turn to face the crowd, who look on in shocked horror . . . before reluctantly clapping at the bizarre scene. This queer “rom com” satire, by the end, becomes a pseudo-horror film, one literally watched in stunned silence by the in-film audience.

If the “pseudo-horror film” label seems strong, Emma Seligman, on her Instagram, showcases ten films she drew inspiration from when making Bottoms—and a number of them, like Shaun of the Dead (2004) or Jennifer’s Body (2009), are horror comedies. In an interview, she adds another Edgar Wright film with horror elements, The World’s End (2013), into the mix. Much of the shots she cites here inform the imagery and mood of certain scenes in Bottoms: while the film is overtly a comedy, individual shots will have darker imagery, even before the violent turn in the climax.

It may seem odd to begin this Theme Week by discussing Bottoms, but there is an important reason: I could not help but notice while watching that this is not the first time Seligman had dipped her toe into this genre. Her debut 2020 film Shiva Baby features a full-fledged horror score, heightening the anxiety that protagonist Danielle (Rachel Sennott, again) feels when she is questioned by her family, trying desperately to avoid both her ex-girlfriend and current sugar daddy who both arrive at the same shiva (which is of course a plot pulled straight out of a sitcom). The plucking violins and the demonic undertones might lead to humorous moments—where a mom coming around the corner and smiling to her daughter is painted as scary, which actually results in laughter from the audience—many will relate all-too-well to the way Seligman and the film’s composer, Ariel Marx, put the sound of a panic attack on screen.

In a moment I will focus solely on Shiva Baby, but it is worth mentioning that while I believe Seligman is perfecting this combination, the trend seems to go beyond just her work. In the same year as Shiva Baby, in fact, Olivia Peace’s Tahara, which features two female friends, Carrie (Madeline Grey DeFreece) and Hannah (Rachel Sennott once more, oddly), has very uncomfortable framing, a claustrophobic aspect ratio, and moments where characters “zone out,” with horrifying sounds inserted to accompany their trauma responses. The way this film also puts the viewer into an uncomfortable mind space, anxious, nervous, and closed-in, feels very reminiscent of Seligmna’s films; while the film certainly tells jokes, and features similar awkward humor to Shiva Baby and Bottoms, the horror elements are inescapable. In one claymation scene, for example, the two leads, who are kissing, separate to reveal that one of them has had their face melted off, in true Coraline-esque horror fashion. What starts as an almost magical shift from live-action to clay suddenly turns to horror. But these are just two examples that borrow some horror elements to tell queer stories: is it just a coincidence? It could be, as there are a lot of other similarities between these two films, an Antz/A Bug’s Life situation (they do both star Rachel Sennott as a queer Jewish lead character who is at a funeral or shiva for the duration of the film)—but I think it is not simply a coincidence. Queer horror has a long and storied history I cannot go into in depth here, but even the most tenuous connections are made—take the co-opting of the Babadook as a queer icon, for example. Why do these queer stories “feel like horror”? Why do they lean on horror tropes? Is this a rhetorical move on the part of the filmmaker, or a response by the viewer? To answer these questions, I want to look closer at how Shiva Baby incorporates these tropes.

Danielle, a young Jewish woman, attends a shiva and her sugar daddy—who surprises her by having a secret wife and child—shows up. The tension in the film is all about Danielle’s struggle to keep it together as her family closes in and her ex, Maya (Molly Gordon), and her sugar daddy, try to make moves and keep things under control. The entire film, except the opening short scene, takes place at this one home. The lack of movement from place to place helps to show Danielle’s claustrophobia, but also makes the house feel just as haunted as any other horror film’s truly haunted house might.

The comedy of course comes from the awkward moments where Danielle is bombarded with questions about her future which she cannot answer, about her major which she “made up” (it’s gender business—well, the business part is just there to please her mother), and her job interviews she lies about having, per her parents’ request. The lies are where most of the anxiety, and thus horror, in the film come from and it is not just about her future employment, but her sexuality. Danielle is frequently told by her mother that her relationship with Maya was “just a phase.” So not only is Danielle afraid that her relationship to her “sugar daddy” will be found out, but she must also contend with the fact that her real relationship, the one with her ex, is disregarded by her family, both immediate and extended. Even at the climax of the film, when Danielle has a very emotional breakdown, her mother thinks that the way to calm her down is to say: “Everything will be all right”—that’s not a bad start!—“You’re gonna get a great job”—also not too bad, though it could be more stressful than helpful—“Meet a nice man, and fall in love”—and there it is (Seligman 1:06:17). Her mom refuses to stick the landing even at her daughter’s darkest moment. “You’ll meet a nice man.” Danielle’s mom, even now, rejects her daughter’s sexuality.

For Danielle, the entire film is essentially a series of comedic moments (on the surface) that only exist to heighten her anxiety, to raise the stakes, until she breaks down. Maya is the one who comforts her, and only after she is sitting in the car with Maya’s hand in hers, do we feel that she might be okay. The horror elements help the audience sit firmly in Danielle’s point of view, experiencing the world in a way that is just as scary as it is for her. The monsters in the movie are the family’s questions alongside their dismissing of her love of a woman. Horror, then, might be the outlet Seligman is using to “flip the script” so to speak. In a film like Tahara, feeling love for someone of the same gender is what feels scary—in Shiva Baby, it is the rest of the world not accepting that love that scares Danielle, alongside being “found out.” But, importantly, the “being found out” plot is not about her coming out, or her queer identity being discovered—this is something that her mother tries to bury, not herself, and the entire family knows it already but will not address it. 

So, while Bottoms is perhaps Seligman’s magnum opus and her most successful film, Shiva Baby is where this success truly began on the page, where Seligman’s roots in horror-comedy tropes truly began. Hopefully this Theme Week, exploring this film in the depth it deserves, will help draw attention to this film now celebrating its five-year anniversary.