All You Need is Blood: 9 Horror Movie Lovers Who Are Couple Goals
Mary Beth McAndrews
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I love a bit of romance in my horror. Call me a hopeless romantic, but something about a couple in love despite all hell breaking loose speaks to me on a deep level. While we don’t have time to dissect all that, we do have time to talk more about some of the genre’s best couples.
Now, Jason and Allison in the new film Soul Mates may be strangers but they are very quickly thrown into couple status sheerly because they are quite literally chained to each other. They need to navigate a series of traps—I mean dates—to survive in this concrete prison they find themselves in.
In honor of the release of Soul Mates, we’re looking at nine horror movie couples that prove love may just be real.
Evan and Louise, Spring
Now I’m not saying that Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s 2014 film Spring is the reason I’m married to my husband, but I’m not NOT saying it either. In the directing duo’s film, Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) travels to Italy after the death of his mother to try and find some larger purpose in life. Well, he finds that purpose in Louise (Nadia Hilker), a beautiful woman who just happens to actually be a cosmic deity. She transforms into strange beasts at will and needs to get pregnant every 20th spring to regenerate herself. But, if she falls in love, she’ll become immortal.
Evan and Louise have a cosmic-level romance that Evan will never truly understand. And yet, no matter the monster she becomes, he still loves her. He’s willing to look death straight in the eye for the woman he loves. Now that is romance, and I will hear nothing else about it. This is the ultimate horror couple, to me, which is why I had a reading from the film at my wedding. Spring is horror romance goals, in my humble opinion.
Chucky and Tiffany, Bride of Chucky
Now, of course, there is no iconic horror couple list without the inclusion of Chucky and Tiffany. Love transcends flesh, and these two found love in a hopeless place on more than one occasion. No matter where their souls are placed, these two serial killers are truly a matchmade in Hell as they find each other no matter what. Plus, they do try really hard to be good parents in later iterations of the Child’s Play franchise, at least for two murder-loving dolls.
Plus, the introduction of Chucky’s love interest Tiffany blessed us with Jennifer Tilly pulling out performances of a lifetime as the blonde killer who just wants to be famous and have a nice little family. Just like her mother told her! Perhaps their emotional volatility isn’t to be admired, but that aside, Chucky and Tiffany prove that love knows no bounds.
Benjamin and Dom, Swallowed
Benjamin (Cooper Koch) and Dom (Jose Colon) don’t end up together in Carter Smith’s 2023 queer horror film Swallowed, but their chemistry is electric enough to earn them a place on this list. The way Dom watches Benjamin dance and move in the opening sequence is what most couples only dream of. The love between these two young men—which is a complicated mess of platonic, romantic, and sexual attraction—is palpable, a beautiful thing that we have to watch crumble over the course of just one awful night.
I include them because we need more queer romance in our horror. Swallowed is just one recent example of how to achieve that, even if we don’t get that fairy tale ending. For further queer heartbreak, watch Card Zero, a prequel short film to Robbie Banfitch’s 2023 found footage horror The Outwaters.
Mina and Dracula, Bram Stoker’s Dracula
I’m just going to be blunt in this entry. If someone uttered the words “I crossed oceans of time to find you” my panties would be on the floor. These are the words uttered by Gary Oldman’s version of Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola’s famously horny Bram Stoker’s Dracula from 1992. He speaks them to his Mina (Winona Ryder), an unsuspecting Victorian woman who falls under his thrall.
And who wouldn’t?? I’m so sorry, Jonathan Harker as portrayed by Keanu Reeves, but Dracula in that top hat and those little glasses just does something to the ladies. Plus, there’s just something so romantic about a man damning God because of your death. Get you a man who is willing to curse God and drink blood for eternity just for you.
Eliza and The Amphibian Man, The Shape Of Water
A horror couple doesn’t have to be comprised of simply two humans (or creatures that were once humans, if we’re getting picky about Dracula). Enter Guillermo del Toro’s monster-fucking masterpiece The Shape Of Water where Eliza (Sally Hawkins), a woman unable to speak who works at a secret government lab, falls in love with a giant amphibian man (Doug Jones). And let me tell you, not many creature features get this romantic and sexy, which is a damn shame.
The use of music and Hawkins’ command of her physicality make this perhaps one of the most touching love stories in recent memory, not just within the horror genre. If that film didn’t move you to tears with the sheer romance of it all, then I don’t know what to tell you! Eliza and the Amphibian Man are a top-tier horror couple!
Barbara and Adam, Beetlejuice
This isn’t Geena Davis’ only appearance on this list, which tells me she’s a woman of taste who loves a good horrific horror romance when she sees one. When I was younger, Barbara (Davis) and Adam (Alec Baldwin) were couple goals. Or couple ghouls, if you will. They lived in a beautiful house in a cute little town, they dressed like nerds, and they were just happy to be alive and in love. Well, that all changes when they die in a car accident, but unlike the wedding vows say, death did not do this iconic horror couple part. In fact, it perhaps drew them closer together.
In the afterlife, the couple must face challenges like ghostly bureaucracy and bio-exorcist who simply will not leave them alone. Oh, and also a new family has moved into their home and they’ve made quite a few changes, to say the least. Barbara and Adam face more strife as ghosts and still, they come out on top and as in love as ever.
Burt and Heather Gummer, Tremors
Yes, I could have easily listed Val (Kevin Bacon) and Earl (Fred Ward). But let’s give some credit to one of my favorite parts of Tremors, the bizarre survivalist couple Burt (Michael Gross) and Heather (Reba McIntire) who help save the day with their absolutely massive armory. And they live! The power of love! And a lot of guns, but that’s beside the point.
Ignoring the rest of the Tremors films where Heather leaves Burt, the Gummers deserve more love as an iconic horror couple who are willing to risk it all, even in the face of angry worms.
Adelaide and Gabe, Us
Before everything goes south in the most spectacular fashion in Jordan Peele’s second feature film Us, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) and Gabe (Winston Duke) seem to be a matchmade in heaven. With two beautiful kids and the ability to go on nice family vacations, they seem to be the perfect horror couple. And I know many of us remember the sequence featuring Duke’s thighs.
But on top of that, the two work together to save their family like a well-oiled machine. Sure, Gabe needs to grapple with the fact that they have a doppelganger family, but he’s ready to fight to keep them all alive in the face of the underground takeover from the red-jumpsuit-wearing copies.
Seth and Veronica, The Fly
Now, this may just be the horror couple to end all horror couples. In the face of horrific body horror and melting flesh as Seth (Jeff Goldblum) morphs into the Brundlefly, his love Veronica (Geena Davis) sticks by him (for the most part). The way David Cronenberg is able to craft both one of the grossest horror films of all time and the most heart-breaking is nothing short of breathtaking.
Yes, watching a man’s slow bodily decomposition is horrifying. But adding on the extra layer of his partner watching that happen and trying to figure out how to help? Heart-breaking, tears every time. Plus, the chemistry between Goldblum and Davis is positively electric as they dance around each other before finally falling in love.
Soul Mates is now in theaters.
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