According to queer studies scholar Jasmine McGowan, Otto and L.A. Zombie are transgressive films because they "invert the homophobic tropes of disease and contagion". The physical manifestations of disease in the zombie—sores, wasting, rotting flesh—are similar in some respects to the progression of AIDS, which is a disease associated with homosexuality. McGlotten wrote that LaBruce's films (both about gay zombie sex) evoke thoughts not only of death, but also life, and that they posit a theory that "some kinds of death... may be worse than others, and some are animating or reanimating". They say this contradictory stance is reminiscent of the scholarly work of Leo Bersani, Lee Edelman, and Tim Dean, all of whom "have sought... to recuperate" the associations between gay sexuality and death. They stress, however, that LaBruce's films are more hopeful than theories like Edelman's—theories built out of gay people rejecting social life—because they offer alternatives (such as public sex communities), similar to the queer art of failure, a concept by queer theorist Jack Halberstam.
