The radical notion that women like good movies
Horror films hold a mirror up to these ideals, distorting the images and terrifying viewers in the process. The terror that society feels while looking at these little girls echoes the terror it feels when confronted with changing gender norms and female power.
The films that depict terrifying little girls are acting out the deep-seated fear of the loss of our culture’s goodness and purity, virginity and innocence. There’s also a collective discomfort surrounding the fact that little girls become women, and that womanhood is unpredictable and uncontrollable. Little girls in films like ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘The Bad Seed’ embody a premature, preternatural womanhood that is powerful, sexual, and taboo.
To get an idea of the Soska sisters, picture ‘The Shining’s Grady twins, only all grown up and in control of their destinies. Just in time for Halloween, Jen and Sylvia Soska spoke with us about their favorite horror movies, the hardships of working as female directors in masculine genre, their work on ‘See No Evil 2’ and what’s next for their careers.
Check out all of the posts for our Demon/Spirit Possession Theme Week here.
Punishment is the main objective of the demon Bathsheba in ‘The Conjuring,’ and specifically she seeks to punish the mother figure of a family. The hauntings and road to possession begin when in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move into an old farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters. Slowly, they begin to experience paranormal disturbances.
Halloween is upon us, so it’s time to contemplate the prolific theme of demon/spirit possession in film and on TV. Why is this such a prevalent theme? In many ways, possession explains evil as something separate from ourselves, something that infects us, which dichotomizes good and evil.
The most important thing The Fall is doing, though, is calling out misogyny. Yes, Gibson gets to hand it to Spector, the serial killer, labeling him a “weak, impotent” misogynist, but we already knew that. What I find more intriguing is the way the show implicates the police force and the audience itself for the casual misogyny, assumptions, and stereotypes that perpetuate victim-blaming.
# 50/50 5 Broken Cameras 500 Days of Summer 45 Years The 40-Year-Old Virgin 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days 9 to 5 1971 101 Dalmations 127 Hours 10 Days in a Madhouse 10,000 km 3 1/2 Minutes, Ten Bullets 300: Rise of an Empire 12 Years a Slave 28 Days Later A Abuse … Continue reading “Film Directory”
If only she could scream louder! It might defeat Ro-Man In the 1953 B-movie, Robot Monster, protagonists Alice (Claudia Barret) and Roy (George Nader) attempt to engage in post-apocalyptic frolicking and fornicating. This is all while being pursued by a gorilla-suited socialism-spewing space man (John Brown). This space man, or as he calls himself, Ro-Man, … Continue reading “Horror Week 2012: Women’s Terror Vocalized in Horror Films”
Vivien (Connie Britton) in American Horror Story Ladies, how many times have you been called a “crazy bitch?” Once? Twice? 5 thousand times?? Or is that just me? This oh-so-not-lovely term of endearment gets tossed around waaaaayy too often. It’s bad enough when we get labeled the sexist term “bitch” — and it’s very different … Continue reading “Horror Week 2012: That "Crazy Bitch": Women and Mental Illness Tropes in Horror”
Horror films have a long-standing tradition of commenting on the social fears and anxieties of their time. Another universally recognized truth of horror is that scary children are terrifying–especially little girls. While an analysis of “creepy children” in horror films usually proclaims that they are providing commentary on a loss of innocence, and it would … Continue reading “The Terror of Little Girls: Social Anxiety About Women in Horrifying Girlhood”
Guest post written by Mychael Blinde. Originally published at Vagina Dentwata. Cross-posted with permission. The home invasion horror film The Strangers received bad reviews. Like, really bad. Critics wrote things like: “What a waste of a perfectly good first act! And what a maddening, nihilistic, infuriating ending!” and: “Kind of like what The Shining … Continue reading “Horror Week 2012: ‘The Strangers’: The Horror of Home Invasion and the Power of the Final Girl”
