10 Women-Directed Films for Halloween

Are spine-chilling films always in demand because they help us dialogue with and about death? … In the past year, I’ve been focused on seeing films directed by women because I participated in the “52 Films by Women” initiative.

10 Women-Directed Films for Halloween

This guest post written by Laura Shamas originally appeared at Venus in Orange. It is cross-posted with permission.


I’m not a horror film fan per se, but I’ve seen some scary, eerie stuff through the years, and Halloween is always a good time to view them. Are spine-chilling films always in demand because they help us dialogue with and about death? C.G. Jung once wrote: “Death is the hardest thing from the outside and as long as we are outside of it. But once inside you taste of such a completeness and peace and fulfillment that you don’t want to return.”

In the past year, I’ve been focused on seeing films directed by women because I participated in the “52 Films by Women” initiative. The 10 films detailed below (for adults, not kids!) have strong psychological components, too. I’ve divided them into well-known Halloween-ish folklore categories: monsters, strange illness, haunted house (ghosts), killer, losing one’s head (lost), witches, and vampires.

MONSTER

The Babadook

1. The Babadook (2014)
Written and directed by Jennifer Kent

This film is about a lonely widow, her young son, and their journey through grief. A mysterious book suddenly appears in their home, and launches a trajectory of events related to a home-invading monster. What a fascinating portrayal of aspects of motherhood in this film. The tone and cinematography are original; the key performances are strong. The conclusion is truly inventive, and, for me, unexpected. I can’t wait to see Kent’s next film. (Note: female protagonist. Available through streaming services, like Amazon and Netflix).

STRANGE ILLNESS

The Fits

2. The Fits (2015)
Written and directed by Anna Rose Holmer

This film took my breath away. It centers on the extraordinary performance of Royalty Hightower as Toni, an eleven-year-old tomboy who hangs out with her older brother in the gym. When an all-girl dance troupe rehearses in the same community center, Toni becomes fascinated by the aspiring performers, and joins them. Then a strange sort of “illness” descends on the girls. As I watched the film, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible came to mind; I’ve examined the film version of it before. I don’t want to give anything away, but the ending of The Fits was revelatory and mesmerizing. It involves a different sort of fear of the unknown and a transformation, but with tremendous female resonance. I eagerly await more of Holmer’s work as well. (Female protagonist, available on streaming platforms.)

HAUNTED HOUSE (GHOSTS)

A Cry from Within

3. A Cry from Within (2014)
Written by Deborah Twiss, co-directed by Twiss and Zach Miller

This is a ghost story with a particular feminine twist. Twiss stars as a married mother with two young kids. The film examines what happens when a city family moves into a drafty old mansion in a small town. This is a familiar set-up, and some tropes from the “haunted house” genre are used here predictably. Yet, as the film gradually turns towards its true theme, it held my interest: a spirited quest to heal a gruesome family history. Perhaps some of it is melodramatic, but I appreciated the different sort of twist in the third act; it concludes with a strong depiction of the “shadow” side of motherhood and ensuing generational repercussions. (Female protagonist, available on streaming platforms.)

The Invitation

4. The Invitation (2015)
Directed by Karyn Kusama

The film is about Will (Logan Marshall-Green), a grief-stricken man haunted by a past tragedy that occurred in his former house in the Hollywood Hills. As it begins, Will and his girlfriend hit a coyote in the rain on the way to a dinner party, hosted by his ex-wife and her new husband — a foreshadowing of what’s to come. At first it seems as if it’s going to be like The Big Chill: a gathering of old friends reminiscing, catching up, talking about what’s new. But then Will’s ex-wife and her new husband show a movie clip before dinner that sets the eerie tone of what’s to come. Let’s just say that if you’re invited to a dinner party in the Hills, this film will make you reconsider showing up. The house becomes a character of sorts, and old memories emerge like ghosts in flashbacks as terror reigns. (Male protagonist, available on streaming platforms.)

The Silent House

5. The Silent House (2011)
Co-directed by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau, written by Lau

This 2011 film, an American version of a 2010 Uruguayan film titled La Casa Muda,  is another “Haunted House” type of film with a twist at the end. Based on a “true story” from its Uruguayan origins, the movie is seemingly filmed in a single continuous shot, which gives it a lot of tension. The Silent House follows Elizabeth Olson as Sarah, a young woman who, along with her father and uncle, are moving out of a dark old family home near a shore, and encounter strange noises, specters, old photos that no one should see, and more. Of course, the power is not on. When Sarah’s father is knocked out on a staircase, Sarah knows there’s someone else in the house. The revenge component in the film’s conclusion will resonate with many. (Female protagonist, available to stream on Amazon.)

KILLER

The Hitch-Hiker

6. The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Directed by Ida Lupino, written by Lupino, Robert L. Joseph, and Collier Young

As part of this initiative, I’ve tried to catch up on many of Lupino’s films. The Hitch-Hiker is considered the first mainstream film noir feature to be directed by a woman. It varies from standard film noir fare because of its desert locales (as opposed to urban settings). A tale of two American men who are ambushed by a terrifying killer in Mexico, and their attempts to escape danger, the film’s original tagline was: “When was the last time you invited death into your car?” (Male protagonists. You can watch it for free on YouTube here. A version with higher resolution also streams on Amazon.)

LOSING ONE’S HEAD (or LOST)

The Headless Woman

7. The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza) (2008)
Written and directed by Lucrecia Martel

Made in Argentina, it’s perfectly titled. The film’s ominous psychological atmosphere produces a slow burn sort of scare and a dawning realization as you watch it; it’s not a conventional horror “scream” viewing experience. A strange auto accident on a deserted country road is at the center of a mystery; the protagonist is the driver Veronica or “Vero” to her friends (Maria Onetto), a middle-aged married dentist. We wonder: who or what has been hit? Is the victim okay? As the movie continues, we come to understand the true identity of the Headless Woman. (Female protagonist, available on streaming platforms, including Hulu.)

WITCHES

The Countess

8. The Countess (2009)
Written and directed by Julie Delpy

Starring Julie Delpy, the film is a bloody biographical account of Hungarian Countess Erzsébet Báthory, who lived from 1560 to 1614. The film depicts the Countess’ fascination with death; even as a young girl, Báthory declared: “…I would have to raise an army to conquer death.” Thematically, this period piece examines the possibility that unrequited love could lead to madness, and that an obsession with youthful appearance could launch serial killings, as the Countess searches for virginal blood as a magical skin elixir. Because of the focus on bloodletting and torture in her story, Báthory became connected to vampirism through legend. But witches figure prominently in the film in several ways: Erzsébet’s estate is successfully run by a witch named Anna Darvulia (played by Anamaria Marinca), who’s also one of the Countess’ lovers; the Countess is cursed by a witch in a key roadside scene that changes her life: “Soon you will look like me”; and later, when she is on trial, Báthory is notably not tried for witchcraft, although she might have been. The ending brings information that forces a reconsideration of all we’ve just seen. (Female protagonist, available to stream on Amazon).

VAMPIRES

Near Dark

9. Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, co-written by Bigelow and Eric Red

I’ve long wanted to catch up on Bigelow’s earlier films, and have watched two so far as part of this initiative. But no Halloween film list is complete without a vampire movie, let alone a vampire Western like this one.

A lesson you learn quickly in Near Dark: never pick up hitchhikers at night in Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas. The movie is campy, bloody and violent; it debuted in October 1987, a part of the 1980’s vampire movie trend. The story revolves around Caleb (Adrian Pasdar), a young cowboy in a small mid-western town who inadvertently becomes part of a car-stealing gang of southern vampires. The frequent tasting of death in the film, and its repeated reverence for nighttime, reminded me again of Jung’s quote about death: “But once inside you taste of such a completeness and peace and fulfillment that you don’t want to return.” The ending of this one also pleasantly surprised me. (Male protagonist, available on DVD.)

a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-5

10. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)
Written and directed by Ana Lily Amirpour

This is a highly stylized, fascinating film. It’s a unique Persian-language film that follows a mysterious vampire figure named The Girl (Sheila Vand) who haunts the rough streets of “Bad City” at night in a chador, and encounters a young gardener named Arash (Arash Mirandi). Arash’s father is a heroin addict and his mother is dead; Arash is under threat from a tough character who keys his car as the film starts, and after that initial sequence, Arash befriends a beautiful stray cat who becomes part of the action. Amirpour’s film is so atmospheric, beautifully shot in black and white. The plot is untraditional; the ending was also unexpected. Some of the images are unforgettable, and the acting is strong. (Male and female lead characters, available via streaming.)


These ten “scary” films richly explore a range of psychological and social issues: grief; the arrival of puberty; abuse and repressed memories; the aging brain; unrequited love and growing old; justice; and becoming an adult. Most have plot surprises at the end, which makes the viewing all the more worthwhile.


See also at Bitch Flicks:

Why The Babadook Is the Feminist Horror Film of the Year
The Babadook: Jennifer Kent on Her Savage Domestic Fairy Tale
Patterns in Poor Parenting: The Babadook and Mommy
“The More You Deny Me, the Stronger I’ll Get”: The Babadook, Mothers, and Mental Illness
The Babadook and the Horrors of Motherhood
The Fits: A Coming-of-Age Story about Belonging and Identity
Male Mask, Female Voice: The Noir of Ida Lupino
9 Pretty Great Lesbian Vampire Movies
Kathyrn Bigelow’s Near Dark: Busting Stereotypes and Drawing Blood
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Scares Us
Feminist Fangs: The Activist Symbolism of Violent Vampire Women


Laura Shamas is a writer, myth lover, and a film consultant. For more of her writing on the topic of female trios: We Three: The Mythology of Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters. Her website is LauraShamas.com.

Male Mask, Female Voice: The Noir of Ida Lupino

Lupino then struck out from the studio system to direct three noirs of her own: ‘Outrage,’ ‘The Hitch-Hiker,’ and ‘The Bigamist,’ the only classic noirs made by a female auteur. Each uses a different strategy to challenge the empathy gap between spectators and female characters, and to subvert the femme-fatale trope.

Ida Lupino

 

This is a guest post by Brigit McCone.

The IMDb page of Woody Allen’s Match Point (2005) offers the following summary: “at a turning point in his life, a former tennis pro falls for a femme-fatale type.” The plot of Match Point: Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ former tennis pro aggressively pursues Scarlett Johansson’s sexually confident actress, begins an affair that only she expresses guilt over (though she is single, breaking up with her fiancé after her first hook-up with Meyers, while he remains engaged), then he plans and executes the cold-blooded murder of Johansson to cover his adultery. In other words, Meyers plays a classic, manipulative “psycho killer bitch” in all but gender.

The fact that Johansson’s character is nevertheless judged as a “femme-fatale type” and Meyers’ character excused as being “at a turning point in his life,” points to the real underpinnings of the femme-fatale: the assumption that female sex appeal is responsible for male violence. Her manipulative behavior may confirm the femme-fatale’s evil, but her responsibility for male violence is the core of her role, rooted in a victim-blaming lack of empathy for women. If that remains true even in 2005, it was certainly true of the ’40s and ’50s heyday of film noir.

Few people understood the logic of the femme-fatale better than Ida Lupino. Her looks, confidence and intelligence saw her typecast as a seductive “vamp” from the age of 14. Lupino became one of the iconic femme-fatales of the 1940s, breaking out as crazed villainess of They Drive By Night, followed by genre classics High Sierra, The Hard Way, and Road House. Lupino then struck out from the studio system to direct three noirs of her own: Outrage, The Hitch-Hiker, and The Bigamist, the only classic noirs made by a female auteur. Each uses a different strategy to challenge the empathy gap between spectators and female characters, and to subvert the femme-fatale trope.


Rape Culture As Ultimate Noir: Outrage

The first cinematic examination of what feminists now call “‘rape culture,” 1950’s Outrage introduces Ann Walton (Mala Powers), a character whose wholesomeness is emphasized from the film’s start. She is liked by co-workers and says of her fiancé, “I found the right one,” showcasing her mental monogamy. In a tense, expressionist sequence of shadowy yards and deserted streets, Ann is stalked by a sexual predator and caught when she swoons; it is her traditional femininity that makes her vulnerable, not transgression. Ann is constantly watched: chatting to her fiancé, she is smirked at by an old lady; when talking with a co-worker, the clenching hands of her future attacker are visible in the foreground, making the audience uncomfortably aware that we share his gaze. We, too, will be asked to watch and judge Ann throughout the film.

This surveillance of chivalry offers Ann no protection. As her future attacker insistently flirts with her, to her visible discomfort, bystanders are blank-faced and avoid eye contact. As a vulnerable woman alone at night, taxis refuse to stop for her. As her attacker closes in to rape her, the camera pulls back to a neighbor firmly shutting his window. After the rape, we are shown the averted eyes of former friends and the everyday intrusions of men, who casually grab her flinching shoulder or invade her space, an entitlement to the female body that is weaponized by Ann’s trauma. When Ann is finally triggered into striking a blow, she does not get revenge against her rapist, but attacks a random stranger who is stroking her hair and pestering her for a kiss. This sends a clear message that such pushy violations of a woman’s boundaries collectively create a triggering environment that normalizes rape. The conventions of noir, which condition the audience to accept that society is hostile and unjustly disbelieving the protagonist, are used by Lupino to shape the audience’s interpretation of rape culture.

Ann finally finds redemption through the friendship and support of Rev. Bruce Ferguson. It is visiting him alone at his house at night, and driving with him into the countryside unchaperoned, that allows him to counsel her. The fact that she is healed by ignoring society’s proprieties, and victimized when swooning in conventional feminine panic, demonstrates the irrelevance of woman’s transgressions to man’s actions. Rev. Bruce’s authority as man and as cleric is invoked to justify Ann. In the film’s climactic trial of Ann for attacking the harassing flirt, the authority of the legal system is used to hold male sexual aggression responsible for female violence, neatly reversing the “femme-fatale” formula. Rev. Bruce’s mansplaining authority presents his blistering condemnation of chivalry’s failures as an act of chivalry itself: his courtroom speech establishes rape as an epidemic social problem, “a shameful blot on our towns and cities,” excuses Ann’s actions (Rhys Meyers’ tennis coach might have been “at a turning point in his life” when he gunned down Johansson’s “femme-fatale type,” but Ann had “been suffering in her mind a long time” when she clobbered a flirt with a wrench), and indicts society for the assault – “it’s our fault, all of us” – appealing to the judge “as a man.” Of course, Rev. Bruce is not speaking “as a man” at all, but “as Ida Lupino.” Society’s dismissing of woman’s testimony as “hysterical” required Lupino to dress female perspective in a male mask for it to be heard.

Outrage is fascinating as a direct appeal from the suppressed female voice. It exposes the hypocritical underbelly of traditional chivalry, and its human cost, but it is not a fully satisfying drama. The very victim-blaming that Lupino condemns, forces her heroine into one-note wholesomeness to dodge femme-fatality. Ann often irritates viewers with her “damsel-in-distress” manner, but this only highlights how inhuman a woman had to be, to be chivalry’s “justified” victim. At the same time, the need for Rev. Bruce to project authority makes his character smug to the point of creepiness. In her next film, The Hitch-Hiker, Lupino would banish women from the screen entirely and reveal herself capable of sharp psychological subtlety.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCRemHI0usY”]


Why Didn’t They Just Leave Him? The Hitch-Hiker

1953’s The Hitch-Hiker opens with a bold declaration: “what you will see in the next seventy minutes could have happened to you.” We hear a woman’s scream and gunshots. A lady’s purse falls to the floor at the attacker’s feet. This opening scene establishes the villain as a killer of women, but his victim is not shown. To give her any character would be to expose that character to scrutiny. Why was she traveling alone? Why would she pick up a hitch-hiker? Why didn’t she just leave him? To convince the audience that it “could have happened to them,” the faceless woman must be replaced by all-American Roy and Gilbert, on their manly hunting trip. A man can be everyman; a woman represents only herself. Roy and Gilbert, then, must walk in the shoes of the female victim; we will experience her terror through their male masks. The film is a master class in suspense and claustrophobia, making maximal use of both cramped car and empty Mexican desert. The hitch-hiker has one eye permanently opened, so the captives can’t tell whether he is asleep or watching, piling on the paranoia as the pair squirm under his peering panopticon, until they internalize his surveillance. Roy and Gilbert are as minutely scrutinized by the hitch-hiker as Outrage‘s Ann is by society.

One of the film’s harsher comments on IMDb complains that “the two captive men are presented with innumerable opportunities to outsmart or overpower their captor, but fail to do so out of apparent cowardice or stupidity,” which actually points to the film’s central strength. Under crushing pressure, the group evolves the psychological dynamic of an abusive family. The captives’ loyalty to each other becomes an exploitable weakness that prevents them from fleeing. Roy and Gilbert gradually grow complicit in the hitch-hiker’s schemes, as they adapt to his demands and learn to anticipate and appease his rages. They miss opportunities to appeal for outside help, as they are blackmailed into silence. The Hitch-Hiker is one of the rare films that realistically captures the psychology of intimidation, letting the audience witness the group’s toxic dynamic develop over time. The intimate violence of emotional abuse emerges as an ideal subject for noir. George Cukor’s Gaslight is a strong example, but Lupino’s choice of protagonists, all-American hunting buddies, explores the dynamics of abuse as universal human psychology rather than female vulnerability. In her next film, The Bigamist, she would exploit the audience’s higher tolerance for flawed and complex male protagonists, to promote empathy for complex women.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIeFKTbg3Aw”]


Woman Humanizes Man Humanizes Woman: The Bigamist

On the surface, 1953’s The Bigamist presents a classic narrative of infidelity: Harry is driven, by the neglect of his careerist wife Eve, into an affair with a brassy, smart-mouthed broad, Phyllis. But Lupino’s film humanizes the stereotypes into sympathetic individuals. In the process, she demonstrates that the ideology of male unfaithfulness depends on the dehumanizing of women to make them disposable; it must be justified either by condemning the wife as cold, castrating harpy, or by dismissing the mistress as calculating femme-fatale. The climactic trial of the bigamist becomes a trial of society, just like that of Lupino’s Outrage. In the authoritative voice of the male judge, the film spells out the irony that it is no crime to commit adultery, but a crime to recognize and protect both women by marriage.

Like its hero, the film refuses to demonize either woman or to imply that they deserve to be abandoned. Joan Fontaine’s Eve is a workaholic, but she is also loving and supportive. Ida Lupino’s Phyllis reveals layers of loneliness and fragility under her brash, defensive surface. She is not trying to trap Harry, giving him the opportunity to leave even after she falls pregnant. Refreshingly, the women do not turn on each other when the bigamy is revealed, but turn their looks of hurt onto Harry at his trial. The script was written by Collier Young, Lupino’s ex-husband and professional collaborator, who was married to Fontaine at the time of shooting. Lupino’s collaboration with Fontaine, and her sympathetic portrayal of Fontaine’s Eve, is thus an act of solidarity that puts its money where its mouth is, radically rejecting cat-fight logic between women who have shared a man.

Ida Lupino exploits the audience’s willingness to identify with a male protagonist, to encourage them to see both women from the hero’s sympathetic viewpoint. Lupino herself takes the role of a woman pregnant from unmarried sex, then uses the hero’s voiceover to empathize with her character and avoid moral judgment; yet another male mask for the defense of female worth. Defying double standards, Harry takes full responsibility for his choice to sleep with Phyllis, marrying her to support their child. He is flawed, against the standard of a fully committed husband, but noble when compared with the casual exploitation of women tolerated by Lupino’s society. The result is a morally complex and ambiguous portrait of polyamory, which affirms that no human is disposable and that no “femme-fatale” is without her humanity.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eUmFS7ww5s”]


Ida Lupino’s career as director is an intriguing example of an actress seizing power to rebut the misogynist traditions of her own genre. In the process, she reveals noir’s natural potential to explore female psychology and experience. When her company, “The Filmmakers,” folded, she went on to be a prolific director in television, then directed 1966’s The Trouble With Angels, a sympathetic portrait of a Catholic convent school. As the only female director working in ’50s Hollywood, and as a striking artist in her own right, Ida Lupino deserves a fresh look.


 

Brigit McCone over-identifies with Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. She writes short films, radio dramas and “The Erotic Adventures of Vivica” (as Voluptua von Temptitillatrix). Her hobbies include doodling and making bad puns out of the corner of her mouth.