Jennifer Kent – Bitch Flicks

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.

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

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

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)

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.)

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.)

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

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)

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

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

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.)

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.

‘The Babadook’: Jennifer Kent on Her Savage Domestic Fairy Tale

Jennifer Kent: “I didn’t start with motherhood being the primary focus, but it is a very important part of the film, and I’m very adamant not to make this woman the evil mother. That’s why I placed the film very much inside her experience.”

This is a guest post by Josh Ralske.

Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent’s feature debut The Babadook is the surprise hit horror film of the year. (Read Sarah Smyth’s review here.) With no stars and a limited budget, Kent cannily tells the story of Amelia (Essie Davis), a widow still wracked with grief over the death of her husband six years earlier, and Amelia’s troubled young son Samuel (Noah Wiseman), whose obsessive fear of monsters verges on the manic. One night, Samuel pulls an unfamiliar book from the shelf for his mother to read to him, Mr. Babadook. Amelia reads the book, unleashing the titular monster into their home. The mother and son, and the movie, increasingly retreat into their own horrific private world, terrorized by a fairy tale-like creature that seems intent on driving Amelia into madness.

The narrative is simple, and pointedly familiar, but The Babadook is notable for the complexity of its two main characters, and the remarkable performances that bring them to such vivid life.

We spoke with Kent on the phone about the film’s creation and its success.

Bitch Flicks: Congratulations on all the acclaim that the film is getting.

Jennifer Kent: Thank you. It’s been a real trip. It’s been a long and fantastic journey for this film. It’s been amazing.

BF: How did you get the idea for the film? Are you a parent yourself?

JK: No. No, I’m not. Obviously the mother/child relationship is really important in the film, but what i was really focused on was her, on this woman and her suppression of something she found impossible to face. That was the starting point for me. I feel if you suppress things in life, you don’t just affect yourself; you affect everyone around you. So then the choice to have that little boy in the picture, and to make him a kind of mirror to her was how it worked out. But it wasn’t, for me, entirely a story about motherhood, although that is a really important factor in the film.

BF: I understand what you’re saying about it being a very personal story, and starting with Amelia’s character, and what’s refreshing about it is how complex her character is. She isn’t just one thing. She’s not the type of female protagonist that you see in a typical horror film.

JK: I didn’t start with motherhood being the primary focus, but it is a very important part of the film, and I’m very adamant not to make this woman the evil mother. That’s why I placed the film very much inside her experience. Even when the shit hits the fan later in the film, we’re still experiencing it largely from her perspective, and I wanted her to be complex. She’s trying so hard. She’s a loving person. She’s drowning. She’s a drowning woman in this situation, but she wants to do the right thing, and I was interested in exploring that. I’m the type of person, when I read or hear about these parents killing or harming their kids… Of course it’s a tragedy, and the act of those parents is abominable, but they’re not monsters. They’re human beings. And my empathy and my sensitivity around these things made me curious. How does one get to that place where they become this monstrous mother? How does that happen? And so that’s why, I guess, I feel proud of that character, of Amelia. No one’s saying that she’s a one note character.

BF: Your empathy for the character really comes through. Could you talk a little bit about casting Samuel, and your conception of that character, because again, it’s not a child character that I’ve seen in any other film. He’s a very unique movie kid.

JK: Yeah. If you met [Noah], you’d be shocked, because he’s the opposite of Sam. He’s very quiet and sweet. That’s all acting. And he is an empathetic kid. He really loved Sam. He really felt sorry for Sam, because his mom wouldn’t listen to him. And he was right. And I think the quality that I was looking for in the little boy who would play Sam was that empathy. And of course, Sam’s a strange kid, and very annoying at times, but ultimately, he loves his mom and he wants to protect her. So I needed a child who could embody all those qualities. And someone who could be directed. A lot of kids that come into these auditions, they’re like machines. But they can’t necessarily change and give you a subtle performance. But Noah could, and the key to that for me was improvisation. So we played games and we imagined things with the boys who got down to the final short list. And Noah was a standout in that way: vivid imagination, very emotionally intelligent. And robust. You know, I didn’t want a kid that was going to collapse on the second day of shooting, saying “I wanna go home.” He was there for the six weeks of shooting, day in and day out, and when I think about what he did, it’s an extraordinary thing for a 6-year-old to achieve.

BF: Yeah, that’s amazing. I didn’t know if you’d found a kid who was just sort of like that, or if you’d found someone capable of bringing that character to life without necessarily being that way. That’s interesting.

JK: Yeah, he was really fun and sweet. And in fact, one interesting thing about that process is that kids don’t want to be disobedient, so it was really hard to get him to be that way in rehearsals. I had to give him permission to be naughty, because yeah, kids are socialized — unless they’re brought up badly — to be well-behaved. So yeah, it was a real process for him.

BF: Did you set out to make a horror film? Is that a genre that you’re interested in generally? I noticed the clips from Black Sabbath and House of Exorcism and of course, all those great George Méliès clips that Amelia sees on TV. Is that the type of work that drew you to this type of story?

JK: Yeah. I mean, I love horror. I love it! I even will see most of the modern stuff, and I always hope it’s gonna be good. But I definitely have watched a lot of Italian horror, lot of everything. So it’s in me. It’s in my DNA, but it isn’t the thing that rules me. And I have to say… I can’t speak for other filmmakers, but I imagine it wasn’t something that ruled them either. They start with an idea and a story and that’s what happens. I think there’s a danger in becoming subservient to a genre, going “Oh, I’m going to make a movie that’s going to scare everyone.” I needed to look deeper than that, and that’s why… It’s such an interesting thing, how bad horror can be, and I think when it’s really bad, it’s just made by people who don’t get it. Who don’t understand how powerful it is. You can really discuss deep issues with horror, in a way you can’t through drama. It’s one of the most cinematic genres as well, because it’s very closely linked with dreams. So yeah, I’m a fan.

BF: I agree with you that you can touch on these deep human issue through the genre. It doesn’t just have to be about saying “boo.” Amelia’s grief in the film is such a powerful thing that seems to be the genesis…

JK: Yeah. How would you discover that in drama? It would be very hard to not make it melodramatic. To put it in this realm actually makes people feel what Amelia’s feeling, on some level, and have empathy with her. I’ve noticed that the film doesn’t work with people who have low empathy [laughs] as human beings. It’s not a film for them. The people who it scares have more of that going on in their systems.

BF: Well, I liked it. I thought it was scary. So, I guess I check out on the empathy scale.

JK: So you’re a decent human being. [laughs]

BF: Yeah, I guess. If that’s your barometer for that. It’s really interesting to me. It has these very classical elements to it with the sense of isolation and the darkness and the way the Babadook himself is portrayed. There’s an old-fashioned quality to it. Could you talk about how you decided to visualize this monster?

JK: It was something that just felt right, this kind of childlike world. I’m really drawn to myths, and I guess I wanted to create a new myth in a domestic setting. Old children’s books, old fairy tales — you know, the brutal ones, the real ones — they touch on something very primal. They look childlike and innocuous, but deep down, there’s something really savage and sinister there. So that was my starting point for the world of the film. The book is obviously a very important part of it, so I wanted the Babadook to spring from the book, in terms of its style as well. And there’s something about the old horror that is very childlike, because it’s done in what we would consider now a very simple way, all in-camera techniques, but there’s something still very powerful about that, I think. Sometimes even more powerful than CGI and a lot of complicated post-production work. When something happens in camera, and you’re seeing it with the naked eye, you feel — I feel, anyway — differently. It feels like it’s happening there and it’s more real to me.

BF: I think it’s very effective, and it is an extension of the book in a way that works really well. Could you talk about the book itself? It was great. Very memorable, very vivid work that Alex Juhasz did.

JK: We looked for ages for an artist. We looked at lots of Australian illustrators, and we even worked with a couple in developing the Babadook look, but Alex was unique in that he’s actually an American artist. I saw his work and it was beautiful but really strange. I was drawn to him and his work. He has this thing of being able to keep his work original, but also took direction. So we were able to develop the look of the creature according to how I needed it to operate. So it wasn’t just finding an illustrator to make these beautiful pictures. He really understood the need for it to support the story. He was a good storyteller. And he also had a lot of work in stop motion animation. He designed the opening credits for United States of Tara, and he’d worked a lot with Jamie Caliri, the stop motion animator who did Lemony Snicket‘s end credits. He had a lot of experience that proved invaluable when it came to animating the book. He’s a bit of a genius, Alex.

BF: The illustrations themselves really set the tone for what’s to come.

JK: They come to life, so they needed to be energetic and have an ambitiousness to them.

BF: For women filmmakers, in the states at least, it can be particularly challenging to get a first film made and shown. Is that something you want to address?

JK: I’m not so much aware. I don’t think of myself — I know I’m a woman, of course, but I don’t feel ruled by it. I think a film is hard to make, full stop. I think a person’s first feature is a real trial by fire, no matter if you’re male, female, or otherwise, and it’s not something that I feel really informed me. It certainly didn’t hinder me. Not in Australia, anyway. And I must say, I’ve had a lot of meetings with various people in America since Babadook premiered in Sundance, and admittedly, I haven’t done any work there yet, but I’ve never felt encumbered or restrained by my gender in that context. I’m not saying sexism doesn’t exist, but I don’t give it much time. I’ve got too much to do.

BF: Do you think, though, that — I don’t know, that scene where Amelia is using the vibrator… I’m not sure there are many male filmmakers that would’ve thought to include a scene like that, but it’s an important scene in terms of understanding who Amelia is and what she’s dealing with.

JK: My gaze and my way of looking at the world is inherently feminine, from a feminine perspective, and there are things in that film that probably wouldn’t be written by a male writer. But I don’t know. Isn’t that the way with all films? They come from the person who makes them. I understand what you’re saying, Josh, I’m just trying to… it’s a complex issue. Yes, there’s sexism in the world and there’s an incredible imbalance of males to females represented in all films. Most films are about male stories. So yeah, maybe I just put a female story out there, and the fact that it’s unique says that we still have a long way to go in terms of making more female stories come to life. I hope I can put a few more out there. Female stories with women at their core.

BF: Me, too. Congratulations on this film. It’s very effective and well done. Do you know what your next project is going to be yet?

JK: I’ve got two films I’m working on, and I’ve come back from America with about 25 scripts to read, so I’ll be plowing through them. And it looks like I’m going to jump onto a TV series, to write and direct in America. A miniseries, but that hasn’t been announced, so I’m hesitant to talk about it. A lot of opportunities have come up. I’m in a very fortunate position at the moment, and hopefully we’ll be making something sooner rather than later.

BF: I’m looking forward to seeing what you do next. Thanks a lot for taking the time to speak with me.

Josh Ralske is a freelance film writer based in New York. He has written for MovieMaker Magazine and All Movie Guide.

Why ‘The Babadook’ is the Feminist Horror Film of the Year

Firstly, ‘The Babadook’ complicates the depiction of women as primarily victims by presenting Amelia as a complex and multi-faceted figure. For one, she is a not a young big-breasted girl but a mother and fully grown woman. This is not necessarily groundbreaking in itself.

Written by Sarah Smyth.

“If it’s in a word, or it’s in a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook…”

The poster for 'The Babadook' — The poster for *The Babadook*

So begins the bedtime story read by Amelia (Essie Davis) to her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman) in the hit Australian horror film, The Babadook. The story focuses on Amelia, a single mother whose husband died in a car crash on their way to the hospital to have Samuel, as she struggles in her role as a parent to her difficult, troubled, and increasingly erratic son. Samuel is afraid of monsters, believing them to be waiting to get him come nightfall. He frequently sleeps in bed with Amelia, and makes his own contraptions to protect both of them. His behaviour becomes so disruptive, however, that he is kicked out of school. One night, Amelia and Samuel read the story of the Babadook in a creepy pop-up book which Amelia has no recollection of owning. The Babadook, a sinister and scary ghoulish figure, will never leave after its presence becomes known. After they read the book, strange occurrences take place, and the rest of the film follows their terrifying encounters with the Babadook.

Amelia and Samuel read the creepy book about the Babadook together

The main strength of the film, in terms of both narrative and gender politics, is the role of Amelia. Before we even consider how women are represented on film, the fact that women are represented on film, particularly by taking on the central role, is an achievement. Not only did only 30 percent of the top-grossing films of 2013 have lead female characters, but a huge number of films still fail the Bechdel test. In terms of race, the picture gets even worse as 73 percent of female characters are white. However, simply making female-led films and passing the Bechdel test is not enough. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Transformers: Age of Distinction all pass the test, yet the film’s treatment of women on (and apparently off) screen is atrocious. After Megan Fox quit the franchise, apparently likening Michael Bay, the films’ director, to Hitler, Shia LaBeouf commented that Fox developed “this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women.” The Transformers franchise makes apparent that, in order to get a more accurate look at the role women play and the impact women have in the film industry, we must look at how women are represented on screen as much as whether women are represented at all.

The 'Transformers' franchise demonstrates why the Bechdel test doesn't always cut it... — The *Transformers* franchise demonstrates why the Bechdel test doesn’t always cut it…

Horror films, in particular, demonstrate this case. Although women are often the lead character in this genre, the representation of women as a whole is often problematic at best. When filming The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock famously claimed he always follows the advice to “torture the women!” something which apparently happened as much off-screen as on-screen. As Sydney Prescott noted in the horror-parody franchise, Scream, horror films often depict “some big-breasted girl who can’t act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door.” Both Hitchcock and Sydney’s comments demonstrate women’s twofold role in the horror genre: victim and sexual object.

Firstly, The Babadook complicates the depiction of women as primarily victims by presenting Amelia as a complex and multi-faceted figure. For one, she is a not a young big-breasted girl but a mother and fully grown woman. This is not necessarily groundbreaking in itself. The Others, The Ring, and Dark Water all depict their central characters as mothers. However, none so brilliantly present their central character as complicated as Amelia in The Babadook. Amelia is not only a victim and a mother but a colleague, potential lover, sister, neighbor, and grieving widow. The strength of the narrative is the way in which the film meshes the difficulties of being a mother to a troubled child with the haunting of the Babadook, and the way in which this complex combination strains all Amelia’s relationships. It also causes her to lash out at her neighbor, miss days at work, refuse advances from potential partners, and fall out with her sister. But whether it’s the stress of being a mother or the terror of the Babadook remains ambiguous as the film presents her identity, relationships and experiences as layered and complicated.

Secondly, The Babadook consciously subverts the conventional depiction of female sexuality in horror films. Broadly speaking, female characters are either presented as “virgins” or “whores,” where they are punished “appropriately,” or female sexuality is presented as something excessive, disgusting and monstrous. In her authoritative and brilliantly titled book, Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in Modern Horror Films, Carol Clover outlines the trope of the Final Girl in the slasher film. The Final Girl, she claims, is the films lead character, who, as both the victim but also the only survivor in the film, serves as both the site of the audience’s sadistic fantasies, and the anchor for the spectator’s identification. Primarily aimed at young heterosexual men, the Final Girl must be “masculine” enough so that this (assumed) spectator can identify with her; she is often androgynous or tomboyish in appearance and sometimes in name. More crucially, she must be sexualised but never sexual; she must provide the fleshy site for the heterosexual male’s voyeuristic fantasies but she must never have autonomy over her own body and sexuality. In fact, she is often virginal. If a woman does have sex in these films, she is branded a “whore” so quickly gets killed off. Examples of films which conform to these tropes include Halloween, Friday the 13^th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and, more recently, You’re Next. Post-modern pastiche horror films including Scream and The Cabin in the Woods also play on the trope. On the other hand, as Barbara Creed discusses in her book, The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis, female sexuality is also presented as grotesque and terrifying, reflecting, she claims, male anxieties over female sexuality. Examples include The Exorcist, The Brood, and Carrie.

Laurie in 'Halloween' is a typical example of the Final Girl trope — Laurie in *Halloween* is a typical example of the Final Girl trope

The Babadook subverts these conventions by presenting woman in possession of (healthy) sexual desire and needs. In one scene, Amelia watches a romantic film alone before going up to her bedroom and taking out her vibrator. Her night of pleasure is ruined, however, after Samuel interrupts her claiming he is terrified of his own room and so cannot sleep in it. Her disappointment is evident; motherhood, it seems, can be as much frustrating as it can be difficult. Crucially, however, the film not only radically foregrounds female sexuality and desire, something which horror films, as I demonstrate, conventionally dismiss. It also links the terror of the Babadook with Amelia’s frustrated lack rather than an excess of grotesque and monstrous sexuality. At moments, the Babadook manifests itself in the form of her late husband. When Amelia first sees him, she passionately hugs and kisses him, clearly missing the affection and sexual intimacy offered from a romantic partner. Only after the Babadook, disguised as her husband, asks for her to bring him the child does she realise that this is a trap. Her husband cannot and will not come back to fulfill the needs she so desperately craves. The Babadook, like the grief she feels for her husband, will continue to haunt Amelia forevermore, serving as a constant reminder of the loss of sexual desire and intimacy which the death of her husband so tragically caused. The terror of the Babadook, then, is as much about the loss of a treasured presence as well as the intrusion of an unwelcome presence.

The Babadook offers a hope for feminist horror fans who are tired of cliché-ridden depictions of two-dimensional, victimised, hyper-sexualised female characters. A film which not only passes the Bechdel test, but presents a complex, multi-layered, sexually autonomous central female protagonist, The Babadook offers hope that the horror genre will shift its depiction of lead female characters to create more compelling, engaging and accurate representations of women onscreen.

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Sarah Smyth is a staff writer at Bitch Flicks who recently finished a Master’s Degree in Critical Theory with an emphasis on gender and film at the University of Sussex, UK. Her dissertation examined the abject male body in cinema, particularly focusing on the spatiality of the anus (yes, really). She’s based now in London, UK and you can follow her on Twitter at @sarahsmyth91.