slasher films – Bitch Flicks

Puberty and the Creation of a Monster: ‘Ginger Snaps’

This guest post by Kelly Piercy appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

Turn on any TV at primetime and you’ll likely see a sex worker dead in a dumpster. Or you’ll see a sex worker telling a cop all about that other sex worker who ended up dead in a dumpster. Because being aware and/or in control of your sexual identity can often be the most dangerous thing a woman in pop culture can be. Slasher films are overpopulated with hot young ripe things just ready to be plucked by a cartoonish serial killer. There will be jeering. There will be mutilation. Of this we can be sure. These things are sold to us on a regular basis.

What we can’t be so sure of however, is what fresh hell each teenage girl experiences with their hormones on an individual basis. Or what really happens when you get bitten by a werewolf. There will be blood in both instances, yes. But there will be a whole host of weird surprises. In Ginger Snaps, those two things just so happen to combine in one film, and you’ll soon become endlessly irritated that you didn’t think of it yourself. It is one of body horror’s great allegories. And there is so much room for snark. With Ginger Snaps, we have one of the most interesting examinations of violence in this bleak world that is representation in film. Certainly the only one where the teenage girl does the mutilating. And truth be told, it’s hard not to feel completely exhilarated by it. Even when you’re heaving.

Describing Ginger Snaps in a sentence might sound something like “an excellent example of subversion of genre norms coupled with language that belongs in the pop culture hall of fame.” Something that would also work is “two teenage girls being fucking awesome.” Because in Ginger Snaps, teenage girls are smarmy and moody – of course they are – but also passionate and resourceful. The dialogue is funny and brimming with wicked imagery as opposed to sleeping through clunky exposition and gender conformity. Horror films have a history of violent transformation or destructive host and the repercussions of these changes in public spaces, but not many examine the female body specifically and it’s place in society, the specific “monstrous feminine.” The genre path of teenage sexual behaviour leading to monstrosity strangely never stopped to think about periods. Ginger Snaps takes a long hard look at “the curse” and plays with both its stereotypes and its biological facts incredibly honestly.

Ginger, despite morphing into a werewolf, becomes our protagonist killer in a very human way, and the complexity of her journey is a cinematic rarity. A large part of its appeal is the addictive excitement-and-relief cocktail that comes with seeing your experiences reflected on screen–to see menstruation from a menstruating perspective. Who wouldn’t see want to see the violence of their PMS daydreams being played out? Ginger Snaps gives its characters a small town and a big world, and the result for its viewers reflects as both deeply personal and pure escapism. Also known as the ingredients for the perfect horror. Get ready to fall in love with the Fitzgerald sisters.

How early does the violence start in Ginger Snaps? A more appropriate question might be “How many films can you recall opening with the massacred corpse of a family dog?” Marley and Me, this isn’t. There’s a wild animal killing the canine population of the sleepy town of Bailey Downs, and nobody really seems too concerned. But we don’t have time to dwell because soon we’re met with the sight of 15-year-old Brigitte, both slouchy and creepy, emerging from her garage, hooked up with tools. Like Dick Van Dyke with all his instruments in Mary Poppins, but a teenage girl with wires and shit. I’m not going to get into Emily Perkins’ physicality in this film because the level of scowl perfection alone is truly inspiring, and it deserves an article in its own right. Suffice to say, this is when I knew I was with Ginger Snaps for the long haul.

As well as Brigitte, we also get the privilege of Ginger, who is the older, edgier, decidedly more daring sibling partner in crime. Ginger and Brigitte muse on suburban mundanity in their shared basement bedroom, while Ginger traces her arm with a knife: “Wrists are for girls, I’m slitting my throat,” she scoffs. We move to Ginger impaled on their garden fence, ruptured at the abdomen, limbs splayed, blood everywhere. Then Brigitte leans in and takes a photograph. Yes. These little shits are staging various death poses for a school project! It is so glorious I smile immediately, wickedly even. I feel pure joy radiate out. This is my comfort zone. And so our titles roll and with them comes dozens of DIY photos of Brigitte and Ginger, meeting variously creative gruesome ends. They’re showing this as a slideshow to their classmates, for a school project. It drips with bad taste. Their teacher can’t believe it. I told you you’d love the Fitzgerald sisters.

It’s not long before the fake blood is replaced with real blood. Sixteen-year-old Ginger’s first period and her transition into a werewolf happen simultaneously. What a day, huh? Society punishes women for being women, this is another one of those things we can be sure of. In this particular instance, Ginger is punished for becoming a woman by being violently savaged by a wild beast, which doesn’t sound too different from the online comments section. In a lot of ways Ginger Snaps seems even more relatable in today’s climate than in 2000, the year of its release.

Ginger’s own metamorphosis masquerades as regular, as mundane. Adult women assure her of her normality. But one transformation is obscuring the other, as highlighted by the excellent scene with the school nurse that hits every parallel beat with precision. Menstruation is the birth of Ginger as a threat. Hurtling toward womanhood, she is now decidedly different than a male, she is now the monster that lies within the feminine, and more accurately the feminine that intimidates the masculine. The unattainable, confusing and unfathomable, the unknown onto which the fear is projected. Oh, and she’s also physically becoming a gnarling brute that really wants to rip human flesh to shreds. So there’s that.

But at first Ginger doesn’t recognise her yearning for splattered organs, she just thinks she needs to get laid. Pre-menstrual, Ginger is vaguely disinterested in boys at best. When the schools resident Bro Boy first makes a move she is almost puzzled, and a simple “Er, no…” will suffice as she continues walking, a fly swatted. Later, when he tells her about his sisters and insists that when it comes to cramps “nothing takes the edge off like a toke,” she replies simply again, “Maybe I like my edge, thanks.” The way that Katherine Alexander’s delivery complements the dialogue is unmistakeable in many of Ginger’s best lines. Her attitude could be reactionary, bratty, and dramatic, but instead it is deliciously restrained. This brings with it an awareness of the shouty, quick tempered, usually improv-based insult scenes prevalent in films currently–the “say the grossest thing you can as loud as you can” approach. Getting increasingly shouty in a very short space of time seems to be the default in a lot of comedies (looking at you, America) and Ginger Snaps felt like a reminder. Shouty is funny when it’s the rarity. And a lot of comedies could benefit from Ginger Snaps’ example of less is more. They could also benefit from Mimi Rogers’ more is more, perfectly cast as the girls’ excessively perky mother. The implication being that Ginger Snaps is not only a superior horror film, but a superior comedy as well.

But back to Ginger. Her sexual ambivalence is marked by a classic slow motion strut-slash-glide through the school hallway. She is now Sexually Awakened™ and interested in Bro Boy. After getting rough with him in the back of his car, Brigitte finds her in their bathroom. “I get this ache,” Ginger says, head in the toilet, hair silver and covered in blood, “I thought it was for sex, but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.” She just lost her virginity, and it could have essentially been soundtracked by Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf.” So she killed a dog after.

Ginger’s acts of violence are now accelerating, with her temper becoming increasingly explosive. Both the hockey field and the neighbour’s garden offer chances for instant relief, but it’s not enough. Ginger’s hunger is all-consuming. Hormones multiplied by a taste for blood equals death and infection. Brigitte’s got a real problem on her hands trying to fix this. As she panics, racing to find a cure to save her sister, Ginger remains devilishly nonchalant. She justifies her actions simply: “No one ever thinks chicks do shit like this. A girl can only be a slut, a bitch, a tease, or the virgin next door. We’ll just coast on how the world works.” You can’t fault her insight. But Brigitte is in a dangerous situation now, facing off with GingerWolf, so it sounds like it’s about time for a knight in shining armour to draw a sword and fight the Big Bad, doesn’t it? Nope, Ginger Snaps still doesn’t let you down, because when Brigitte’s drug dealer sidekick Sam (think Canadian Jason Dean) suggests taking the cure and fleeing the monster, Brigitte shouts “HOW ABOUT NO!” in his face. The sisters have a pact, “out by 16 or dead on the scene, but together forever.” In the end, we know that Brigitte has to figure this out alone.

Throughout their lives, the Fitzgerald sisters operated exclusively as a unit. Ginger can be bolder, domineering and baiting, and Brigitte grounds her, more prone to analysing and logistics. There is a repetition of the mantra “this is so us” coursing through – if Ginger leaves the dinner table, Brigitte follows, if Ginger offers up a judgement, Brigitte extends it. They have matching bone pens. They are functioning as one, in spite of an obviously unbalanced power dynamic and personality difference, and they are both aware of this, becoming increasingly vocal about it as the film progresses. When Ginger’s acts of violence become more heinous, the distinctions between the two of them mobilise and the separation gains speed. As Ginger becomes a killer, Brigitte becomes an individual. Brigitte forces her own journey to Werewolfdom by actively sharing blood with Ginger, and she proceeds with complete self-awareness, in control of her body and the changes she knows are coming. She goes into the fight equipped not only with the experience of witnessing Ginger’s destruction, but with the necessities to survive womanhood: a strong sense of self, the courage to call out bullshit, and a fierce possessiveness of your own body.

Despite always wanting to be a screenwriter, I have never wanted to write horror. Now I do. This is representation in action, folks! I am living proof of it! Power to the Ontario Gothic. This is how it’s done.

Kelly Piercy is a Lit grad and comedy writer based in London. She mostly enjoys Leslie Knope, Sleater Kinney, and Cher’s twitter feed.

Slashing Gender Assumptions: The Female Killer, Unmasked

This guest post by Kate Blair appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.

Serial killer movies tend to follow a similar trope: An anonymous and monstrous killer stabs and disembowels his way through a panoply of victims until he faces off against one final, sweaty, and bloodied girl who escapes his clutches. At this point, the killer’s true identity is revealed, and he is overthrown – at least until the sequel. While we don’t necessarily know anything about the killer, we tend to assume this nameless menace is male. However, movies like Deep Red and Friday the 13th subvert viewer expectations when we ultimately find out the killer is not a man at all, but a woman – and a middle-aged one at that. Friday’s Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) and the less celebrated Marta (Clara Calamai) from Deep Red reset the paradigm of the slasher genre and raise many interesting questions about gender as they do so.

To a certain extent, the reveal of woman as killer in both films comes across as a “gotcha” moment. After an hour or so of being scared out of your wits, it’s both surprising and puzzling to see a woman emerge as the killer. In the real world, most documented violent crimes are committed by men, but in a film, where anything can happen, there’s no reason to make this assumption. That’s why the gotcha-like reveal is also what makes these films so powerful. In shock, viewers think, “Why?” Then, after a moment’s reflection we think, “Why not?”

In one sense, female killers onscreen demonstrate women are just as capable of performing monstrosities as men are. Human beings frequently surrender to our darkest instincts. Women, of course, are no different. The murders these particular women commit are deeply disturbing, demonstrating women can be every bit as ruthless and dangerous as men – not just victims, but perpetrators as well.

Furthermore, female killers go against all the traits women are assumed to possess, such as passivity and weakness, and upend viewer expectations about femininity. We simply don’t expect murder from women, especially not the kind involving penetration and mutilation. It’s frightening, but at the same time, as a female viewer this moment is powerful because it’s rare for us to see ourselves reflected in such a persona.

There are a few widely accepted interpretations of slasher films (for these purposes, I’m considering Deep Red a slasher as well). As with all horror movies, critics focus on the audience’s response to the action on screen, which is often physical in addition to being emotional. In other words, the main reason audiences enjoy horror so deeply is that we get to enjoy watching victims being maimed in increasingly creative ways while our own entrails remain intact.

Slasher movies, especially Friday the 13th and Deep Red, also give viewers a chance to explore the fluidity of gender identity. Theorists like Linda Williams and Carol Clover contend slasher films allow the assumed male audience members to put themselves in the position of the female victim and empathize with her. Williams acknowledges female viewers obtain pleasure from of watching these movies as well, specifically in reacting to (and acting out) femininity.

These writers have also argued the main appeal of slasher films is the final girl who rises up and defeats her tormentor. She becomes increasingly resourceful and evades death, emerging unscathed from a massacre. Through this experience, she gains the active agency typically reserved for men on film. When women watch horror movies, we dabble in masculine traits by identifying with this final girl. However, it’s rare that we get to try on the role of killer.

Viewers, both male and female, identify with the victims on screen, but there are moments where we also experience the killer’s perspective. These films are set up so there are sequences where subjective camera work places us in the point of view of the murderer. In Friday the 13th we see the counselors as their stalker sees them, stabbing and slicing with careful deliberacy. In Deep Red, viewers also witness brutal acts through the killer’s eyes. In one instance, the anonymous figure simultaneously drowns a victim and scalds her face with hot water.

We assume this perspective is male, not only because of the actions being committed, but also because viewers always assume a male point of view in cinema, whether or not we realize it. The camera’s gaze looks, the female body is looked at. In some ways, it would be a shock to find we had been seeing through the eyes of a woman, no matter what she was doing. In this case, it’s even more unexpected.

For Dario Argento in particular, violent women are a bit of a fixation, even dating back to his first film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. The killer in this classic giallo also turns out to be a woman. A previous victim of a violent crime, a gallery owner named Monica becomes a psychotic killer after coming in contact with a piece of art depicting a similar event. Rather than reliving the memory of her victimhood, she instead identifies with the knife-wielding killer and goes on to commit similar acts.

Deep Red also sets up a question of gender roles early on by invoking a screwball comedy-like sparring between Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) and Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi), the journalist he works with to solve the case. She has some masculine characteristics; he has some feminine ones. He is a sensitive artist (a pianist), and she is a career woman. He notes it’s a simple fact that men are stronger than women. In response, she challenges him to arm wrestle. She wins twice, and naturally, he accuses of her of cheating. Despite these power plays with his accomplice, it never seems to cross his mind that his invisible sparring partner, the killer, might also be a woman.

In Deep Red and Friday the 13th, Mrs. Voorhees and Marta both make an appearance before they are unveiled as the killers, but neither of them is suspect. Both appear harmless to characters who cross their paths, which likely has something to do with the fact that both killers are middle-aged women. Daly even spots Marta at the scene of the crime, but believes what he saw was only a painting. He is distressed when it seems to disappear. She shows up again some time later when Daly goes to his friend’s apartment hoping to track him down. Instead he finds Marta, who also happens to be his friend’s mother. Daly later discovers “the painting” he saw was Marta’s reflection in the mirror – underlining the idea that he simply doesn’t see her at all.

In Friday the 13th, viewers don’t actually witness the iconic Mrs. Voorhees’ face until the final act, but we do see various campers’ reactions to her. In each case, the campers appear relieved to have come across her. The first victim, Annie (Robbi Morgan), late to her first shift in the kitchen, flashes a dopey grin as she asks for a lift to the camp ground. Similarly, after being barricaded in her cabin and terrorized by the psychopathic killer, Alice (Adrienne King) is deeply relieved when Mrs. Voorhees approaches. Alice even goes so far as to embrace her apparent savior. None of the campers seem the slight bit distressed by Mrs. Voorhees’ appearance. In a turtleneck with dyed, bobbed hair, Mrs. Voorhees appears a maternal figure, but the psychotic glint in her eyes reveals she’s anything but.

Mrs. Voorhees and Marta don’t look like we expect killers to look. As middle-aged women, they appear maternal – more likely to sit you down, feed you cookies and tell you everything will be all right. However, in this case, making assumptions based on appearance is particularly deadly. Older women are often overlooked. As murderesses, Marta and Mrs. Voorhees lend a sense of power and vitality to this demographic. These women seek their revenge on the youth who consider them obsolete, or nurturing figures who exist to support the young people’s story. To play an active role in their own narratives, these women take up the knife.

There are many enjoyable aspects of watching horror movies. Viewers get to toe that fine line of being scared and being exhilarated without fear of actual injury. We also get to float between identification with victims and killers. While we are in the safe space of cinematic imagination, it’s not wrong step out of the role of victim and instead, into that of a killer. As Monica discovers in Bird with the Crystal Plumage, being a victim (however resourceful) grows tiresome after a while. Simultaneously, as maternal figures, Mrs. Voorhees and Marta remind us that women don’t fade to the background with age, and male gender traits don’t belong to men alone.

It’s exhausting to be victimized – first babied and objectified, then cast aside when we are too old to be considered objects of lust. It’s frustrating to be perceived as passive rather than an active force, a person who makes her own choices, however evil they may be. Horror movies have always allowed women to explore their masculinity, and inhabiting the role of killer is an extension of that playfulness. Female killers like Marta and Mrs. Voorhees strike down gendered assumptions, one gruesome murder at a time.

Kate Blair enjoys writing about film and feminism. She currently resides in Chicago with her wife, cat, dog, and a bowl of pasta. You can find more of her scribblings on her blog Selective Viewing or follow her on Twitter @selective_kate

‘Slumber Party Massacre’: Deconstructing the Male Gaze

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

The women of Slumber Party Massacre in the locker room — The women of *Slumber Party Massacre* in the locker room

This guest post by Emanuela Betti appears as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

Slumber Party Massacre came up while I was searching for female directors in the exploitation genre. Although it came off as yet another sensationalistic and gory 80s slasher, it stuck out, mainly due to its ridiculous title or the fact that most of the characters were female. Upon viewing it, what shocked me was not so much the gore and violence, but I was surprised by the clever humor, the funny characters, and most of all the incredibly veiled feminist satire.

The movie was written to be a mock parody of exploitation movies, as well as a satire of masculinity in the slasher genre. However, the movie was marketed as a straight slasher movie, which ended up causing a lot of mixed opinions: while reading through reviews, some critics brushed off the movie as a boring slasher with gratuitous T&A, while others actually caught the humor and satire, and revered its feminist perspective. Slumber Party Massacre is actually a very feminist movie, and it’s a biting satire of the male gaze that exists in cinema. Through its witty and clever humor, the movie deconstructs the prevailing sexism and masculinity in the slasher genre, offering one of the most entertaining feminist exploitation movies ever made.

Slumber Party Massacre is very women-centric: both in the characters and the women behind the scenes. The film was directed by Amy Holden Jones, one of the few female directors to delve into the exploitation genre, and written by feminist Rita Mae Brown. This fact alone should make you want to pay attention to the small details, which in this movie are actually not that small but thrown right into your face.

The story revolves around Trish, a young high school girl who throws a slumber party at her house, and Valerie, Trish’s neighbor, who doesn’t attend the party and spends a boring evening at home. As you can already guess, the girls at the slumber party are eventually harassed by a silent killer. The movie begins in a typical suburban neighborhood, and we are introduced to Trish’s bedroom. Trish is the stereotypical image of innocence and femininity: her bedroom is full of plush toys and fluffy pinkness. We then move to a school setting in which we are introduced to Valerie, who is somewhat of an outsider to the popular group of girls led by Trish, but is an essential character in the story.

She doesn't see the dead body — She doesn’t see the dead body

One of the first scenes that made me raise an eyebrow was the shower scene: after gym class, the girls are in the school showers, where we see a lot of T&A, and not even in a clever or artistic way. That scene confused me—I couldn’t understand why a movie directed and written by women would objectify the female body in such a demeaning way. Maybe, at the end of the day, the director just wanted to make a buck? And didn’t really care? I later realized that nudity (and objectification) is actually a very important element in the story, along with sexual innuendos. An example is the killer’s weapon of choice, a 12-inch drill which he sometimes holds in suggestive places (like his crotch, as a phallic metaphor). Also, there are countless instances in which boys from Trish’s high school, or the killer himself, are staring, spying, or quietly watching the girls. I realized that the gratuitous nudity was not so much for the gratuity, but to directly point out how this group of girls is the target of a voyeuristic threat, and are purposely being objectified through these male character’s gazes to show that they are in fact the victims of the killer’s drill, but also of the male gaze. There is a scene that says it all, in which the kids walk past a dumpster where the body of one of the victims is lying in the trash, unnoticed. The movie is about what we see and what we don’t see, or more specifically, knowingly watching and unknowingly being watched. This is the basis for the concept of the male gaze in cinema, which is finding pleasure in looking at a person as an object, who becomes the unwilling or unknowing victim of the gaze.

What makes this movie such a clever satire is the twist placed on the male gaze, which we see in Valerie. The objectification of Trish and her friends is emphasized by the contrast with Valerie and her younger sister Courtney (probably the most interesting female character in the whole movie) who are actually the ones doing the objectifying. During the evening, Courtney pulls out an issue of Playgirl from under her sister’s bed, and later on, both girls casually look at full-page spreads of naked men. Trish and Valerie are opposites, not only in their personality and social life, but also in their role with the gaze. Throughout the movie, we never see Valerie naked, and there’s a good reason why; while Trish is the passive victim of the gaze, Valerie is the bearer of the gaze, she enjoys looking at pictures of naked men and is immune to the killer’s gaze. Valerie is the true heroine of the movie, and she saves the day by finding an equally phallic weapon (a machete) and “chopping off” the killer’s drill, basically castrating him metaphorically.

If there were are any doubts on whether Slumber Party Massacre is an intelligent feminist satire or just a regular slasher, all questions are answered when finally, after the killer goes on a bloody rampage without speaking a single word, he finally utters some of the most horrifying lines: “All of you are very pretty… I love you,” and “you know you want it, you’ll love it.” Those seem like the words of a rapist, and although the killer didn’t rape any of the girls, he did violate them: just like a rapist victimizes a woman by violating her body, the male gaze, which roams rampant in Hollywood cinema, violates women on the screen by turning them into objects.

Along with sharp satire and sharp commentary, Slumber Party Massacre is full of clever humor. There’s the scene where Valerie is relaxing at home, watching an old slasher movie while she’s a character in one herself (and the events on TV seem to sync up with what’s happening next door). Then there’s Courtney grabbing a drink from the fridge without noticing a dead body inside, or one of Trish’s friends eating a slice of pizza over the delivery boy’s dead body. Amy Holden Jones and Rita Mae Brown do a wonderful job at providing entertainment and humor, alongside a refreshing and sharp feminist viewpoint. If there’s any movie that made me respect cheesy exploitation movies, it’s this wonderfully cheesy slumber party slasher full of pizza, nudie magazines, and girls chopping off metaphorical penises.

Emanuela Betti is a part-time writer, occasional astrologer, neurotic pessimist by day and ball-breaking feminist by night. She miraculously graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing, and writes about music and movies on her blog.