Horror films can be truly feminist, especially in today's revisions of older films. However, horror films are stereotyped as being made by and for only sadistic men. They have also been stereotyped as only addressing male fears and anxieties specifically. Horror films typically have the male as the monster and the female as the victim. They are also known for sexually objectifying women and promoting violence among women. People believe that only women directors promote the messages in the horror movies of violence among women while men directors do not. These are only some of the many reasons why women are not welcomed as horror film directors, writers, or even just audience members. However, some horror films, such as Carrie, has always been feminist and has a even more feminist version out now. This version allows women to be more confident and less sexually objectified.
Box office receipts have proved that women are very interested in horror films, even more so than men. Therefore, it is a stereotype that horror films should only be made for men by men because women are the majority of the target audience. Women have directed horror movies before, however, people stereotype them as having a morbid taste in films. For example, the director of American Psycho was named Mary Harron. She received lots of backlash, even from the feminist icon herself, Gloria Steinem, for directing this movie since she was a woman. This movie promotes toxic masculinity and misogyny. It also promotes mass violence among women from men through rape, violence, and abuse. Patrick Batemen tries to understand women through filming their death. This is misogynistic because he can only get to know the woman dead instead of alive. He does not does he allow her to show her identity at all because he controls the woman by removing it. Women are perceived as girls, meat, it, and nothing in the movie and are defined by their involvement with the male abuser and the violent torture they get.
An example of how women directors are personally associated with promoting the violence in horror movies while men are not is in the movie Boxing Helena. The director, Jennifer Lynch, was highly criticized because this movie contains mutilation of the female body. The man cuts off the limbs of a woman and holds her captive in his mansion. Because of this mutilation and violence, negative headlines were created about this director because women are stereotyped as promoting this behavior in the movie in reality. One headline said Lynch "deserves to never be loved again." This caused her to leave the film industry for 15 years. It is insane how women cannot make gruesome, graphic movies without getting criticized for promoting violence. However, when men create movies such as this, they do not get personally associated with endorsing the message of the movie. There is a double standard and women do not have the same creative freedom as men do in the industry.
There is also the issue of violent females in horror films needing to be feminized in order to still be considered a woman. For example, female action heroes are hyperfeminized and hyper sexualized because females cannot be stereotypical females if they are just violent. In society’s view, women in movies are supposed to be the “object of desire.” The woman is usually the victim to be looked at while the man is the killer. Violent womanhood in horror movies threatens a woman’s femininity, therefore, their violent characteristics must be balanced with female characteristics. Hence, movies also show women with hyper feminized features of beauty and sexual objectification of their body in order to be seen as feminine still. For example, in the original Carrie, 15 year old girls were all naked in the locker room after gym class. It included slow motion shots of them as well in order to creepily sexually objectify women. However, in the new Carrie movie, the girls are clothed fully in the locker room scene, besides Carrie. In today's horror movies, they are trying to stray away from the male gaze and stop sexualizing women as much.
The remake of Carrie also allows Carrie to speaks up with confidence and power. When she receives her period and her mother never informs her what this is, she confronts her mother with persistence and confidence about why she never taught her. She shows her rebellious side and takes control of her body and knowledge. In the original Carrie movie, Carrie is less confident in asking why and is more submissive to her mom's rules. In this revision, Carrie is also more in control of her telekinesis powers. She is confident in her abilities and is able to move people around like puppets in the end scene. She is very capable of herself and in her abilities to create revenge in the end by killing those who bullied her.
Overall, horror movies need to stop paying attention to the gender of the director and start paying attention to how horror films can actually be feminist. I believe that just because some horror films have graphic violence against women, does not mean these women truly promote this. It is just fiction to men, so why isn't it just fiction for women? Also, women need to be more accepted into the horror community because the target audience of women is increasing more than men.
Paszkewicz, K. (2018). When the woman directs (a horror film). In Harrod, M. & Paszkiewicz, K.’s (Eds.) Women do genre in film and television. Routledge.
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