Feminist Guide to Horror Movies (Series)

Apparently the spirits of Halloween can be quick to respond this time of year, because no sooner did I wish for a Gothic horror-based film that enables its young heroine to save herself and even her family without the help of men, whether dead or alive, than I found one on Netflix: Haunter, starring Abigail Breslin, is this […]

Already missing Halloween? Me too. Much to my dismay, this October featured only one horror movie release with Carrie. The next installment of Paranormal Activity (we’ve had one every October for the last three years) was moved to 2014, but moviegoers were able to catch a preview before screenings of Carrie, and it looks like […]

Carrie is largely about how women find their own channels of power, but also what men fear about women and women’s sexuality. Writing the book in 1973 and only three years out of college, I was fully aware of what Women’s Liberation implied for me and others of my sex. Carrie is woman feeling her […]

When the film industry finds an idea that works, they tend to use it again and again. And again. In the realm of horror, once a franchise has spawned seven or so sequels, filmmakers capitalize on name recognition by simply going back to the beginning and starting over. This Halloween season’s Carrie represents the fifth […]

This is the last in a three-part series on watching horror movies as a feminist spectator. Having covered films which reinforce the necessity of the patriarchy, and films which question its value while still punishing challenges to patriarchal norms, let’s look at two movies in which the patriarchy is almost entirely irrelevant. British director Neil […]

Monsters in movies are us, always us, one way or the other. … John Carpenter My love of horror movies is a product of both nature and of nurture. My mother loves them. My older brother says I ended up in theaters as a child watching movies that were definitely not rated for my age […]