Horror Movie Primer: Girl-Centric
By Rhea Dee
Girls are central to horror films. We’re the one’s screaming, we’re the ones being chopped up by Freddy/Jason/Leatherface. We’re also the only ones left standing. Take that, monsters!
But it can get a bit tiring to see girls in horror as only slasher survivors, or slasher victims. Girls in horror can do a lot more, you know? They can axe people’s heads off, they can kill witches that have overrun ballet schools, and they can chop off a dude’s ding dong and let him bleed out while they sit in the other room listening to classical music. Girls in horror can be just as ruthless as Freddy Krueger. Maybe even more so (that dude is missing his junk, after all). So if you’re looking for a horror flick featuring ladies that go beyond the final girl, check these films out.
1. Carnival of Souls
When is a carnival not creepy? Well at least in this film there aren’t any clowns.
A terrific little gem from the early 60’s, Carnival of Souls is a straight up ghost story. The story follows Mary, a talented organ player who barely survived a bad car wreck at the beginning of the film. After her accident, she takes a job in Salt Lake City as a church organist. On the drive there, she passes an abandoned pavilion/amusement park, which draws in her in, despite its creepiness. Once in town, Mary is haunted by a ghoulish man (who would not be out of a place in a David Lynch film) that only she can see. She also begins to experience weird displacements in time where people aren’t aware of her presence, and her urge to keep visiting the abandoned pavilion gets stronger and stronger.
Carnival of Souls isn’t all too original, but the creeps are creepy and the lead character is solid. Also, in a weird way, I feel like this movie is some sort of bizarre rock ‘n’ roll ghost story.
2. Strait-Jacket
So we’ve got Joan Crawford. We’ve got an axe. And we have a dirty cheating husband and his mistress sleeping in Joan’s bed.
You know exciting things are going to happen.
Lucy Habin (Crawford) comes home one night to find her husband and another woman in her bed. Lucy wastes no time sobbing about it, however. Instead, she grabs the nearest axe, sneaks into the room, and goes wild. Head’s are lopped off. Other body parts are also lopped off.
Meanwhile, in the shadows, Lucy’s daughter Carol is watching her mom axe her dad. Aww. Sweet dreams, sweetheart!
Lucy is immediately carted off to an insane asylum and Carol is sent to live with her Uncle. But now, after twenty years, Lucy is finally being released. And she’s fine, really. No, really! Carol and Lucy start to rebuild their mommy/daughter bond and it’s going well until people start losing their heads. Again. Is it Lucy, back to her old axe wielding ways? Is she losing her grip on reality?
Joan Crawford is absolutely brilliant in this film. Her evolution during the film, from psychotic killer, to reformed psychotic killer haunted by her past, to reformed psychotic killer on the brink of going insane again, is marvelous. Crawford adds dozens of tiny touches to cement her fragile mental state and it’s fascinating to watch her make a task as simple as knitting look absolutely insane. I mean, come on. Is there anything better than a psychotic Joan Crawford? I don’t think so.
3. I Spit On Your Grave
A lot of people think this movie is too much. Hell, when it came out, Roger Ebert damned the thing (which is why, sometimes, I wish Ebert’s eyeballs would melt out of his face).
Alright, no lie: this movie is pretty hardcore. The basic plot is this: a woman, Jenny, takes a vacation to the boonies where she is viciously raped by the yokel locals. They leave her to die, she doesn’t, and so she decides to exact revenge on them.
The problem people have is that they feel like this film glorifies rape. Let me make it clear: this film does NOT glorify rape. Not once. There is no time during Jenny’s rape that you think “Wow, this is terrific!” No. You think it’s horrible. You always think it’s horrible.
Some people think the rape scene is too awful to even watch. I can understand that. The thing that bothers me is that because of that rape scene, people feel the need to suppress this film’s availability. And in addition to that, a lot of feminists will not talk about this film because of that rape scene. And that’s bad.
Anybody who watches the film will notice right away that Meir Zarchi (the director) is not out to make a quick buck on the glorification of rape. Zarchi wasn’t even really out to make a feminist film. No, Zarchi was out to make a revenge flick. Like Deliverance, except with a woman. And like Deliverance, there is a lot more going on that just people getting revenge.
Zarchi’s goal in presenting the rape scene as the most terrible thing on screen was so we, as viewers, would feel enormously justified when the rapists got their comeuppance. And Jenny’s choice of revenge for one of the rapists was a frank depiction of taking away the thing that he used to exert his power and dominance (aka, he got his junk lopped off).
In the end, this film offers a chilling reminder of how some people in our society view rape: at one point Jenny threatens one of the rapists with a gun, and in order to save his skin he blames the rape on her sexiness, saying she asked for it. At least in the film that douche loses his junk for saying something that stupid.
4. Suspiria
You’d think you’d be safe from any sort of evil in a prestigious ballet school in Europe. You’d think.
That isn’t the case for Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper), who arrives in Europe in the middle of the night, heads over to her new ballet school, watches a girl run out in terror, and then is told through the intercom to go away. A promising start to Suzy’s dancing career.
Suzy doesn’t think too much of the weird she saw, because she goes back the next morning, and all is well. But then it gets creepy. And not ‘heavily shrouded in dark shadows’ creepy. Bright, saturated color creepy. The film’s vivid colors accentuate the horror Suzy experiences in the ballet school. Think maggots falling from the ceiling into your hair is gross? Well it’s ten times worse when the whole scene is saturated in blue!
Part mystery, part giallo, and part supernatural story, Suspiria really digs into your brain and stays there. Plus, those colors! Who thought dying could look so gorgeous?
Rhea Dee spends her time collecting vintage junk, daydreaming about Eli Roth, and pondering the genius of John Carpenter soundtracks. She really likes horror films.
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"Oh gawd… What have you done to me? Oh, GAWD! I can't stop the bleeding!" LOL One of the most satisfying scenes in cinematic history—so shut up, Ebert!