Women in Horror – Flip Screen

Image is from the film 'Tigers Are Not Afraid' (2017). A person wearing a black coat looks at a graffiti drawing of a tiger on a green wall in the middle of the night.

‘Tigers are Not Afraid’ (2017): Ghosts, Wishes, and Tigers Tell the Story of Five Children Amidst a Drug War

By: Jacinda Perez 12th May 202111th May 2021

Columns, Reviews, Women in Horrorculture, female directors, tigers are not afraid, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

A young boy named Shine (Juan Ramon Lopez) stands in an alleyway, spray-painting a tiger on the walls. The black paint drips fresh as a narrator tells the story of a prince. This month’s highlighted film on Shudder for Women in Horror is Tigers Are Not Afraid (Vuelven) (2017), written and directed by Issa Lopez. It’s a story about five Mexican children whose lives have been devastated by the ongoing drug war. When Estrella’s (Paola Lara) teacher gives her three magic pieces of chalk that grant her three wishes, the children’s lives drastically change into a game of cat and mouse.

Image is from the film 'Slaxx' (2020). A young woman wearing a fur coat and space buns is being strangled by a pair of jeans.

‘Slaxx’ (2020) – You Need to See This Movie About Killer Pants…

By: Jacinda Perez 14th Apr 2021

Columns, Women in HorrorHorror, shudder, slaxx, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

What honestly makes this film whole is the writing, because it incorporates all the elements needed to tell a complete story.

Sally’s Piece: A Christmas Ode to the Queen of Halloween

By: Jacinda Perez 16th Dec 202014th Dec 2020

Columns, Essay, Featured, Film, Women in HorrorCatherine O'Hara, christmas, Horror, nightmare before christmas, sally, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

Here at the Women in Horror column of Flip Screen, we honor all of the women of the horror genre. The Nightmare Before Christmas is an animated Halloween film with children’s nightmares inspiring its characters, thus making Sally a woman in horror. She literally lives in a world that thrives off of terror. But one could argue that The Nightmare Before Christmas is also a Christmas movie. It captures the whimsical nature and themes of the holiday so perfectly, so it makes sense. Christmas is just as much a part of this film as is Halloween, so what a perfect film to talk about in December’s piece of this column.

Women in Horror Presents: The Scream Queen Awards

By: Jacinda Perez 5th Nov 20205th Nov 2020

Columns, Featured, Film, Women in HorrorAwards, Halloween, Scream Queens, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

Every awards season, Scream Queens are snubbed with little-to-no recognition. It isn’t until years later, when their films have reached “legendary” status, that you begin to hear things like, “She was the best,” “There’s no other like her,” and whatnot. Well we here at Flip Screen, do not want to wait until the page has turned to honor these amazing Women in Horror. That is what this column is all about. So, we decided to put together a Scream Queen Awards to give recognition to the many powerful performances that have graced the horror genre.

“You Shame Me!”- Analyzing a Woman’s Shame in ‘Drag Me to Hell’ (2009)

By: Jacinda Perez 2nd Sep 20201st Sep 2020

Columns, Essay, Featured, Film, Women in Horrorcolumn, Essay, Film, Horror, sam raimi, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

Since its initial release, Drag Me to Hell has received critical and commercial success. It showed the same scary, campy horror brilliance that Raimi demonstrated with The Evil Dead decades before. What also makes Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell so amazing is the subtext of shame. Whether he intended to or not, his film is saturated with associations of a woman’s shame. For this month’s Women in Horror, we want to take a deep dive into this subtext and dissect Raimi’s subtle nuances to convince you that this film is truly about a woman’s shame and how it is these insecurities that lay her literal path to hell.

five women wearing colorful short dresses stand in a line smiling for the camera

‘Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives’ (2010): Flipping the Script for Trans Women in Horror

By: Jenni Holtz 5th Aug 2020

Columns, Essay, Featured, Film, LGBTQ+, Women in HorrorHorror, israel luna, krystal summers, lgbt, ticked off trannies with knives, trans, willam belli, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

Perfectly imperfect and wonderfully cheesy, Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives actively pushes back on the rarely questioned trope of trans women as murderers in a wildly entertaining way. The campy classic highlights the issues with the treatment of trans women on and off the silver screen while making trans women the vigilante heroes of the story in a fight against transphobic attackers.

‘Sisters’ (1973) is a Reminder of Today’s Not-So-New Discussion

By: Jacinda Perez 15th Jul 20209th Jul 2020

Essay, Featured, Women in Horroressays, Film, Horror, sisters, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

Liberation. Movement. Abolition. Accountability. These are just a few words circulating the atmosphere today. These words bring out a feeling, a feeling that breeds reflection and conversation in so many, including myself. They’ve been circulating the inner workings of my mind. Constantly. They were prevalent in my mind when I sat down to watch the 1973 film Sisters on HBOMAX, and I found those words plastered over every scene, warping every line spoken, and leaving me with that feeling for some reflective conversation.

A girl in a black swimsuit lays on her back in a swimming pool.

How ‘It Follows’ (2014) Re-Imagines the Final Girl

By: Jenni Holtz 8th Jul 202010th Jul 2020

Columns, Essay, Featured, Film, Women in Horroralien, final girl, Halloween, It Follows, texas chainsaw massacre, women in film, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

In the nearly thirty years since the term was coined, Final Girls have appeared in many iterations, some pushing boundaries and some in line with the traditional trope. David Robert Mitchell’s film It Follows (2014) directly confronts the problems with the Final Girl while maintaining some elements of the trope, playing a role in crafting a new, modern version of the Final Girl.

This image is from the film Knife + Heart. A woman stands in the middle of the image, with a red light covering her. She is in a nightclub, which is entirely blue.

The Best Queer Women in Horror Films

By: Jenni Holtz 24th Jun 202024th Jun 2020

Columns, Featured, Film, List, Women in HorrorHorror, LGBTQ+, queer, Women in HorrorLeave a Comment

LGBTQ+ characters don’t often fare well in horror films. Typically, they are horrific monsters or killers, such as in the films Psycho (1960), Dressed to Kill (1980), and Silence of the Lambs (1991). Sometimes, though, lesbian, bisexual and/or queer women get to take the lead in horror, subverting negative stereotypes. The films below are a great start in watching horror films with queer characters that differ from the norm, paving the way for continued representation of queer women in horror.