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

By: Jacinda Perez
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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.

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Betsy (Frances Dee) is interrupted by Carrefour's (Darby Jones) shadow in I Walked With a Zombie

Now That’s What I Call Kino #5 – The Effects of Imperialism in Golden Age Horror

By: jamespalmerfilm
Essay, Featured, Film, Now That's What I Call Kino, , Leave a Comment on Now That’s What I Call Kino #5 – The Effects of Imperialism in Golden Age Horror

With the popularity of independent horror peaking in recent years, it’s interesting to note what themes that seem to commonly occur in these movies. Filmmakers like Jordan Peele have done a lot to portray the black experience, more specifically what it means to be black in America. But as well as this, he has found…

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Evelyn wears yellow scrubs and a cross around her neck. She turns her head to one side, as if she has heard something.

FANTASIA REVIEW: ‘Sanzaru’ 2020 is a Subdued Gothic Horror with a Filipino Twist

By: Alina Faulds
Festivals, Film, Reviews, , , , , , , Leave a Comment on FANTASIA REVIEW: ‘Sanzaru’ 2020 is a Subdued Gothic Horror with a Filipino Twist

“Sanzaru’s lingering sense of terror makes for a compelling horror.” Secrets are the driving force of Xia Magnus’ debut feature film Sanzaru, an unsettling slow-burn horror that fuses Southern Gothic and Filipino legend to create an unparalleled ghost story. Sanzaru is the Japanese term for the three wise monkeys who “see no evil, hear no…

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On the left is an image of Dani from Midsommar, who is looking up at something. On the right, is an image of Bella Swan from the Twilight Saga, who looking over her shoulder.

Female Spaces in Masculine Places: Examining the Heroine’s Journey in ‘Twilight’ (2008) and ‘Midsommar’ (2019)

By: Mia Sherry
Essay, Featured, Film, , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on Female Spaces in Masculine Places: Examining the Heroine’s Journey in ‘Twilight’ (2008) and ‘Midsommar’ (2019)

“In a geography dominated by men, male desire and gazes, the search the heroines undergo for the female space is the desire for the ability to exist within the male geography as a female, and to do so comfortably.”

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Image still from the horror film Host. On a Zoom call, four women look scared and in distress.

REVIEW: Zoom-based horror ‘Host’ (2020) is short, sharp and scary

By: Kevin Woodley
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A dark, devilish reminder of a terrible and very strange year.

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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
Columns, Essay, Featured, Film, LGBTQ+, Women in Horror, , , , , , , Leave a Comment on ‘Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives’ (2010): Flipping the Script for Trans Women in Horror

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.

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Image still from the horror film Impetigore. Tara Basro staring at an ominous building within yellow mist.

REVIEW: Indonesian Horror ‘Impetigore’ (2020) is a Gruesome Walk in the Backwoods

By: Kevin Woodley
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Anwar’s film is a malevolent time in the backwoods that owes more to a sublime sense of place than cheap gore.

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

By: Jacinda Perez
Essay, Featured, Women in Horror, , , , Leave a Comment on ‘Sisters’ (1973) is a Reminder of Today’s Not-So-New Discussion

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.

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REVIEW: Shudder Original ‘The Beach House’ (2020) is Neither Scary nor Memorable

By: Kevin Woodley
Featured, Film, Reviews, , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on REVIEW: Shudder Original ‘The Beach House’ (2020) is Neither Scary nor Memorable

Although The Beach House has all the ingredients of a smart low-budget terror, it has none of the bite.

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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
Columns, Featured, Film, List, Women in Horror, , , Leave a Comment on The Best Queer Women in Horror Films

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.

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