Dear Gerald,
October is upon us! Crisp autumn air, hot apple cider, fireworks in the foliage, and the crimson viscera of teenagers splattered across every screen.
That’s right, it’s time for some scary movies. The question is: which ones shall we watch?
You and I are devotees of Italian giallo, the 60s and 70s-era slasher films pioneered by Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Sergio Martino, and other men who had the ability and inclination to put their barely sublimated psycho-sexual fantasies on film. Hence the common long tracking shot, which my wife has dubbed “murderer cam,” where we enter the POV of a black-gloved, knife-wielding maniac as he chases down some screaming Italian underwear model and stabs her to death. (Subtle!)
As the murderer cam sequence suggests, Gerald, the sad truth is that our favorite movies have a misogyny problem. That half of the time the killer turns out to be a woman is no defense. Better than any other genre, horror exemplifies the famous male gaze: the clear subject/object distinction; the unblinking, tracking, covetous eye of the camera; the implicit threat of possession and imminent violence. I’m sure we could insist that the art of film is endlessly flexible and can accommodate all kinds of styles and can subvert the male gaze, too, so it isn’t necessarily misogynistic and so on and so on. But let’s be honest. Film as a medium lends itself to leering perverts, and the horror genre doubly so. It’s no accident that the greatest metaphor for film in a film is Norman Bates spying on Janet Leigh as she undresses, his eye pressed against the peephole/camera in the wall.
This fall, instead of watching old favorites, I decided to get a new perspective. Almost every night for the past month, I have watched a horror film directed by a woman. Fortunately, I was spoiled for choice. We are the in the middle of a women’s horror boom, a period that will one day be remembered, hopefully, as the dawn of a golden age.
It actually makes sense that we are seeing so many women direct horror movies. Horror movies have historically been low-budget, indie, and international affairs, with most of the best ones made outside the Hollywood studio system. As such, the bar to entry is lower. It’s easier for non-traditional directors (read: not men) to get a chance.
Will women’s horror movies be different? That is what I set off to find out by watching a few classic movies and a bunch of new ones. I am happy to report that much was the same. There were still plenty of ghosts and demons and perverted knife-wielding maniacs, although (spoiler alert) we were usually not invited to identify with them. There were important differences, too, which I won’t give away in this teaser trailer.
Below you will find a collection of capsule reviews, with each movie ranked on a scale of 1 to 5 “Marnies.” Marnie, you may recall, is a late Hitchcock film, in which a publisher played by Sean Connery tries to unravel the mystery of the eponymous character’s amnesia and possible madness. At one point we see him reading a book titled Sexual Aberrations of the Criminal Female. I thought it an appropriate title for my own investigations.
At the end of each week this month, I will be sending out a new batch of reviews, listed from best to worst. Each week will have its own theme. At the end of each letter I’ll offer a few picks: best movie, scariest movie, best horror movie for people who don’t like horror movies, etc.
So, settle into your chair, Gerald. The lights in the theater are going down, the projector rattles to life, and the eye of the camera opens on the screen. Such sights I have to show you…
I. Men, Ugh/AAAHHH!
Slumber Party Massacre (1982), dir. Amy Holden Jones
A parody of the slasher genre that doubles as, well, a really good slasher flick. A high school girl and her friends are menaced by a crazy man and his two-foot-long automatic drill. (Get it?) The original script, by feminist mystery writer Rita Mae Brown, was an even more explicit parody. Alas, the studio suits interfered and made substantial changes. As a result, Brown and Jones left horror films behind, which is an enormous shame because Jones had a real knack for all the camera cuts and tricks that make for great suspense and jump scares. Who knows what other scary movies they would have made if they could have made this one the way they wanted? The lesson: sexism (and the studio system) impoverish us all.
4.5 out of 5 Marnies
American Psycho (2000), dir. Mary Harron
It’s the greatest feminist film ever to fail the Bechdel test and a classic study of male vanity and self-delusion. If it’s a little less than the sum of its parts, that’s mostly because some of the set pieces are among the funniest ever filmed: the endless morning toilette, the bankers becoming increasingly anxious (and aroused?) as they compare business cards, and—my favorite—an ax murder set to “Hip to Be Square.” Many horror movies are funny, many are misogynistic, but this is the only one I know that makes misogyny laughable.
4.5 out of 5 Marnies
The Love Witch (2016), dir. Anna Biller
A witch arrives in northern California to start a new life. She says it’s to get over Jerry, the husband who left her, though it might also have something to do with the fact that she poisoned him. This film is brilliant right from the start. In her opening monologue, the witch is sympathetic yet unreliable, singular and yet has a touch of the everywoman, dead serious and deadpan hilarious (“my therapist told me that I’m not unusual at all!”). Also brilliant: the colors. Biller shot the whole thing on old film stock, so it looks just like a 70s B-movie, with a red so vibrant that “vermillion” doesn’t begin to do it justice. The movie itself is about sex relations, and more particularly how each side’s projections and fantasies make mutuality and intimacy (aka, love) impossible. “According to the experts,” the witch muses, “men are very fragile. They can get crushed down if you assert yourself in any way. You have to be very tricky.” Did men derange her? Or is she just deranged? The answer appears to be more than a little of both. Underneath the campy colors, there’s a strong undercurrent of sadness in her search for love. The things you have to do to win the battle of the sexes will ultimately lose you the war.
4.5 out of 5 Marnies
The Scary of Sixty-First (2020), dir. Dasha Nekrasova
Two women, Noelle and Addie, move into a NYC apartment, whose previous tenants disappeared into the shadowy world of financier and child-sex-slave trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Addie’s story goes nowhere (she kind of gets possessed). Noelle’s is terrific. She meets a mysterious young woman investigating Epstein and slowly becomes obsessed by both—the woman and the crimes. Nekrasova’s insight is that the unknown can simultaneously be a source of fear and erotic fascination. See also Genesis 3, in which the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil appears to Eve as “a lust to the eyes.” Wouldn’t we all like a taste?
3.5 out of 5 Marnies
Lucky (2020), dir. Natasha Kermani
One night a struggling author sees a masked man in the backyard and shakes her husband awake to warn him. “Honey, that’s the man,” he replies sleepily. “What?” she asks. “The man that comes every night and tries to kill us.” Insert joke about trying to finish your dissertation here! Kidding aside, it’s not hard to figure out what’s really going on, and it’s a little disappointing that such a fun premise has such an obvious conclusion. On the other hand, the home invasion scenes are reliably frightening, and some of the later scenes, like a chase through a parking garage, touch the stuff of nightmares: horrifying things are happening right in front of the main character (and you) and there’s nothing that anyone can do about them. Most importantly, the movie’s big metaphor works. The amnesia, the repetition, the self-delusion and denial, the well-meaning sympathy from police and friends who never actually do anything about the situation—file this one under it’s scary because it’s too often true.
3.5 out of 5 Marnies
Tigers Are Not Afraid (2019), dir. Issa Lopez
After a little girl’s mother is murdered, she joins a group of boys living on a rooftop. They hide from the gangs and, all orphans of the drug wars, plot their revenge. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Gabriel García Márquez insisted that magical realism, far from being fantastical, was just a response to “a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable.” So it is with this movie. Parents disappear and come back from the dead, wrapped in cellophane. Pieces of chalk grant wishes. Tigers appear on the streets of a Mexican city. Satanist drug dealers sacrifice women and children. A trail of blood follows a little girl. Who knows which of these are children’s imaginations run wild, and which are children’s realities that we would rather not believe in? As grim as a fairy tale, it’s beautifully shot, and the children’s performances are moving. On the whole, this movie is more upsetting than scary. Very upsetting, though.
3 out of 5 Marnies
Fresh (2022), dir. Mimi Cave
Modern dating is a meat market, especially online. Women suspect, with good reason, that many men only want them for their bodies. So, when a young woman meets cute with a surgeon in a supermarket, she’s overjoyed. Naturally it turns out that men can hide their true intentions offline, too. Beyond Cave’s critique of modern dating, she’s making a more indirect critique of prostitution, cam girls, or any other profession that lets men buy women’s bodies and time like consumer goods. Fresh has extraneous characters and scenes, and a few plot holes, all of which make the ending feel rushed and unsatisfying. What a shame. Otherwise this one’s tasty.
3 out of 5 Marnies
Soulmate (2014), dir. Axelle Carolyn
Pride & Prejudice &…Poltergeists! After the death of her husband and a (graphic) suicide attempt, a woman moves into a secluded Welsh cottage. Turns out it has another resident: a ghost. A handsome, sensitive ghost who talks like he’s from the 18th century. She’s enamored, but what are his true intentions? The mood and gothic aesthetic may be more Bronte, or Henry James, but considering how much of the movie is given over to romantic dialogue and rivalry, it’s Austen through and through. The plot was predictable, albeit satisfying enough to make me want to see Carolyn’s next movie, too. Thank goodness. My good opinion once lost is lost forever.
2.5 out of 5 Marnies
Revenge (2018), dir. Coralie Fargeat
An aspiring actress and her gigachad boyfriend are on vacation, when they’re interrupted by his two hunting buddies. After one of them rapes her, he takes their side (well, she was flirting with them last night). She takes her bloody, bloody vengeance on them all. I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. The first 15 minutes are a fascinating failure. Fargeat’s camera tries to replicate the male gaze, showing us the woman as the hunters see her. Lots of tracking shots of her bikini-bottomed derriere, etc. The trouble is, it’s too obvious. The visual reference to Kubrick’s Lolita and rap video aesthetics practically come with subtitles (WARNING: THIS IS A MALE FANTASY), whereas the male gaze must operate at an unconscious level for the fantasy to seem real. Without first pulling me in first, Fargeat can’t expose my complicity later. The rest of the movie is more effective but less interesting. Fargeat can shoot a decent action sequence and she isn’t shy about the blood, guts, and gore. At the same time, blood and guts are no substitute for cunning and the element of surprise, which are as necessary for directors as they are for vengeful heroines. The audience should constantly be thinking how can she possibly get out of this? and then be delightfully surprised by the ingenuity of the heroine (and director). The ending here is never in doubt for even a moment. Great last line, though.
2 out of 5 Marnies
American Mary (2012), dir. Jen and Sylvia Soska
A medical student with mounds of debt tries to trim some off with an unusual application of her surgical skills. Four words: extreme, voluntary, body modification. And then not so voluntary. For the first 30 minutes or so, the Soskas consider the personal and societal issues that might make people want to cut themselves apart. It’s intriguing at first, but then they reach a pat conclusion—the members of the body mod community just want to express themselves; it’s the normies who are the real sickos—which would be more believable if we hadn’t just spent the last hour watching the main character and her friends fillet their enemies. By the end, this movie trades the disturbing for the merely gruesome. If that’s your kink, this’ll do it for you. If not…
2 out of 5 Marnies
The Other Lamb (2019), dir. Małgorzata Szumowska
The set-up is classic folk horror: in a cult deep in the woods, a group of sisters and wives live with/worship a male “shepherd.” The director and camera crew are Polish, so the colors and camerawork are sensational (say what you will about the Eastern Bloc, it founded great film schools!), but there’s a fine line between classic and clichéd, and The Other Lamb mostly falls on the wrong side. Yes, men control women, and enlist women to control other women, often through misogynistic myths about menstruation. Tell us something we don’t know! Plus, it’s slow and lacks suspense, common shortcomings in folk horror if you ask me.
1.5 out of 5 Marnies
Promising Young Woman (2020), dir. Emerald Fennell
When her friend commits suicide after being taken advantage of while blackout drunk, a woman acts intoxicated in bars and takes revenge on the men who pick her up. It’s less a major motion picture than a string of meme-able applause lines stretched out over 110 minutes: “It’s every guy’s worst nightmare getting accused like that,” says one of the men, “Can you guess what every woman’s worst nightmare is?” she snaps back. Yaass queen! Slay queen! And then she…doesn’t? What kind of revenge fantasy gives the heroine a body count of zero? I guess it’s supposed to subvert our genre expectations; alas, nothing more interesting takes the revenge plot’s place. Carrie Mulligan is great, as always, and the script has a clever structure, but it’s all in the service of a story with the impeccable morals and high-toned self-assurance of a public service announcement. Yes, contacting the police is the right thing to do, though if you’re going to make a movie, please also get in touch with the deepest darkest regions of your soul.
1.5 out of 5 Marnies
Master (2022), dir. Miriam Diallo
It’s promising on paper. At a prestigious university, a pair of professors and a student, all of whom are black, must contend with subtly menacing white colleagues, jealous roommates, and the ugly history the institution, which is personified as (what else?) a ghost. Diallo’s intended message is that the hatreds and violence of the institution’s white supremacist past aren’t really gone at all. Trouble is, the movie doesn’t really show that. The ghost just disappears from the script, like it’s bored too, and there’s a Rachel Dolezal twist, for no reason at all. Ultimately, it’s the deteriorating relationships between the three women that lead to tragedy. It’s as if there’s another more personal and bitter story in here somewhere, trying to get out from under the weight of polite expectations.
1 out of 5 Marnies
Scariest movie of the week: “Slumber Party Massacre”
Funniest movie of the week: “American Psycho”
Best movie for people who don’t like horror movies: “Love Witch”
Most jaw-dropping, bat-shit crazy scene: The dinner date in “Fresh”
Stay tuned for next week’s installment: Sexual Aberrations of the Criminal Female II: Hell is Other Women