All language subtitles for 1000.Women.in.Horror.2025.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-KHN_track3_[eng]

- There's this crazy idea
that horror is not for women

or that women are
not fans of horror.

[screams]

- There's some
deluded idea that--

that talking about gender
and horror is somehow

a contemporary phenomenon.

It's like, sit
down, little boys.

The grownups are talking.

- There's a whole tribe of
women who are just so into it.

[screams]

[laughs]

- We're expected to behave
certain ways in real life.

But in horror films,
no holds barred.

And no mercy, either.

[grunting]

- Like, each of us thought
we were, like, the weird kid.

And now we're
realizing that there's

so many other weird kids.

[screams]

- As a woman, is there
some transference

that I feel when I watch
a woman in jeopardy

and I can relate to that?

- No!
I can't stand it!

- Women have been integral to
horror since the beginning.

- I command you to get up!

- Women practically
invented the horror genre.

- We've been gracing the
front of horror movies

for a very, very long time.

And you can't have
horror without women.

It's not possible.

[music playing]

- ♪ I don't need
another person ♪

♪ To tell me what to do ♪

♪ I don't need another person ♪

♪ To tell me where to go ♪

♪ I don't need another person ♪

♪ To tell me how it is ♪

♪ I don't need another person ♪

♪ Like you, and you, and you ♪

♪ And no, not again, no ♪

♪ Come on, come on ♪

♪ No, not again, no ♪

♪ Come on, come on ♪

♪ No, not again, no ♪

♪ Come on, come on ♪

♪ No not again, no ♪

♪ Come on, come on ♪

♪ No, not again, no ♪

♪ Come on, come on ♪

♪ No, not again, no ♪

♪ Come on, come on ♪

♪ No, not again, no ♪

♪ Come on, come on ♪

♪ No, not again, no ♪

- We live in a world where
so many cultures have very

strict, regimented
ideals and expectations

about what it
means to be a woman

from the cradle to the grave.

And what horror does, I think
for me at its very best,

is it questions those.

It subverts them.

It transgresses them.

- All the sort of social
roles that women have been

conditioned to play over
time, they're all subverted,

they're all questioned in
horror in spectacular ways.

- Horror is such
an interesting way

of, you know, looking at the
world, a critique of society.

But you do it with zombies.

- Horror movies have
always been about the body,

and those bodies have always
been gendered, whether we

like to admit it or not.

- As a female filmmaker,
a female storyteller,

we have a lot of fears
that we want to talk about.

- Women live a life
of a horror movie.

Different incarnations.

The pre-pubescent stage,
their ingenue stage.

When they're, like,
very fuckable.

Am I allowed to curse in this?

Then a fuckable mom.

And then your time of
being fuckable wanes.

All of this through
the male gaze.

The only difference
is in the movies,

they condense everything
into two hours.

Well, if you're
lucky, two hours.

[eerie music]

- Whether it's Barbie
dolls or little baby dolls,

I think that for
girls growing up,

dolls are about
the objectification

of women at the various
ages throughout their life.

And we learn to be objects.

We learn to be adored,
and we learn to be things.

- You see, Claude and I were
just playing a game we made up.

- "The Bad Seed"
is fucking mental.

It is off the chain unhinged.

- Mother?
- Hmm?

- Is it true that when blood
has been washed off anything,

a policeman can still
find if it's there?

- The film is about a little
girl, Rhoda, who looks perfect.

She looks like a doll.
She has a doll.

They have the
same sort of hair.

You know, the little
fringe and the braids.

- What have you
got on your shoes?

- I run over my heels.

And Mother had these
iron pieces put

on them so they'd last longer.

- Everybody comments on
how good her manners are.

- Well, isn't she a
little sweetheart?

- Thank you.

- She also happens
to be a killer.

- I had to hit him
with the shoes!

What else could I do?

- But do you realize
that you murdered him?

- But it was his fault!

- And the only person
who's aware of this

is her mother, who
is deeply, obviously

very upset about this.

- Oh, I've got the
prettiest mother.

I've got the nicest mother.

That's what I tell everybody.

- Rhoda believes that if she
lives her life playing nice,

being this polite little
doll-like girl child, that she

can get away with anything.

And really, up to
a point, she does.

- Good night, sweetheart.

- Good night, Daddy.

- I did have a doll as a
child when I was a kid.

My Buddy was a thing.

And my parents got
me a My Buddy doll.

And I'm not going to
sing the theme song,

but I do remember
the theme song.

- ♪ My Buddy
♪ My Buddy ♪

♪ My Buddy ♪

♪ My Buddy ♪

♪ Wherever I go, he goes. ♪

- And I carried that
little guy around

with me freaking everywhere.

And around the same time, I
think "Child's Play" came out.

- I'm your friend till the end.

Hidey ho.

- I love Chucky in a weird
frickin' twisted sense.

I like the idea that,
like, My Buddy doll

might come to life someday.

Hopefully not try to kill
me and my family, but--

[screams]

It was appealing to
me that, like, a doll

could actually come to life.

It's scary in a thrilling way.

And again, I want to
recreate this feeling,

and how can I do that?

- Hi, Megan.

I'm Katie.

- It's nice to meet you, Katie.

- The whole relationship
between little girls and dolls

or robot-like dolls has been
shaken quite dramatically

by the absolute insanity
that is "Megan," which

was written by Akela Cooper.

- Oh, shit.

- "Megan" is about a little
girl who loses her parents

and is taken in by
her aunt who works

at an advanced toy company
developing, like, AI toys.

And because she's
still grieving

the loss of her parents
and her aunt is busy,

she gives her the
newest prototype, Megan,

to befriend her
and actually test

out how well the doll works.

And unfortunately, the
doll works too well

and some deaths are involved.

- How could you kill someone?

- I didn't kill anyone, Kurt.

You did.

[explosion]

- I received a doll as a
present when I was a kid.

And I stood at the top
of our stairs and I said,

I hate this baby.

And I threw it down the stairs.

I wasn't big on dolls.

And I still have trouble
finding them scary.

But then there are
movies that will come out

that I am very impressed by.

The Annabelle movies, I
think, are really great

and do an amazing job
of making a doll scary.

- One of the first films that
I think about when I think

about girls and
dolls and horror is

"Interview with the Vampire."

- Another doll?

I have dozens, you realize.

- So much of that film, just
in terms of sheer runtime,

is about Claudia
and her relationship

to Louis in particular,
but also just

her journey and her identity.

[playing piano]

[low piano tone]

- Claudia, what
have we told you?

- Never in the house.

- And she is very much brought
on board to join the group

as a kind of human doll.

- You dress me like a doll.

You make my hair like a doll.

Why?

- As she's aging, she becomes
angrier and angrier and angrier

when she realizes that her body
isn't going to become a woman.

And that Louis and Lestat are
treating her like a human doll.

- You made us what
we are, didn't you?

- Stop her, Louis.

- Did you do it to me?

- Not just in horror, but in
screen culture more broadly,

little girls are used as a
cipher or a kind of shorthand

symbol for innocence.

So in horror, it's bad if
something happens to somebody.

But if it happens to a
little girl, it's even worse.

And I think a
really good example

of that is "Hereditary."

Because what happens to the
little girl in that film

is horrendous.

And it would be
awful regardless

of who that character is.

But the fact that
it's a little girl

makes it so much worse,
so much more agonizing.

[tires screeching]

This relationship between
little girls and innocence

and vulnerability is really
interesting in horror

when it comes to reflecting
back on screen culture itself.

So at the beginning of "Us," we
have a little girl and her dad

wins her a Thriller t-shirt.

And there's that little kind
of squabble between her parents

about whether it's appropriate.

- That shirt better not
give her nightmares.

- Get in trouble for winning
my daughter a t-shirt.

That's a new one.

- And there's a beautiful
image of her wandering off

and she has her candy apple.

And of course, she's
about to get lost.

And what happens to
her when she's lost

becomes the core of that film.

We see this too,
in "Poltergeist"

with little Carol
Anne in that iconic

scene with the television.

And it really
emphasizes this idea

that little girls
are particularly

vulnerable, particularly
open to exploitation

to the evils that can
come through the screen.

- They're here.

- Scenes like these from
"Us" and "Poltergeist"

play with the anxieties
we have even just

at the thought of little girls
being exposed to horror movies.

But of course they are.

And in many cases, even
grow up to make their own.

- I promise, we're
better than ever.

- I grew up in the middle of
nowhere in rural Pennsylvania.

It was basically
Romero country.

[screams]

"Night of the Living Dead"
played on, like, all the time

on, like, public access.

So that was, like, literally
one of the first movies

I remember seeing as a kid.

[screams]

- When I was little,
when we'd be getting

ready for these
Halloween parties,

we'd sit on the floor
in the living room.

We'd have newspaper laid out.

And my dad grew
a pumpkin patch.

And we would harvest
the pumpkins.

We would carve them together
the night before the party

and watch Universal
monster movies.

- You have those,
and I'll have these.

- "Frankenstein."

"Dracula."

"Bride of Frankenstein."

[screams]

"Wolf Man."

[growls]

"Creature."

[screams]

You name it, we
watched it together.

- My sister being
10 years older

than me, she was a teenager
when she was babysitting us.

And she did not give a flying
fuck what she was watching

when she was babysitting us.

And I came downstairs,
and my sister

was watching "Hellraiser 2."

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

And it freaked me out.

- Don't be scared of me.

- And I just, like, turned
around and went back upstairs.

But I've always
just, like, loved

horror from a
very, very probably

inappropriately young age.

- I was very into suspense,
and I loved Hitchcock.

[squawking]

- Help me!

Help me!

- Some of the
horror stuff I saw

was just stuff I
saw on afternoon TV.

They used to show amazing
things on afternoon TV that

should be censored, really.

[screams]

- When I saw "The Shining."

That also haunted my dreams.

- Here's Johnny.

- So I was traumatized
as a child.

I think now, that's why
when I watch horror,

it comes with a certain tough
skin that makes it thrilling.

- What is more innocent
than young girls?

- Come play with us, Danny.

- There are so many elements
that go into "The Shining"

that make it tick and make it
such a famous horror movie.

But for me, and I know I'm not
alone here, it's the twins.

They're just unforgettable.

And there's a strange
tension there,

because they're monstrous
and they're terrifying

and they're scary.

But they're actually
not monsters.

They're victims.

- What's the most awful thing
that could happen to innocence,

is destruction.

You know, we see the young
girls in the hallway,

and we see their bodies
axed to death and blood

all over the hallway.

- It still gives me goose
pimples when I think about it.

So good job, Mr. Kubrick.

- I think I must have been 10.

That's when "The
Exorcist" came back out.

Remastered, new
sound, new color.

Deleted scenes.

[gasps]

- My god.

- I said, "Mom, I'm
turning 10 years old.

And I want to see The Exorcist,
because I'm old enough."

So my mom was like, okay.

[screams]

Little did we know we were
going to come out crying.

I thought Linda Blair
was under my bed.

I thought Linda Blair
was in the closet.

I thought Linda Blair
was outside my bedroom.

I thought Linda Blair
was in my classroom.

- Do you know what she did?

Your cunting daughter.

- It was something about that
feeling that has stuck with me.

Wasn't until many
years later that I knew

I wanted to be a filmmaker.

I remembered that feeling.

A horror movie can
follow you home.

- Because she's
possessed by a demon,

it allows the movie to show
this 12-year-old girl writhing

in a bed in her
nightgown, being

tied to the bed by priests,
masturbating with a cross.

- Let Jesus fuck you!

Let Jesus fuck you!

- Her body is breaking.

Her head is spinning.

The movie does all sorts of
crazy things to this girl.

But it's because she's
possessed by a demon

and we're trying to
get the demon out.

- Is there someone inside you?

- Sometimes.

- Watching this innocent
little girl talk about somebody

being inside her and that
she has no control over it,

we're talking about
much grander themes

than just possession here.

- How long are you
planning to stay in Regan?

- Until she rots and lies
stinking in the earth.

- The horror of
"The Exorcist" is

about the horror
of what happens

to a little girl's body.

There's no way to
think of that film

and not look at Linda
Blair's actual physical body

as a kind of battleground
for power and for male power

to play out on.

[splashes]

- There is this fear that
girls are dangerous if they

get too close to each other.

I think societally, there is
a fear that their friendships

can turn dark easily.

And in the horror genre,
this is explored a lot.

- There's a cluster
of horror films

that do really
exciting, interesting

things with the idea of toxic
friendships when you're young.

Films like "Heavenly
Creatures,"

"Don't Deliver us from Evil,"
"Poison for the Fairies,"

films like those are really
important because they really

get to the heart of
this very insular,

sort of world building project
that friendships can become.

[laughs]

[screams]

- "Poison for the Fairies" is a
Mexican film from the '80s that

is about two little
girls, one of whom is,

like, the new girl in class.

And this kind of girl that
has difficulty making friends

seizes upon this new
girl and is like,

you are going to be
my new best friend.

And by the way, I'm a witch.

They perform, like, a black
magic ritual in the attic

and they're cursing
the teacher.

And then, by coincidence,
the teacher dies.

The girl who says she's a
witch is like, aha, you see?

My spell worked.

And so then the
other little girl

is terrified of her friend.

[cackles]

- "Poison for the
Fairies" works best

when it blurs the
lines between doubt

and trust in a friendship.

And it's something
very specific,

I think, to the
experience of childhood,

where your friends
are your world.

And when that friend
is questionable,

you don't know who to trust.

Do you trust yourself?

Do you trust them?

Really what I think is at the
core of the representation

of little girls in
horror is about agency,

is about, how much is too much
freedom to give little girls?

And we get kind of stressed
out when little girls are left

to fend for themselves,
when they're not

controlled and controllable.

- No!

Don't!

- And we need to chill out.

We need to acknowledge
that these are people,

and that they have agency,
and we should respect that.

And that doesn't just go
for the representation

of girls on film.

We look at somebody
like Emily Hagins,

who was 12 years old when
she made a zombie film called

"Pathogen" with her mates.

- Please!

Please, God, no!

Please, God, no!

- Little girls can
do a lot when they're

given the freedom to do so.

[rock music]

- Adolescence.

A time of horror for many.

As people go
through pubescence,

that is a time of such change,
with adulthood on the horizon

and all of the fears
surrounding coming of age.

It's little wonder that
there are so many

coming-of-age
horror films.

[eerie music]

♪ ♪

- When I think about horror
movies with standalone scenes

that really shook
me to my core,

one of the first
that comes to mind is

the very beginning of
the Japanese horror

film "The Suicide Club."

And it's just a
bunch, you know,

of schoolgirls on
a train platform.

They're just hanging out.

They're in uniform, chatting
happily to each other.

There's an announcement
that the train's coming.

The girls join hands.

The train gets closer, the
girls take a step forward.

And just before the
train arrives, they jump.

Something about
the fact that it's

this sort of critical
mass, this unified

force of these girls
at that particular age,

that they can't be controlled.

And that they're sort of
doing this thing that is

completely incomprehensible.

The power in that
scene is extraordinary.

- The most dangerous
and powerful

creature on this planet is
a post-pubescent female.

Because she could truly
destroy everything,

and she has no idea.

And so the world works very
hard to smush women in that age

into little boxes so they
don't go around destroying men,

which is what they could do.

And the place I
would go is "Carrie."

- Finish to Carrie.

She'll blow it.

- Don't blow it, Carrie.

Hit it!

- Oh!

Carrie!

- Of course, it's
the story of a girl

who's raised by a single mother
who's very strictly religious.

The opening of the film
is like slow motion.

It's like in the
girls' locker room,

and they're all, like,
having fun and they're naked

and they're flicking each
other with their towels.

And it's like, oh, it's so
fun to be a teenage girl.

And then the camera goes
in on Carrie in the corner,

and then the blood comes.

It's like, whew.

It's like a bait and switch.

It's like an acknowledgment
that this is a fantasy.

That this is not what being
a teenage girl is like.

It is not this slow motion,
you know, fun-loving fantasy.

It's really this horror
of your body changing.

- Help me!

- You know, just suddenly
feeling out of touch

with other people and there
being so much scrutiny

of the speed at
which different girls

develop, you know,
or become sexually

aware or sexually active.

Carrie's story becomes one
of discovering her power.

And her power in the
course of this story

is depicted as a
supernatural power that

is triggered by menstruation.

[tires screeching]

[explosion]

- My most favorite scene
is definitely dumping

the pig's blood on her.

Where all you hear is just the
hitting of the bucket, empty.

[tapping]

That is such an impactful
way to feel what she feels.

She's cut out the
entire audience

of people laughing at her,
bullying her, belittling her.

[thuds]

- In each successive viewing,
it's kind of perverse,

but I'm like, yeah.

Like, burn the whole gym down.

- What Carrie's
doing isn't really--

it isn't, like, the best thing
to massacre your entire class.

But there were times when
I was like, if I could

just have a little
of that power,

maybe they'd leave me alone.

- Creepy Carrie!
Creepy Carrie!

[laughs]

[groans]

- The ending when her hand
comes out of the earth.

[screams]

People talk about that as,
like, wow, that scared me.

And I thought about
"Carrie" for the next month.

And I don't know,
I have this feeling

of like, hopefully she got
out and did some other stuff.

- Oh, gross.

- "Ginger Snaps" is
a really essential

film to think
about when we talk

about menstruation in horror.

- You got some on you.

- Nice.

- Ginger's transformation
occurs not just

through the bite
of the werewolf,

but through getting her
period on the same day.

[screams]

- Ginger!

- And that film is
really interesting,

because on one hand, I
think it's quite tragic.

There's a sort of inevitability
that Ginger's journey will

take her to where it goes.

- I'm not dying!

[screams]

- But at the same time,
it's very, very funny.

And the way that it talks
about menstruation and periods

is amazing.

- A thick, syrupy, voluminous
discharge is not uncommon.

The bulk of the
uterine lining is shed

within the first few days.

Contractions-- cramps--
squeeze it out like a pump.

- So things like "Ginger
Snaps" and "Teeth."

[screams]

And the film "Hellbender," that
are often dealing with girls

coming of age and it
coming with some kind

of-- like a power, some kind of
potentially destructive power.

- Please, help me.

[monstrous scream]

- I'm kind of obsessed
with menstruation.

And I'm always trying
to fit it into movies.

So for me, there was a
backstory to the Hellbenders

that they should menstruate
from their mouths.

Then I thought, well, let's
just remove the vagina and make

it-- it's all about the mouth.

Hellbenders are created by
eating another Hellbender.

There's a lot of
menstrual interpretation

that can be had there.

I love talking blood,
particularly the kind

that those with
the womb create.

- One of my pet peeves
is when male filmmakers

do horror films about girls
getting their periods.

It drives me insane because it,
like, turns it into like this,

like, mystical, magical thing.

And it's just like--
it's just awful.

Don't get me wrong,
I love "Carrie."

It's one of my favorite movies.

But like, that was not what
getting my period was like.

So one of the things that we
did with "Black Christmas"

is just like, what
if we just had

a girl who's like on the
rag and she uses a diva cup?

- I have a final in 10 minutes,
and I can't find my diva cup.

- How do you lose a diva cup?

- With abandon.

- And like, we just make
it as like a normal thing

that's in the story.

And it doesn't have any magical
implications whatsoever.

It's just like a regular burden
that a cis woman has to deal

with every once in a while.

- "The Craft" is a movie about

four girls who discover they

are witches, one of whom
is an actual natural witch,

and the other three are kind
of, like, self-made witches.

- You ever heard of
invoking the spirit?

- No.

- The four of them are able
to come together and, like,

share their power
and kind of, like,

take back some of their lives.

[laughs]

- Wow.

- I was getting all my friends
to play light as a feather,

stiff as a board at
sleepover parties.

[knocks]

- I got clean
towels for everyone.

[yelps]

- And I'd be like, let's go
to the graveyard after school

and do seances and
things like that.

[electricity roars]

- Just absolutely loved
seeing another curly

haired black girl on screen.

- And I ask for the ability
to not hate those who hate me.

Especially racist pieces
of bleached blonde shit

like Laura Lizzie.

- I had actually started
wearing my hair natural.

So like, my mom started like,
chemically, no more perms.

No more hot comb.

Not straightening my hair.

Just, like, wear it
curly, let it air dry.

And the first time I wore
it natural to school,

like, one of my white
classmates-- like,

I'll never forget this.

She looked at me
and she's like, it

looks like Akela has a bunch
of spiders in her hair.

And I was just like, I
thought I looked cute.

And that obviously affected me.

And it's just like,
I kind of, like,

adjusted how I wore
my hair from there.

But seeing Rachel True
in "The Craft" and, like,

having the white
bully character

also like mock her hair,
it's like, okay, I'm not alone.

- Oh god, look, there is
a pubic hair in my brush.

Oh, no, wait, wait.

That's just one of Rachel's
little nappy hairs.

- That's always stuck out
with me with that movie.

It's like, there's someone
else in the world who's

going through this, and
hopefully she'll get through it

and hopefully I'll get
through it as well.

But also, it's just like how
female friendships can form

so tightly and then
just become so toxic

so quickly when they
become not friendships,

but these co-dependent
relationships.

- There's Jennifer.

Only back then, we were tight.

Sisters, practically.

People found it hard to believe
that a wait like Jennifer

would associate
with a dork like me.

- This is a movie
made for me that

doesn't make me feel
like I'm the kind

of, like, token
woman in the room

full of, like, horror dudes.

- They're just boys.
Morsels.

We have all the power.

Don't you know that?

These things, these,
are like smart bombs.

Okay?

You point them in the right
direction, and shit gets real.

- It has, like, such
a fun energy to it.

It's funny.

It's scary.

[monstrous growl]

But it's also the perspective.

The perspective is from
Needy's point of view.

Even the fact that her name
is Needy is fucking amazing.

[gasps]

The combination of Diablo's
script and Karen's direction

of that movie made it this
kind of like "Clueless"

for horror kids.

- She can fly.

- She's just hovering.

It's not that impressive.

- This is just kind of
this super fun horror movie

that is about being
a teenage girl

and about living in the
body of a teenage girl

and what that's
like and what those

intense female relationships
are like in that age.

- Her marketing for that
film was so fucked up.

- You look really pretty.

- Megan Fox plays a half-naked
demon who kills a bunch

of guys in her high school.

But really, you stopped
listening after Megan

Fox half-naked demon.

- They were just
trying to, like,

make it seem like, oh, okay,
this is all about, like,

Megan getting hot and naked.

It's just, like, imagery
that just doesn't

represent the movie at all.

There were still a lot
of cis straight white men

who were doing the marketing.

Just like, they didn't get it.

And everyone needs to
get it for these movies

to find their audience.

- I've killed before.

It's for cutting boxes.

- Middle school and high school
was a horrible time for me.

It makes me a little
emotional to talk about it.

But I was bullied so horribly.

A lot by women,
and also by men.

My best friend in the whole
world, I would go to her house.

We'd watch horror
movies late at night.

I have this vivid memory of
renting "American Psycho."

I realized when I saw
the director credit

come up that it was a woman.

And I was like, Mary
Harron, who is she?

I need to find out.

And then I started to kind
of pay more attention.

I remember watching
"Near Dark."

- I asked you once if you
listened to the night.

Now listen to me.

- And I was like,
Kathryn Bigelow?

Who is she?

And Mary Lambert
with "Pet Sematary."

And we were having a sleepover.

What's this movie?

"Slumber Party Massacre."
This looks cool.

Amy Holden Jones?

I just was like, oh my gosh.

Women make horror movies.

That's what I want to do.

[screams]

- It was around
this time that we

were in the middle of the
late '90s teen slasher craze.

And so I discovered
movies like "I Know

What You Did Last Summer."

[screams]

And "Scream."

[yelps]

And "Urban Legend."

[screams]

And I became
obsessed with horror.

And horror kind of
became my friend.

- Name the killer
in "Halloween."

- No.

- Come on.

It's your favorite
scary movie, remember?

He had a white mask.

He stalked the babysitters.

- I don't know.

- I started to realize,
through movies like "Scream,"

which have so many
references to the movies

that came before it.

- They're all the same.

Some stupid killer stalking
some big breasted girl

who can't act,
who's always running

up the stairs when she should
be going out the front door.

It's insulting.

- I started to
realize there was

this whole genre and many, many
more movies for me to discover.

So over the course
of my teenage years,

I just poured myself
into horror movies

and started discovering the
influences of those movies.

- Jason?

- So the final girl is a
really key concept in horror.

And it was coined by Carol
J. Clover in her book,

"Men, Women, and Chainsaws."

Final girl is the
girl who survives.

She's the girl who fights back.

She's the girl who kicks ass.

[whirring]

- Yeah!

All right!

- She might be crying,
she might be screaming.

[grunts]

[screams]

She might be covered
in blood and guts.

[growls]

[squelches]

But she survives.

And she often watches
her friends die.

But she keeps going.

- I grew up with final girls.

I love them in horror films.

When women weren't
protagonists of any movies,

horror films were always
a place where you could

find a lead who was a woman.

[yelps]

- Horror is full to the brim
of amazing final girls that

are interesting for
where they overlap

and for where they deviate.

We have Nancy in "Elm Street."

We have Jess in
"Black Christmas."

We have Sally in "Texas
Chainsaw Massacre."

And of course, we have
Laurie in "Halloween."

- I killed him.

- You can't kill the boogeyman.

[screams]

- Jamie Lee Curtis is a really
obvious person to go to when

we talk about the final girl.

Because we see her as
Laurie in "Halloween"

when she's a teenager.

But we follow her
through those films,

right through to
when she's much,

much older, when
she's a grandmother.

And it's incredible.

It's an incredible career
arc, both for Curtis, but also

as a character arc
for what happens

when the final girl ages.

- Nancy.

Nancy.

- There's so much to love about
"Nightmare on Elm Street."

But I think it
goes without saying

that that first film
just wouldn't be what it

is without Heather Langenkamp.

- She came in, and we
loved her immediately

because her
beautiful, fresh face.

No makeup, freckles,
beautiful blue eyes.

And just a girl-next-door look.

- Hello?

- Why don't you
believe me now, Nancy?

[screams]

- What was so profound,
because she was so sweet,

is how she took on
the burden of fighting

Freddy in the dreams.

- Come on and show
yourself, you bastard!

- And so she fought him.

- No!
No!

No!

No!

[screams]

- She's dead and he's dead.

And oh my god, poor Bill!

Oh, god!

- "Friday the 13th"
is full of lots

of really interesting
final girls, and they

change from film to film.

- Think about it moving
and make it move.

- So we get these
different representations

and different ideas about
what the final girl is

and what she can do.

- Let him out of there, Rick.

- Megan.

Don't clown around.

- I'm not the one with
the funny red nose.

- I think there's something
cool about watching

a final girl just reach
the end of her fucking rope

and, like, beat the shit out
of the monster or the bad guy.

And it's a release.

And it's a much-needed
release for a lot of people.

Not necessarily
even just women.

It's like, Black people,
the gay community.

Like, anyone who is like
facing the fact that you can't

just walk out of
your house and exist

without some overt threat.

And you kind of need that.
- The final girl

concept is more important
in a way than actually any

particular incarnations of it.

Because what it did was
entirely divorce the sense

that a spectator
will identify most

with a same gendered
person on screen.

- Shit.

- In some ways, anyone
can be a final girl now.

Because the idea
of a one-to-one

relationship between viewer
and character has been turfed.

- Agnes.

Agnes, don't.

You know what we did, Agnes--

[screams]

- So Bob Clark's original
"Black Christmas" involves

a group of sorority girls.

And they live in
a house, and it's

about Christmas break time.

When an unseen man sneaks
up into their attic

and starts giving them horrific
phone calls, terrifying them.

- My fat cock--

- Oh, why don't you
go find a wall socket

and stick your tongue in it?

That'll give you a charge.

- I'll stick my tongue
up your pretty pussy.

- You fucking creep!

- I'm going to kill you.

- What films like
"Black Christmas"

do that's so important is that
they feed into much bigger

issues than those
specific to the experience

of high school
or college alone,

but to women more broadly.

- I'm going to
have an abortion.

- You can't make a
decision like that.

You hadn't even ask me.

- I wasn't even
going to tell you.

- People still don't want
to talk about abortion.

They don't want to talk
about women's rights.

They don't want to say it
explicitly in the same way

that Bob Clark was saying it.

- ♪ Up in the frat
house, one true fact ♪

[crowd hollering]

- ♪ And that is that
I got attacked ♪

♪ Up in the frat
house, shit went down ♪

♪ And I'm telling
everyone in town ♪

- There were a
lot of things that

were going on in the world.

Brett Kavanaugh is on
TV crying and screaming

that he likes beer.

And his fraternity
is in the news.

And all of these other
fraternities are in the news

because, like, of
all of the assaults.

- Wait.

- Helena?

- It was just like,
here's the things that

are making me mad right now.

- We're in the
middle of something.

- Do you want me to leave?

[scoffing]

- You bitches are all the same.

You act like you want it, but
you're all a bunch of teases.

- We wanted to see what
would happen if there wasn't

just one exceptional woman.

What if a lot of women live?

- You messed with
the wrong sisters.

- Horror movies are often
about getting people separated.

And I really enjoy it when
in horror, the characters are

like, no, let's band together.

- Suck my--

- The way that we
approached it was that there

is no exceptional woman.

People survive because
they stay together.

- What we see in
movies like this is,

yeah, learning to be an adult
woman is really fucking hard.

But if you play it smart
and with an appreciation

of community, you don't
have to go it alone.

It's sort of part of that
transgressive, subversive

energy and excitement and
power of what horror is

and what it can do.

When you get to adulthood,
that's when shit gets real.

You've survived girlhood,
you've survived adolescence.

And suddenly, you're
out on your own.

You have all this
freedom and this agency.

But there's real dangers that
you haven't experienced before.

And it's chaos.

- Hey, you want a beer?

- Or do you want
to smoke some pot?

- Or we can have
premarital sex.

- Horror has a very special
and I think quite broadly

underrated way of dealing
with women's sexual agency,

films that really demonstrate
quite vivid and intense

and wonderful displays of
sexually autonomous women.

Even if things don't
work out great for those

women at the end--

--when it comes to sexual
agency and women in horror,

I think the vampire is almost
like a go-to character.

Because we have these
incredible films,

especially in the terrain
of lesbian vampire films.

You know, we have the
Karnstein Trilogy from Hammer.

We have "The Hunger."

We have "The Velvet Vampire."

And in those films
and many others,

we have this really interesting
phenomena where these women are

just so comfortable
with using their lovers,

whether they're men or
women, as these kind

of tasty sexual snacks.

[whimpers]

- "Tenebrae" is a
particular favorite of mine.

And the figure of Eva
Robins is a fascinating one.

And it definitely
wasn't super clear

or made super clear to wide
audiences that Eva Robins is

a trans woman and
that she represents

the fear of the phallic woman.

And as she put the heel
of her red stilettos

into the mouth of some
poor fellow who I'm

sure didn't have it coming--

cough, cough-- there was
something vengeful there

that was very attractive.

- "Trouble Every Day" is a
really useful film to think

about the connection or the
relationship between the vamp

and the vampire in horror.

The director of that
film, Claire Denis,

once described that movie as
when a kiss becomes a bite.

[yells]

Critics have talked about
it as a cannibal film

or a vampire film.

And it's almost
neither here nor there.

Because when you think of
that movie, what you think of

is just screaming, bloodied
Beatrice Daal fucking a boy

and eating him.

- "A Girl Walks Home
Alone at Night."

Just the title
alone, you're already

turning the idea of
the frightened girl

walking home alone at night.

Well, that girl is
the one to be feared.

[crunches]

[screams]

- And you're very, very nervous
about what she's going to do.

Which is kind of the reverse
of what happens in most movies.

- For a woman, there is
a sense of recognition

when it comes to horror.

I've always thought
I didn't have

to dig that deep
when I was performing

even the craziest of things.

Even being dragged off by
an angel vampire creature

and then eaten alive
in a graveyard.

To me, it's just a
sidestep from the types

of sexual assaults I have
experienced in my life.

And I'm talking gray-area
sexual assaults--

not, like, strange man in a
mask drags me down an alleyway

and rapes me.

I'm talking about
like, I didn't really

want to hook up with this
frat boy, but I was drunk

and I didn't want to go home.

- Fear is something we
live with every day.

I walk out my door, and I
have to think about, okay,

where am I going?

- Want a ride?

- What do I have with me
if I need to defend myself?

- And it's really
unfortunate that we

have to think about that.

Even something that's
a mundane task--

going to the
grocery store, going

for a walk around the
block, going to the movies.

- Whatever it may be that is
something a man might not think

twice about doing is
something I think about

if I'm going to be okay going
to and from that thing

I need to do.

- We are just cultured and
we are just conditioned

to filter that as okay.

And it's fine.

And you start
walking around going

like, I think the
world is a terribly

scary and dangerous place.

But no one else is
acting that way.

And then you get to
watch a horror movie

like "Last House on the Left."

- Hell yeah.

- And revenge becomes
something cathartic.

[screams]

- Rape revenge is obviously
a very complex, very thorny,

very challenging subject.

[soft grunting]

- That's so sweet,
it's painful.

Oh god.

- It's across a whole
bunch of genres.

But when it comes to
horror, and especially

supernatural
horror, we're really

focused on the body
in horror in a way

unlike any other kind of
genre that does very, very

interesting things
about gender politics

and has interesting
things to say

in sometimes quite
sophisticated

and really confronting ways.

- I love "Revenge."

I think it handles the rape
revenge movie in a really

smart way, so you're
really relating

with the lead character.

But then it does
focus on the violence

as she gets the revenge,
which is fun to watch.

- Listen, Lexi--

[gunshot]

[screams]

[gunshots]

- When she flips and just
completely takes revenge

on what people have done to
her and goes on this, like,

murder spree, it's a release.

[screams]

And you're cheering her on.

It's horrible what's happening.

There's blood everywhere.

It's so gory.

[clicks]

[gunshot]

- But the thing that
scares me more than a woman

being able to enact revenge
and go on this killing spree

is like what the cost
is for that character.

- For myself, it
really was cathartic.

Because these are things that
we can't do in real life.

- It's instructive
in the horror context

to look at rape
revenge films that

have been directed by women.

Because they're quite
diverse, and I don't think

we really give them
credit for that.

- You can just go home.

I won't be done
till tomorrow night.

[moans]

- We have the Soskas'
"American Mary."

- What we're going
to do with you today.

- A really interesting example
is "Evangeline" by the Canadian

filmmaker Karen Lam.

Rape revenge films
often isolate women.

It's often about
women by themselves

fighting back against
rapists or somebody

acting on behalf of that woman.

What is really
interesting to me

is when we start having
communities gather

or women joining forces.

There's a rape revenge film, a
supernatural rape revenge film

from Japan, called
"Kuroneko" from the 1960s,

which is about a
mother and daughter

who are raped and murdered
by traveling samurai.

And as ghosts, as spirits, they
come back to seek vengeance.

[screams]

It's almost a default now,
when thinking about women

and community, to
think of that famous

scene from "Midsommar,"
where Florence

Pugh's character is crying.

And the women
gather around her.

They almost become one
sort of single organism.

And they weep together.

[wailing]

- The strong woman
trope is a trope

that I'm trying
to actively make

more nuanced, especially
for Black women protagonists.

So I think it's important
to have final girls

and women protagonists in
these genres, darker genres,

who also--

you're juxtaposing that with
vulnerability and softness.

- Is Tamara home?

- You already came by here.

- Women-centered home
invasion films have

a very long history in cinema.

We have "The Lonely Villa,"
probably one of the first

home invasion films ever made.

And of course, we have in
1913, the film "Suspense,"

which was co-directed
by Lois Weber

and also stars Lois Weber.

Later, we have home invasion
films about women like "Wait

Until Dark" with Audrey
Hepburn and "Lady In A Cage"

with Olivia de Havilland.

- The home invasion
is a very real fear.

Some of the films that
are strongest in that area

are the ones that do play with
the irrational fears on top

of the rational fear of
having your home invaded

or penetrated, if you like.

[thuds]

- Welcome home.

- For example, "The
Entity," in which

Barbara Hershey is terrorized
by some supernatural force.

And that terror assumes
horrific sexual dimensions.

[muffled scream]

- "Lucky" is a film directed
by Natasha Kermani that was

written and stars Brea Grant.

And it's such an extraordinary
exploration of the idea

that male violence
is almost ambient.

- "Lucky" is a surrealist
slasher film in which May,

the main character, is
attacked by the same

man every night and people
think it's just normal.

- I can't change it, May.

This is just how things are.

- This is not how things are.

- Yes, it is.

Every night, a man comes
to our house and tries--

- No, shut up!

Stop talking!

- I wrote the film
after I was attacked.

And it was part catharsis,
a little bit therapy.

I would tell people
what had happened to me.

And every woman I
know would go, yeah.

Because it had
happened to them, too.

- Ted?

Ted?

- I was being interviewed
by an officer,

telling him what happened.

And he said, you know,
you're just really

lucky you didn't get raped.

That's not lucky.

I don't think that's lucky.

[screams]

- We understand that this
one woman's experience that

we've been tracking is the
experience of every woman

in this nightmare universe,
in this "Alice in Wonderland"

wacko reality that we're in.

- I find so often
in history, people

blame women for being
these delicate creatures.

And yet, they subject us
to so much pain and so

much judgment and
so much oppression

and expect us to bear it.

And they get all fucking
surprised when we fall apart

or when we break down.

And even then, they can't
bear to respect the beast

inside of us, the
monstrosity that we

all have repressed within us.

They can't even respect that.

And they say, oh, she's
fucking hysterical.

- That's why something
like "Helter Skelter"

is so powerful.

Just living up to expectations
of what an ideal woman

should be is a job in itself.

It's such a release when you
let go of all the bullshit,

even if it comes with violence.

It's just fun to watch.

But on the other
hand, there's so much

going on in terms of
the gender politics

and these other dynamics that
are at work in this movie.

- I think that
watching horror films

and seeing that a woman can
crumble, a woman can decay,

a woman can transform
into a fucking beast

is kind of cathartic
for most women.

[rock music]

- My first horror film I
was a fan of was "Alien."

The first half of
that movie is Ripley

dealing with a series of men
who are trying to gaslight her.

- You're guaranteed
by law to get a share.

- What?

- Why don't you just fuck off?

- What?

- And they say,
we need to bring

this astronaut onto our ship.

[shrieking]

And Ripley's like, no, that's
a legitimately terrible idea.

- Open the hatch.

- Wait a minute.

If we let it in, the
ship could be infected.

You know the
quarantine procedure.

24 hours for decontamination.

- Ripley's making the right
decision one after another.

And it's a terrifying movie.

[screams]

But these were the role
models I had in my life

starting there.

- As an actress, I would
be sent these scripts.

And at some point,
I would have to turn

to the often male
writer or director

and say, does my
character have a job?

They were just there because
they were somebody's girlfriend

or somebody's mom
or, you know, they

played some role
in relationship

to this male protagonist.

But you didn't know what they
did when they left there.

You didn't know how
they made money.

And unfortunately, we live
in a capitalist economy.

So like, women have to make
money in order to survive.

And it becomes part
of our identity.

- So tell me everything.

- There's two
really interesting

films about women and work that
came out around the same time.

And they both
involve Brea Grant--

"The Stylist."

and "12 Hour Shift."

- Can't wait to see
this with a dress.

- Neither can I. Can
you send me a photo?

- Oh, yeah.

- "The Stylist" is awesome.

It combines everything
you love about "Maniac--"

--with everything you love
about "Single White Female."

- Maybe we could get together
tonight with your bridesmaids

and we could talk about how
you want their hair done.

And then you--

- Claire, honey, this is a lot.

- And it does it in
this super stylish way

as you're watching this
girl, who's a hairstylist.

[laughs]

And she starts to
become obsessed

with one of her clients.

- Claire, are you okay?

- No.

- "12 Hour Shift"
is a dark comedy

about a bunch of
nurses who are selling

organs on the black market.

- I like to use the soda to
keep 'em extra cold in here.

I always say, keeping it
cool is the key to my job.

I made that up.

- It all takes place
over the course of one

12-hour shift when
things go horribly

wrong with their schemes.

- Freeze, motherfucker!

Oh.

Sorry.

Heard a noise.

- Both really amazing films
when it comes to thinking

about women and work.

Because it's about how
women can be taken for

granted in their jobs.

- We agreed on 100 for
the overnight rate, right?

- No, it was, um, it was 150.

- Oh, okay.
150.

- Horror films about women
working in service jobs

in a domestic context
are really interesting,

because there's this
blur between the home

and professional life.

- My mom is a writer.

My first feature, "Nanny,"
is loosely based on her

trajectory, having to put her
dream of writing on the side

to be a domestic worker.

- Rose is in bed.

- Great.

Everything went smooth?
No tantrums?

- No, no.
None at all.

- She is so relaxed with you.

- "Nanny" is a horror film
about a Senegalese woman who

works in New York as a nanny
to a very, very wealthy

couple and their young child.

And the woman is
working very, very hard

to raise money so she can
bring her own child over

to be with her.

- Hi, Mama.

[speaking Senegalese]

- My mom has just always
been, like, this barometer

of ambition for me.

Her entryway into
domestic work really

opened my eyes to the ways that
certain labor is not valued--

- She has not paid
me what I am owed.

- --when the reality is a
lot of these women who work

in the domestic
workforce are keeping

our entire society afloat.

- Since I've started, I
have been buying her food

or making some of my own.

Did you ever wonder how
your child was eating?

Are you too busy to care?

- This is the invisible labor.

And so, at first
I approached it

as a straightforward drama
about an African woman

in America.

- I miss my country.

Every day.

The good parts.

- Do tell me about
the bad parts.

- And then as I started to
really dig into my influences,

I wanted to couch it
in genre and folklore.

I started to incorporate West
African elements that spoke

to the spiritual world, like
being given that permission

to tap into your own culture
and the specificity that makes

your protagonist's
journey just as universal

as any American protagonist.

- When I read "Shadow in
the Cloud," it resonated

with me on many levels--

as a woman who
is underestimated

or gaslit or whatever,
all the things

that we know growing up
to exist in this world

and be a success in this world.

- Roseanne Liang's
"Shadow in the Cloud"

sort of historicizes the
idea of women and work,

because it focuses on
a woman who's a pilot

during World War II.

And she has a special
project that she is sent on.

And she is placed on a plane,
this old rickety plane,

with a big group
of horrible men.

These guys are shitheads.

And so she's trying
to deal with the fact

that gremlins are
taking over the plane.

It's like a wonderful,
fun popcorn movie.

[shouting]

[roars]

But at the same
time, she's sort

of juggling that with the fact
that these guys around her

are just dicks.

- Can we get back to
the subject at hand?

Did you say winged dame?

What do you mean, winged?

- Her arm's broke.

- Who gives a crap
about her arm?

How's her ass?

- The way that you
talk to people,

the way that you make yourself
known, is different for women.

- I'm assigned to this flight.

- This isn't a joyride, missy.

Get off now!

- What the hell is
going on back there?

- I'm commissioned
to this flight.

- Get off my fucking plane!

- Some of the themes in the
film are about what it takes

to get your job done as a woman
in a male-dominated workplace.

- Do not touch me again!

- Ho, ho, ho, ho!

- You all right there, Jack?

- Someone watches
it and goes, oh.

Oh, no.

That's very similar
to something

that happened to me or
something that I've experienced

or that my friends
have experienced

or that my mother
has experienced,

my daughter has experienced.

Everyone around me
has experienced.

You realize, oh my god, I
thought this was history.

But it's our present.

[screams]

[thuds]

- "Sensor" really shows this
kind of collapse and this

transformation that a woman
goes through when the entire

world is turned against her.

- I think I might have
worked out where she is.

- Oh, please, Enid.

Not this again.

- She was looking
for her sister.

And everyone's just like,
let's just have dinner instead.

Couldn't we just enjoy
a lovely family dinner?

- I don't want to grow old
wishing for a happy ending

that we all know
might never come.

- So are you deciding
that she's dead?

- Not recognizing that she
is on the brink of collapse

and that she is taking her
work so seriously because she's

using it as her drug.

And all of these things just
point to me how we women are so

ignored and we're so outcast.

And we're not taken seriously.

And then whenever we
flip out, then everybody

is like, well, where the
fuck did that come from?

- When watching movies about
horror film production,

we can gain a new respect
for the actual work

that so many women do in
front of the camera, too.

Someone like Isabelle
Adjani in "Possession"

is such a powerful
example of a film

making us aware
of just how hard

women work in making horror.

[screams]

- We have to talk
about "Possession."

There are times when
I think to myself,

what happens if I'm
gross on camera?

What happens if I
embarrass myself or others?

And then the only thing I think
of is the ultimate inspiration,

which is "Possession."

- What's going to happen to us?

- It's up to you!

- Then stop coming!

- I have to go!

- I'll follow you!

- Don't even try!

- You'll never stop
thinking about it.

There is no end to
what this woman does.

[gasping]

- Hats off to Isabelle
Adjani for giving

one of the most committed
performances ever captured.

It hits a certain manic pitch
early on and sustains it.

And the sequence with Adjani
in the subway, shrieking,

is indelible, and it's
something I actually

find incredibly hard to watch.

If I watch that
at home, I'm very

conscious that the
neighbors could

call the police at any moment.

[shrieking]

- It's stating the
obvious to say that this

is one of the most memorable
performances in horror film

history.

[shrieking and gasping]

- And in that U-Bahn scene,
what looks like someone giving

birth blurs with the fact
that we're watching a woman

at the peak of her
professional craft acting

the living shit out of it.

[screaming]

- Maternal horror is one of
the very, very rare areas,

not just in screen culture, but
culturally across the board,

where we get to acknowledge
that maybe being a mother

isn't always perfect.

The bodies of pregnant
people become a kind of site

or a forum for a whole
bunch of anxieties

and tensions around gender
politics to play out.

I love my son.

I love you, baby,
if you're watching.

But I have to say, my
experience of pregnancy

and especially of giving birth,
it was not pastel colored.

When I think of
filmic representations

of my experience
of giving birth,

the first thing that comes to
mind is Sergio Martino's film,

"All the Colors of the Dark."

At the very beginning
of this film,

there's this sort of
nightmarish kaleidoscopic

horror show that's like,
people screaming and, whew,

kind of lurid hysteria.

- When you're pregnant, it's
kind of a horror movie--

even if you're very happy
to be pregnant, as I was.

Your body suddenly
changes, like ugh.

It's very like, oh,
I'm a Cronenberg movie.

Suddenly, whew,
there's something

inside me that's poking out.

- Oh.

Motherhood is a horror movie,
just those first six months.

Every single mother
is a final girl.

They should all get the pin.

They've all made it through.

It is the most insane
thing that ever happened

to me, because I was
right in my horror career

when that happened.

My mind was in indie horror.

Anyone who isn't ready to
hear about body horror, pause.

Forward like a minute maybe?

Okay, so my first
child, I tried to push

and it didn't quite work.

[tearing sound]

And they had some concern
that he had a fever.

His heart rate was dropping.

So everything's
fucking terrifying.

And they're like, boom,
it's time for a c-section.

I have no understanding
of what that means.

I am wheeled into
a room, my arms

are strapped down like a cross,
because oftentimes when someone

cuts into your body while
you're awake, unintentionally,

you will try to stop them.

[moaning]

They bump up my spinal block.

You think, oh, I'm numb
from the waist down.

No, no, no, Nanette.

No, no.

You're not numb
from the waist down.

You just don't feel pain.

You can still feel pressure
and the feeling of being cut,

and that makes
you very nauseous.

So we're in a horror
movie already.

I'm chained down and I'm
puking and screaming.

- Get it off!

Come on!

- You feel it cut into you--

[groaning]

- --and then you feel a bunch
of hands enter your body.

And they're inside of you.

There is no way
to describe that.

Women who have a c-section
know what I'm talking about.

And then you won't
lift the baby out.

They first move
all of your organs.

And then they put a
little cut in your uterus,

and then they squeeze the
baby out like a pimple.

It's really intense.

And then a baby
fucking comes out,

and they're like, love it, mom!

Love it forever.

[both shrieking]

- And you're like, it's great.

Oh, god, he's so beautiful.

Except he's covered
in fur and howling

like a freaking werewolf.

And he's blue.

[baby shrieking]

- Oh my god.

[doctor screaming]

- And you're still puking.

And then they decide that they
need to cauterize the wound,

and so they use a
cauterizing and you

smell your own burning flesh.

Smells like bacon.

And then they sew you up.

And then they throw you into
recovery and hand you a baby

and go feed it.

[eerie music]

And then there's
crying in the house

in the middle of the night
and you're not sleeping.

And there's like, when
there's not crying,

there's phantom crying,
where you think of it.

People are trying now
to really talk about it,

but we haven't quite got
there, because I think

they're afraid that
if women really knew,

they wouldn't do it.

And to that I say, fuck
all men, because women

do everything all the
time, even though we know

it's going to be terrible.

- The first film I saw, which
really affected me profoundly,

which I saw when I
was a young teenager,

was "Rosemary's Baby."

- God is dead!

Satan lives!

- If I could really name a
single film that influenced me,

it would be that.

And I know Polanski
is very controversial,

and I'm not defending
his personal behavior.

"Rosemary's Baby" was the first
film I saw, which was truly

from a woman's point of view.

- Read what they do, guy.

They use blood
in their rituals,

and the blood that has the
most power is baby's blood.

And they don't
just use the blood.

They use the flesh, too.

- Rosemary, for god's sakes!

- It really taps into
the nightmare that

is being a pregnant person
and somehow automatically

becoming infantilized.

- Do you hear a baby crying?

- Why, no, I don't, dear.

Now you come and get
into your bed, now.

It's time for you
to take your pill.

- The lengths that people will
go to touch you and pat you

on the head and treat
you like an idiot

because you're pregnant.

- We're your friends, Rosemary.

- There's nothing to
be afraid of, Rosemary.

Honest and truly, there isn't.

- This is nothing but a mild
sedative to calm you down.

- And there's just the way
that she's being patronized,

almost eradicated as a person.

If you're feeling that the
world is not necessarily sunny

and good, and that
there's things that you

should be suspicious
of, "Rosemary's Baby"

is the film for you.

- I've been waking up every
morning with this crazy

old-school idea about
sacrificing your first born

son for fame or something.

- Stewart Thorndike's movie,
"Lyle," which is the--

the reductive way of discussing
it, is that it's a lesbian

version of "Rosemary's Baby."

And it is that.

The director, Stewart
Thorndike, is a queer director.

And she is also a mother.

But what's interesting is that
the character played by Gaby

Hoffmann in "Lyle" is
very different from

Rosemary in "Rosemary's
Baby," because Rosemary

is kind of like--

things are happening to her
and she's kind of freaking out

and she doesn't
know how to react,

whereas Gaby Hoffmann's
character in "Lyle"

is very forceful.

And in certain
parts of the movie,

she becomes hostile
because she's

so protective of her child.

- Get away from me!

Get away from me!

- What?
- Leah.

- She did it.

I told you and you
wouldn't listen to me.

I kept telling you that
there was something wrong.

You never listened to me.
- Calm down, stop.

- There were other things, too.

There was a baby and a little
boy named Andrew who was like,

nine years old.

- "Lyle" is absolutely
acknowledging

that it is riffing
on "Rosemary's Baby"

very directly.

But because they're
a lesbian couple,

Gaby Hoffmann's
character has to be

inseminated by somebody else.

We discover there actually is
a satanic conspiracy afoot.

But there's still
an acknowledgment

that a male child is worth
more than a female child.

- Two girls for one boy.

- With all of the progress
that we think we've made

and all these rights
that we now have,

they have to sacrifice
two female children

to be worth what a male child
would be worth to the devil.

Even in this totally
feminist movie,

there's still an acknowledgment
that we're not there yet.

- There's a tremendous amount
of anxiety in some quarters

about the idea of motherhood
and the sorts of bodies

and people and gender
identities that are attached

to the figure of the
mother or a parent,

full stop, who gets to
raise children, but also

who gets to bear them.

And transmasculine
people increasingly

are bearing children.

And there's plenty of scope for
anxieties about queer parents

to be explored in horror,
probably ideally by queer

filmmakers more than by
straight, middle class,

heteronormative male,
middle aged folk.

- Tadder?

Tad?

- A movie like
"Cujo," Dee Wallace

is going to take on a killer
dog to save her child.

- I want my daddy.

I want
my daddy.

- All right, I'll
get your daddy!

- Her performance in that
film is so incredible,

and you feel that fear.

It's that fear that that
mother feels, that her child

could get eaten by this dog.

- "Cujo" is such an important
film about motherhood,

because it's not just about
the passion and the intensity

and the lengths
that a mother will

go to to protect her child.

It's also about the fact
that mothers sometimes

get things wrong,
that they're human

and that they make mistakes.

- Come on, then!

- I was amazed by,
with all the feelings

of love and patience
and tenderness

that comes with motherhood,

there was also a
savagery behind it,

because I knew that
I would not hesitate

to kill someone or
try to kill someone

if they came after my child.

I would do anything
to protect this baby,

and that was a surprise to me.

This potential for violence
rose when I became a parent.

- Where'd you get this?

- On the shelf.

- "The Babadook" is a horror
film that I have a lot

of trouble revisiting,
not because I

don't think it's
great, but because it

was just too close to home.

My son was maybe two
or three years old

when that film came out.

And all of my fears
were on the screen.

- I can't stand being
around your son.

- I can't believe
you just said that.

- You can't stand being
around him yourself.

- This acknowledgment
that it's not automatic,

that not every woman is going
to be great at being a mother.

- Give it to me!

- In one way, it was
comforting to know that,

but in the context
of "The Babadook,"

it gets pretty extreme.

- You little pig.

Six years old and you're
still wetting yourself.

- And it still chills
me to the bone.

But it speaks to a very real
truth, a very deep fear.

- I don't know why I said that.

It was terrible.

I've had absolutely no sleep.

I didn't know
what I was saying.

- Jennifer Kent made
a film about a mother

trying to take care
of an autistic child

and being haunted by this
crazy top hat monster.

- I think that what Jennifer
Kent is saying about motherhood

in "The Babadook" is that it is
not always a joyful experience.

There are phases of
your life where you

might hate your loved ones.

You may hate your children.

You will come to
love them again.

You still have to come to
terms with all of that,

because there is a person
who's depending on you.

Their life depends on you.

And so it's not always like
how James Cameron depicts

motherhood in the movies.

It's not like Sigourney
Weaver, finding

this little girl
and being like, I

must protect her in "Aliens."

It's not always natural,
because for Essie

Davis's character in "The
Babadook," it's not natural.

It doesn't feel natural,
it doesn't feel right.

But there's still
a sense of duty,

and she still can overcome
it, and she still can

protect her child and herself.

But there's going to
be peril along the way.

- If you touch my son again,
I'll fucking kill you!

[roaring sound]

[screaming]

- I love challenging the
idea of what it means

to be a good mother,
to be a good sister,

to be a good human, but
in this case, a mother

with a troubled past
and a difficult child.

And the extent that not only
the mother is willing to go to,

she almost kills her kid.

- Let me in, you little shit.

Let me in!

Let me in!

Let me in!

- We live in a
society that professes

to love mothers and
support mothers,

but the actions show otherwise.

- We are required to
come back in a week

to talk through your options.

Here's my card.

- Mom!

I think I'm going to vomit.

- So I think it becomes a
horror story for so many women

in different iterations,
whether you're actively

pregnant, or you have a
child that you don't love,

or you have a child
that you resent,

or your child isn't
here with you.

Like, there are so
many iterations that I

think are ripe for horror.

- "The Babadook" and "We
Need to Talk About Kevin"

are an interesting
pair of films in terms

of a mother and child.

- Okay.

Here we go.

Okay?

Okay?

- A mother fearful of a
child being abnormal--

- Isn't that a weird
thing to collect?

- I don't like stamps.

- Perhaps where they
differ, "The Babadook"

mother is projecting
a lot onto that child.

- The Babadook did it, Mum.

- Yes, the child
misbehaves at school,

misbehaves around family.

But a lot of the
fear being brought

into the domestic sphere
is the mother's own doing.

Whereas in "We Need to Talk
About Kevin," the kid seems

pretty clearly off the leash.

- We're going to dinner.

- I was hungry.

- Lynne Ramsay, I
think that she's

just so masterful at thrillers
and cross genre and tension.

- Doesn't Kevin go
to Gladstone High?

- That movie is
just so intense.

The definition of how you're
supposed to love your child,

and also what if your child
ends up being a serial killer?

And how do you deal with that?

- Films like "The Babadook,"
"We Need to Talk About Kevin,"

and "Prevenge" really challenge
assumptions we might make about

the experience of motherhood.

It's a peculiar experience
being a horror fan

and having been pregnant,
because when we think

of having another
person inside you,

we think of possession movies.

We sort of default to things
that are not positive.

- If you loved him,
finish the job.

- "Prevenge" is a film about
how weird it can sometimes feel

to be pregnant and to
be faced with the whole

concept of life and mortality.

- You're getting
better at this.

- Do you think so?

- Oh, yes.

- How being pregnant sort of
sharpens the awareness of what

being alive really
means in the face

of the inevitability of death.

- It's a cutthroat
world, you know.

[rock music playing]

- It's a hard thing
to talk about aging.

We shy away from it.

We don't want to face it.

It's painful.

One of the most painful
things, and somewhere

that we're all headed
for, unless we die young.

- I can't believe how old I am.

I look and I go,
God, I'm really--

what are those wrinkles?

And then I kind of, when I have
my inner joy, I look great.

- I don't want to die, Elise.

- You have a long
life ahead of you.

I cross my heart.

- You're never too old
to express yourself.

I'm not ashamed of it at all.

I love it.

[cocks gun]

- No more games.

- I wanted a story where the
old ladies are the heroes,

where the older
age, the wise age,

are the ones that kick ass.

- Let's go introduce ourselves
to this pinche gringo.

- "Bingo Hell" tells the story
about the community of Oak

Springs, this small,
small community

in the most ghetto
side of the city

where it's being gentrified.

But those wacky seniors who
refused to be gentrified

decide to stay.

But little did they know that
their beloved Bingo Hall was

going to be bought by somebody
much more powerful than

money itself.

- Welcome to our house!

Puta!

- It was so inspired by
my abuela, my grandma.

I wanted to make a movie
where she can sit with me

and see herself as the hero.

And I don't think we have
that enough in horror movies.

- Some of the most indelible
characters in horror

are aged women, or
women of a certain age,

but then perhaps
a bit older still.

And hence terms arising
like hagsploitation

for those sorts of
films like "Whatever

Happened to Baby Jane?"--

[screams]

- --where one-time glamour
pusses like Bette Davis

and Joan Crawford get to
duke it out in the cattiest,

bitchiest way imaginable.

- Like, I should be horrified
more than I am, sort of camply

entertained as well.

But the sight of
the aged figure

is one that is horrific, or
regularly depicted as horrific.

- There's plenty of
room at your place.

- No, it's not about room.

She has to be watched.

- Well, isn't
that how it works?

Your mom changes your nappies
and then you change hers?

- The film that affected
me the most, probably,

was "Relic," by an
Australian director

called Natalie Erika James.

It's such a profound movie.

I also had a mother
with dementia.

And the pain of
watching someone who'd

been very beautiful and
vibrant and very brilliant

in sort of decline.

It caught the
dreamlike and surreal

nature of what is really
common to everyone's

experience of aging.

It is like a bad dream.
It is surreal.

- I'll do it myself.

- You've hurt yourself.
Just--

- No!
Get out!

- Stop.

- Get out of here!
Get out!

Get out!

- I think madness is a
very scary thing to me,

losing control
over your own mind.

- It's my room!
It's my house!

Get out!

- Old age is its
own horror movie.

And then with a
parent, you watch them,

almost in front of your eyes,
suddenly sort of disintegrate.

It created this tangible but
quite beautiful, I think,

experience of the horror
of aging and dementia.

- Stop!
No!

- The aging female body
is often a site of horror,

and that extends well
beyond the filmic sphere,

rightly or wrongly.

- It's easy to dismiss
horror as being

kind of backwards
or regressive when

it comes to the
representation of older women.

Maybe I'm a glass-half-full
kind of person,

but for me, what's
more important is

that women do stuff,
even if they're monsters.

They have agency
and they have power.

And it might be dark power,
it might be fucked-up power,

but they do stuff.

- "Hausu" is an absolutely
wackadoodle Japanese film.

It's about a group
of young schoolgirls

who travel to a country house
owned by one of their aunties.

And they don't realize that
she's actually a spirit.

And she has been driven to
this sort of homicidal mania

by the memory of her fiancé,
who died during World War II.

Now, the girls don't
realize that any of this

is going on until they all
start dying one by one.

And the spirit of
the aunt actually

takes over one of the girls.

[speaking Japanese]

And on one hand,
we have this really

great, vibrant, energetic
film that-- it's

just so wild to watch.

[screaming]

But on the other hand,
we have this sort

of undercurrent about memory
and the war, which you don't

really pick up necessarily
on the first time

that you watch it.

But you really feel it the more
times that you view this film.

The young generation
have forgotten the war

and they don't have the
same emotional scars

that the older generation do.

[psychotic laughter]

I have a real soft
spot for horror movies

that put young girls or
young women in very, very

sharp contrast
with older women,

and to show who has the
power and who has the agency,

and what meanings can we
draw from these about gender

politics more broadly.

- Miss Tanner, I have
something to tell you.

- Squawk, squawk.
Polly parrot.

- Who said that?

Shut up!

- That's enough of these
little games for the moment.

- "Suspiria," of course,
is set in a ballet school,

and that film effectively
pits two generations

of women against each other.

We have the older
women, the coven,

the witches, and the younger
women, the ballet students.

And while the older
women are clearly

monstrous in comparison to
the beautiful young women,

they're powerful.

It's a film about different
kinds of women's power.

What is so enduring about that
film is that it's about what

kinds of power women
have at different ages

and how it changes in old age.

- I love "Suspiria."

It is a fairy-tale fever
dream about a girl played

by Jessica Harper,
who is the new girl

at a German dance academy.

And she discovers
that her classmates

are being killed one by one.

[screaming, clatter]

And she decides to get to the
heart of what is going on.

What's really cool
about the movie

is that it's primarily
a female cast.

The bad guys are also women.

You have the girls helping
each other, passing information

to each other to try to
figure out what's going on.

And then you also
have the women

of the coven who are working
together to kill the girls.

So in ways, it's like
women supporting women.

Going off the fact that it
was influenced by Snow White,

you do have this dichotomy
of the young maiden

and the old crone.

And the movie explores age.

And it makes sense,
because it does

take place in a dance academy.

It is about ballerinas.

And in that world, you age
out of it really quickly.

- And 1, and 2, and 3, and 4.

- "Suspiria" is
obviously sensitive

to the whole idea of
youth that makes the young

women viable ballerinas.

But what makes
it so interesting

is how it also delights
in showing us these older

women who refuse to disappear.

They just become empowered
in different ways.

We're really lucky
in horror, I think,

where we don't necessarily
throw out women

once they reach a certain age.

I think of people like
Barbara Crampton, who's surely

doing some of the
best work that she's

ever done in her career now.

- I feel more alive
than I have in years.

- We can add to that
list Brinke Stevens.

- I prefer that you
address me as Mother.

- Debbie Rochon--

Debbie Rochon directed a film
called "Model Hunger"

with Lynn Lowry,
which is so much fun.

But it's precisely about issues
about aging and getting older

and feeling
redundant, and feeling

that you're being
replaced by younger women,

and what you do about that.

And in her film, the
answer is violence.

- What have you done?

All you have done is
to constantly explore

new ways to exploit women!

You fuck with our minds just so
you can fuck with our bodies!

- I think it's a really nice
fuck you to these little men,

these sort of little
small boys who insist

that horror is only for them.

But horror is for everyone,
because death is for everyone,

no matter who we are.

The best-case scenario is that
we might live to be really old.

Most of us will
just get really sick

and die, breaking the
hearts of those who love us.

If we're lucky, we'll
end up crumbling

and turning to dust like
at the end of "The Hunger."

I mean, is that the best-case
scenario, that all that's left

is a faded photograph of
someone that we used to be?

[creepy music]

- Famously, the film
industry has subjected

women to any number of
indignities and impediments

to progress.

- I've talked to my friends
who are men that direct,

and then I've also
talked to my friends

that are women that direct.

And there is such
a clear difference

in terms of some of the things
we deal with on a daily basis.

I've dealt with so much
gaslighting that it's comical.

I'm laughing about it, because
I've dealt with it so much,

to the point where
they, whether it

be a producer or whomever,
makes you believe it.

Like, oh, do you
really want to do that?

Do you really want that shot?

And it's like
yeah, motherfucker,

I made the shot list.

Yeah, of course
I want that shot.

I've come so prepared.

And then they just-- it's
like they just want to plant

these little seeds of doubt.

- Raising your hand
every time there's

a microaggression
just isn't possible,

and it's not worth my time.

It's not worth
most people's time,

just because it's exhausting.

We all have work to do.

I just don't have time to
deal with this person's

rude comments.

It's weird to need
to make that choice.

But that's kind of what I see
happening, at least in my life.

- In the beginning,
people laughed in my face

when I said I was
making a film.

Oh, that's cute.

You know, making
a film is hard.

And I was just like, well yeah.

Like, so is fucking
getting out of bed

and taking care of your
children, your husband, and

your job, and the household.

I didn't need a fucking
dick to hold the camera.

In fact, I think it would
be pretty hard to hold

a camera with your cock.

- For people who are
not the traditional idea

of the director,
John Ford with a

megaphone out on
the fucking tundra.

I didn't see myself as
a director early on,

is because I never
saw female directors.

[screaming]

- "Eve's Bayou," Kasi Lemmons.

It was one of the
first times that I

saw on the screen
black folklore

being weaved into genre.

Seeing a woman who looks even
remotely like me executing this

was so pivotal for me.

- 68, take two, mark.

- As an actor, I worked with
a lot of mediocre directors.

None of them were women.

I didn't feel like they
had something to say.

I feel like they were
driven by their egos.

Action!

But I think, hopefully,
some of those people

are being phased out and we're
replacing them with people who

really are inspired
to do this job,

and do it in a
way that is smart

and interesting and
new and inspired.

I won't name names.

- It's not just about
women who are actresses,

or women who are directors.

Some of the biggest horror
films that we have would not

be what they are
without the women

involved in a producer role.

I'm thinking Debra
Hill in "Halloween"

and of course, Sara Risher and
"The Nightmare on Elm Street"

films.

- I started as a
studio executive.

And I became then
President of Production.

And there were very
few other presidents

of production at that time.

- I'm going to go and
get the guy who did it.

And I want you to
be there to arrest

him when I bring him out, okay?

- When I got on the set and
I was needing to boss people

around, as a producer
sometimes has to do,

that could be
difficult. Because it's

like a construction site.

It's very male.

- Where are you?

- Everything's going
to be all right.

Everything's under control.

- Get my father, you asshole.

- It's only recently that
diversity has happened a lot,

where women get
roles as directors.

- There has been a tremendous
amount of

inclusion, gratefully.

There's still a lot of
lingering prejudice, which

people pretend they don't
have, which is even more

unnerving some of the time.

- It definitely feels like
there's more female-directed,

female-produced movies
now than when I started.

[roaring]

[screams]

- Women are not new
to horror filmmaking.

Two extremely influential
examples that come to mind are

Germaine Dulac with "The
Seashell and the Clergyman"

from 1928, and Maya
Deren from the 1940s

"Meshes of the Afternoon."

Extraordinarily
influential films

with plenty of horror in them.

- I think we should also
take a step back and take

a bird's-eye historical
view of horror storytelling,

and see that women have always
been a part of this legacy.

Scheherazade doing a book of
"A Thousand and One Nights."

So there's horror
storytelling right there.

And then you have Mary Shelley
writing "Frankenstein."

You have Shirley Jackson doing
horror in the '40s and '50s.

In so many ways,
women have always

had a seat at this table.

And so for my generation
of filmmakers coming,

it's more like we're reclaiming
the seat than making new space.

It's space that's
always been there

and it's just there to be
claimed and maybe repositioned

at the head of the table.

- Can you believe that
bland and lovely brow

conceived of Frankenstein?

- Well, why shouldn't
I write a monster?

- The influence of Mary
Shelley's "Frankenstein"

on horror cannot
be underplayed.

And it's not just the
story of "Frankenstein"

and how that's impacted
horror, it's also Mary herself.

And there are these horror
films that are about Mary

Shelley writing "Frankenstein,"
things like "A Nightmare Wakes"

and Ken Russell's "Gothic."

- My story is a story of
creation of a creature who's

racked with pain and
sorrow and hunger

for revenge, who haunts his
mad creator and his family

and his friends.

- Mary Shelley
was goth as fuck.

[mysterious music]

[baby crying]

She understood fear in a
really kind of personal way.

Are you going to
survive childbirth?

How are you going to
survive this really

tumultuous marriage?

- You spiteful, jealous man.

- The life of an artist.

- My novel!

That was my world!

- I was your world.

- These awful things that
are going on with her.

And when she writes
"Frankenstein,"

that's coming from an
extremely personal place.

And it's also setting
the tone, I think,

for a lot of great
horror that follows it.

- Mary Shelley is
the progenitrix

of horror, and especially
body horror and mad scientist

horror, and that nexus of
science fiction and horror,

the fear of what's possible.

- Of recent horror, I would
say the one that's blown

my mind is "Titane."

This character, spoiler alert,
has a sexual relationship

with a car--

[grunting]

--and then comes to be
impregnated by that car,

and it's taking over her body.

And essentially it's like,
making her no longer human.

- "Titane" is in a
world of its own.

It's just like, through one
character's lens who is also

a psychopath and a murderer.

[screams]

She also becomes something
beyond gender, both a mother

and a kind of sexual
temptress, but also enjoys

the kind of
masculine attributes

of being like a fire person.

- Julia Ducournau
is clearly one

of the leading lights
of horror in the 2020s,

and no doubt beyond.

"Titane" won the
Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Films directed by
women routinely

do not win such prestigious
awards in the first place,

let alone for making a body
horror film that confounds

any number of expectations.

- What are we
supposed to do now?

- Horror filmmaking has been
so much through a male lens

in really the
history of cinema,

and it made me
very excited to see

what's to come as
we see more women

working in the horror genre.

- And here we are.

I wrote a book called
"1,000 Women In Horror."

And the joke of that book is
that, of course, there's more

women in horror than 1,000.

You'd be forgiven for
believing that women in horror

is a new interest,
is something that

is a sort of recent phenomena.

But this is not true.

It's only been in
recent years, however,

that these films have been
exhibited and distributed

widely, that major publications
have started focusing on them.

And very importantly,
this is really largely

to do with the extremely hard
work of an international group

of women that have spearheaded
the women in horror movement.

It is a feminist
activist movement very

much in the tradition
of something

like Riot grrrl in the 90s.

- I love that "1,000
Women In Horror" exists,

that that book exists, and
that it's sort of reminding

everyone, oh yeah.

This is a group of people
that are not represented

as much as they should be.

- I'm just trying to put more
women on screen who also are

really afraid, and being
as human and kind of flawed

as possible.

- As I've seen the
change of how diversity,

of how new voices and
unrepresented voices are being

so welcomed in the industry
and more than anything,

the horror community.

- I'm very happy with
how things are going.

If you look at how it changed,
it's been extraordinary.

- There are more people
who are open to letting

a woman helm films.

There are more people who
are interested in having

female protagonists
and seeing stories

from a woman's point of view.

- It's finally hitting people
that there's only so much

of a white Western perspective
people can take before things

get a bit boring and stale.

- They kind of came
around to realizing.

It's like, yeah, when it
comes to other cultures

and other genders and
other sexualities,

we can't just have
cisgendered straight white men

writing all of this.

- I just crave a variety
of representation

that can be inclusive
of trans people

being as monstrous
as anybody else.

- As women, as trans
people, as queer people,

tapping into what the horrors
are that we're navigating, I'm

just excited about horror not
being literally these jump

scares and these tropes,
but like evolving them

into something that feels
much more contemporary

and much more nuanced.

- I mean, for
fuck's sake, we're

50% of the goddamn population.

Like, is it so strange to
see a woman as a protagonist

or to hear her story?

- Why should we wait
for anyone to give us

permission to do what we want?

[groaning]

- You underestimating
me is going

to do me favors,
because I'm going

to show you what I'm made of.

[gunshot]

- We're here, and we're
not going anywhere.

- There's a lot more
to say on the topic.

[chuckling]

[heavy metal music]

♪ ♪