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Horror Was Giving Us Strong Female Characters Long Before ‘Wonder Woman’

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A few weeks ago, mainstream film-goers discovered something that horror fans have known for decades: films featuring women kicking ass are pretty damn awesome.

Sure, it’s great—amazing, even—that Wonder Woman is currently showing Hollywood executives that female directors and lead actresses are every bit as talented and box office-busting as their male colleagues. But most horror fans I know—male and female—are somewhat frustrated with all the feminist praise this movie continues to receive.

Yes, we all love Wonder Woman. We adore that the film is packed with strong women who defeat any foe who comes their way—women, and especially little girls (who should probably steer clear of most the films I’m about to discuss until they are teens) need to see powerful ladies in action. And we’re giddy that the movie is directed by the incredibly talented Patty Jenkins.

But if all of y’all film lovers were really paying attention to the evolution of women in film, you would have noticed that strong female characters and directors have long been staples of the horror genre. And they deserve that feminist praise all the same.

When I was a teenager, I regularly walked to my local video store to check-out any and all horror movies with creepy VHS covers. I devoured cult classics like Microwave Massacre, Cheerleader Camp, and Tourist Trap, and horror essentials like Halloween I and II. But the movies that stuck with me—OK, haunted my dreams—were Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I Spit on Your Grave.

Although Sally in Texas Chainsaw wasn’t the first final girl, she certainly was the loudest and most realistic survivor who earned the last-woman-standing designation. She survived multiple attempts at her life, cannibals, and an Ed Gein-looking, chainsaw wielding, motherfucker. And at the end of those trials, she reacted like any of us would have: by screaming maniacally.

Although Sally’s character kind of horrified me at first, I started to better understand her sheer terror and pain as I grew up. Her character, while mostly in peril, exuded something I hadn’t seen in a female character before—the animalistic but all-too-human drive to survive.

Later, when I watched the brutal exploitation, rape-revenge film I Spit on Your Grave, I was absolutely captivated by Jennifer. As a teen, I had no real concept of what Jennifer had truly experienced in that film—I just knew that the trauma and pain she went through didn’t stop her from fucking shit up when she had the chance.

Later in my life, when I had experienced sexual assault and the everyday hate life throws at all of us, Jennifer and everything she stood for became truly important to me. Jennifer is all of us who have experienced trauma but have not allowed those experiences to trample our spirit. And although most survivors don’t get the chance to cut off our rapists’ genitalia, we are able to fight back by living the life these assholes tried to take away.

At least the horror industry gets it…

It almost goes without saying that since the 1970s—when Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I Spit on Your Grave were released—plenty of female-led and directed horror films have been made. But apparently, I have to say it—nay, yell it—because people still don’t give these female genre leaders their due.

Let’s just pick a female who has directed a few horror films with interesting female characters. I’m going to go with… Karyn K. Kusama.

Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body, a supremely campy romp with two stellar female leads, and her more recent The Invitation, a haunting take on loss, both feature complex female characters. And the traditional film industry and many mainstream moviegoers mostly just didn’t care.

Last year’s Neon Demon was panned, and some may say rightly so, but its cast, which is mostly female, was largely ignored by the mainstream.

Other great films with strong female leads or that are helmed by women directors have met a similar fate… Candyman, Raw, The Witch, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, You’re Next, American Psycho, The Descent, Alien… I could go on.

Granted, some of these films got recognition, but that praise mostly came from inside the industry and then filtered out into the world.

Although it’s frustrating that Hollywood and mainstream audiences largely ignore the talented women within the genre, it’s insanely cool that the horror industry continues to recognize these talented artists.

Jill Gevargizian, director and writer, says she and other female directors have received a lot of support from the horror industry and its fans. Gevargizian’s last short, The Stylist, was well received and won 20 awards on its festival run.

It’s [successful women directors and leads] definitely been a huge topic in the scene and people seem to be reacting well,” Gevargizian says. I am not sure the same can be said for the industry. Because as we can see, not many women are getting a chance to direct big films.

Gevargizian also rightly points out that the genre has and continues to be rife with talented women. “Even women in the industry note that the [scene] itself is full of support, but outsiders just don’t seem to get it,” she says. It’s probably the biggest genre for female-led films.”

In addition to receiving an insane amount of positive feedback on her work, Gevargizian has gotten a lot of support from other horror actresses and women directors, too.

Jen and Sylvia Soska have helped me out tremendously,” she says. 

They gave me huge opportunities early in my career. I was their second-unit director on ‘ABCs OF DEATH 2’ and I directed segments the past three years on their ‘Massive Blood Drive PSA’. They’ve truly been there for me and given me advice when needed. They’ve been nothing but cheerleaders for me and my career—it’s quite humbling.”

So you see, Wonder Woman IS groundbreaking in the realm of superhero movies. But let’s not forget that strong female characters have been part of the horror genre since the beginning. Long before Wonder Woman, actresses like Hilligos, Curtis and Weaver inspired and helped change the game for women in film.

Horror’s wonder women must not go unrecognized by the mainstream.

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Five Serial Killer Horror Movies to Watch Before ‘Longlegs’

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Pictured: 'Fallen'

Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.

At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.


MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)

This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.

But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.

I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.

Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”

In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.


CURE (1997)

Longlegs serial killer Cure

If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.

In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.

At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.

What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.

If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.


MANHUNTER (1986)

Longlegs serial killer manhunter

In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.

In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.

Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.

Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”


INSOMNIA (2002)

Insomnia Nolan

Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.

Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.

This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.

Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.

If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.


FALLEN (1998)

Longlegs serial killer fallen

Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.

In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.

Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!

Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.


Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.

Longlegs serial killer

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