Horror has enough female victims. What about female villains? While there’s certainly a disparity in the number of male killers to female killers in the history of horror film, the scarcity of bloodlusty ladies has at least had the effect of complicating, and often making more interesting the backstories of these individual rarities. I’m not talking vampires or other forms of feminine supernatural beings, but realistically-coded murdering women.
Obsession buoyed by delusions and fantasy drives some of the women on this list into bloodletting, others are fueled by rage against the patriarchal establishment. With the Shudder premiere of Craig William McNeill’s Lizzie, which follows famed 19th century ax-murderer Lizzie Borden in the events leading up to her breaking point, we thought it opportune to remember some of our favorite killing ladies:
Aileen Wuornos in Monster (2003)
Charlize Theron’s iconic performance as notorious real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos will be forever remembered as the actress’s most impressive physical transformation. The feature directorial debut of Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins, Monster is an acting tour-de-force that follows Wuornos’ dehumanization as she accrues more and more male victims. Based in part on the Nick Broomfield documentaries on Wuornos, Monster is a serial killer flick with a heavy dose of pathos. Wuornos certainly becomes a “monster,” but the movie makes sure to give motive for the madness. An alienated prostitute living in a slummy part of Florida, Wuornos begins a relationship with the equally struggling Selby (Christina Ricci). Driven to desperation, Wuornos loses control and resorts to murder as both a means of making ends meet and as emotional catharsis. Above all, Monster is a character study of a woman pushed to her limits and driven to violence as a result of a life marred by patriarchal abuse.
Mother Martha in Deep Red (1975)
Dario Argento’s giallo classic is an inversion of expected gender roles, casting Marcus (David Hemmings) as the sleuth and damsel in distress to Mother Martha’s psycho killer (played by Clara Calamai). Martha, mother of Marcus’s best friend, Carlos, is a faded actress suffering from a deranged form of bipolar disorder that has her shift from ruthless, but disturbingly childlike killer in one instance, to normal, sympathetic older women in the next. Hospitalized after killing her husband on Christmas Eve years ago, Martha returns to live with her son and begins terrorizing Marcus and those around him, until her true identity is discovered at the film’s climax — along with her terrifying collection of creepy dolls and murder tools.
Lola Stone in The Loved Ones (2009)
Rejection can be a nightmare. That goes double for young people running on the fuels of raging hormones. Lola “Princess” Stone (Robin McLeavy) is one of the school’s resident freaks, with delusions of one day taking her prince charming, Brent (Xavier Samuel), to a dance in which she’ll be crowned queen. But when an already traumatized Brent rejects Lola’s real life proposal, Lola takes matters into her own hands by kidnapping Brent and subjecting him to torturous in-house festivities set up by her equally deranged father. Turns out Brent is not the first prince charming to disappoint, as Lola uncovers a pit of reject “frog” dates that she’s personally lobotomized. A fucked-up family affair of repressed incestual impulses, The Loved Ones riffs on Carrie but plays out on home turf, where Lola is able to enact all her murderous dreams on the boys that continually fail to live up to her expectations.
Asami Yamazaki in Audition (1999)
When Aoyama stages a fake casting call in an attempt to find a woman of romantic interest, the single father meets the beautiful Asami (Eihi Shiina), who swiftly demands Aoyama pledge his fidelity to her and only her. Aoyama consents, but when Asami discovers his emotional investment is also split amongst his son and the memory of his late wife, she exacts revenge by drugging Aoyama and torturing him by increasingly sadistic means. Audition’s feminist value is often debated, with audiences split between reading Aoyama as simply a mentally sick femme fatale on the one hand. On the other hand, Asami’s actions are a powerful, vengeful counter to the type of objectification that Japanese women suffer daily, as evinced by the romantic “audition” of the film’s first act.
Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme in Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Friendships that develop as a result of traumatic experiences in common can be intense, even dangerous according to Peter Jackson’s early psychological thriller, Heavenly Creatures. Based on the true life Parker-Hulme murder case of 1954, this movie follows Juliet Hulme (Kate Winslet) and Pauline Parker (Melanie Lynskey), two teenage girls of disparate class backgrounds that form an intense friendship that teeters into the erotic. A bright, candy-colored color pallette characterizes the film as the girls sink deeper and deeper into dizzying delusions that will lead them horrifically astray. When family complications threaten to tear the girls apart, the two plot and (and ultimately succeed) in murdering the perceived source of their separation — Pauline’s mother.
Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) in Misery (1990)
The term “stan” might be a recent invention, but there’s nothing new about unhealthy celebrity obsession devolving into something more villainous. Kathy Bates plays one such off-the-rails stan in Misery, the adaptation of a Stephen King novel that pits expectation versus reality as the tipping point for Bates’ fangirl, Annie Wilkes. When Paul Sheldon (James Caan), the writer of popular romance novels featuring a character named Misery, suffers a car accident, nurse Annie rescues the badly injured man and rushes him off to heal at her remote cabin home. Paul gives Annie access to a new unpublished Misery manuscript as he recuperates, but when the story does not read to her liking, Annie’s demented streak begins to show — to traumatizing results.
Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) in Friday the 13th (1980)
What would a list about female killers be without the iconic Mrs. Voorhees? You guys know the story — teenage camp counselors are murdered one by one by one by what’s thought to be the vengeful spirit of the drowned ex-camper, Jason Voorhees. Turns out his mom’s still bitter about her son’s death, and is taking it out on the sort of kids she believes were responsible. Played by Betsy Palmer in the original Friday the 13th, Pamela Voorhees is a small sweater-wearing mom with blonde pixie hair — all the better to throw off the scent!
Nadine and Manu in Baise-Moi (2000)
A staple of the New French Extremity, Baise-Moi is a straightforward, blood-soaked tale of female vengeance and rampage. Manu (Raffaëla Anderson), a rape victim, randomly encounters deadbeat Nadine (Karen Lancaume) on the streets, and the two soon realize they share comparable levels of rage and an equal number of fucks: zero. The girls embark on a merciless countrywide killing spree, leaving dead cops and bloodied, sodomized men in their wake. Beyond the lead-up to their fateful union, there’s not much of a plot to Baise-Moi. It’s pure, unfiltered havoc; a deeply flawed, but refreshingly unrepentant scream in the name of feminine empowerment.
