Editorials
Hot Pink Horror and the Color of Feminine Rage [1989 Week]
Presented by Lisa Frankenstein, 1989 Week is dialing the clock back to the crossroads year for the genre with a full week of features that dig six feet under into the year. Today, Jenn Adams puts a candy-colored lens over the hot pink horror sub-genre.
The color most associated with the horror genre is undoubtedly red. Not only the hue of blood and anger, it’s also the shade of the iconic devil – a masculine figure said to be the source of all evil. But in recent years a new color has emerged to evoke a different kind of rage. Hot pink has become the new tone of female-centered horror. An effeminate variation of blood red, this electric hue combines the strawberry tones of wholesome girlhood with the electric fires of female empowerment.
Zelda Williams uses this color to her advantage in her horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein. Quiet and reserved, Lisa (Kathryn Newton) is still trying to adjust to life at a new high school when a freak lightning storm resurrects the dreamy corpse who’s grave she’s been tending. Hiding the Creature (Cole Sprouse) in her bright pink bedroom, Lisa begins to restore his decaying body with a sewing kit and a hot pink tanning bed. Williams bathes the film in rosy hues, evoking the girly pop iconography of the late ’80s.
Lisa Frankenstein may perfect the use of hot pink horror, but Williams is not the first filmmaker to play in a magenta sandbox. Each of the following five films display this empowering color as a unique metaphor for feminine strength.
Jennifer’s Body
Fifteen years before Diablo Cody created Lisa and her Creature, she wrote the hot pink horror classic Jennifer’s Body. Directed by Karyn Kusama, Jennifer (Megan Fox) is a gorgeous cheerleader who morphs into a boy-eating monster after surviving ritual sacrifice at the hands of an evil boy band.
The film’s most enduring image is of Jennifer – full after gorging herself on a clueless football player – sauntering down a high school hall in petal pink earrings, and a hoodie covered with cherry red hearts. Everyone else fades into the background as Jennifer approaches, electrifying the world with her feminine glow. After a lifetime of designing her appearance to appeal to men, she has become the predator – the boys who once judged her are now her prey.
Kusama uses the color to evoke female power in the film’s climax as well. With the bodies beginning to stack up, Jennifer’s best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried) decides that something must be done to stop this insatiable lady killer. She dons a magenta, ’80s-inspired dress and sets off to find Jennifer at prom before she can devour any more unsuspecting boys. Needy also strikes a devastating blow with a can of pink pepper spray, the physical manifestation of a woman’s protective rage.
The Loved Ones
Jennifer may be a powerful predator, but she’s nothing compared to the sadistic Lola (Robin McLeavy) in Sean Byrne’s 2009 shocker The Loved Ones. This awkward loner loves all things girly and spends her days drawing hearts in her yearbook around the face of her latest crush. With the school dance approaching, Lola takes a chance and asks out Brent (Xavier Samuel), a popular classmate with problems of his own. He politely declines, but Lola unleashes her hidden rage and sends her Daddy (John Brumpton) to punish Brent for this rejection. They kidnap the poor teen and force him to attend a private dance set in the living room of their remote house.
Dressed in a pink satin dress, Lola brutally tortures Brent and prepares to turn her “prince” into a zombified “frog.” We learn that Brent is merely the latest in a long line of suitors Lola has targeted with her malevolent love. Demanding to be treated like a princess, she uses her femininity as a vicious weapon and destroys any man who refuses to submit. The film’s iconic posters feature Lola in her pink dress and paper crown pointing an electric drill at the camera, a disturbing portrait of female fury.
The Neon Demon
Nicolas Winding Refn uses hot pink to symbolize a different kind of female aggression in The Neon Demon, a striking film about the cannibalistic world of L.A. modeling. Refn introduces us to a young ingénue named Jesse (Elle Fanning) lying motionless on a couch in an electric blue dress covered in bright red blood. Despite this gruesome styling, she wears flamingo pink makeup on her eyes and lips, subtly hinting at her desire to succeed in this shallow world. The disturbing tableau pans out to reveal pink neon lights surrounding the set, as if poised to consume the naive young model. At an industry party two older women verbally tear her down in a bathroom lit with magenta light and she’s signed by a duplicitous agent wearing a striking fuchsia pantsuit.
Jesse quickly learns that it’s every woman for herself in this cut-throat industry. The pastel pinks and soft muslin whites of her own wardrobe slowly morph into more striking and severe garments as she begins to unleash her inner strength. While preparing to close a high profile fashion show, she catches a glimpse of her sinister alter-ego in the geometrical mirrors and finds herself reborn on the runway’s scorching raspberry lights. Having fully embraced her power and potential, she later stands in a strawberry robe and covers her face with bright pink glitter. With her competitors waiting with baited breath, Jessie finds herself fully immersed in the cruel world of hot pink artifice – for better or worse.
M.F.A.
Rape-revenge films have never been known for their subtlety. Though opinions vary wildly, many have accused older subgenre entries of exploiting sexual assault and capitolizing on a crime far too common in the real world. However, a new wave of filmmakers are attempting to reclaim the narrative by telling this horrific story through a female lens. Natalia Leite’s 2017 film M.F.A. tackles campus rape from an informed perspective with a moving script written by co-star Leah McKendrick. Noelle (Francesca Eastwood) is a college co-ed struggling to earn a graduate degree in visual art when she’s assaulted by a popular member of her studio. When her school’s administration cares more about sweeping this violent crime under the rug, Noelle takes matters into her own hands in an unplanned confrontation that leads to her attacker’s accidental death.
Stunned by a newfound feeling of power, Noelle embarks on a mission of revenge and seeks out other campus rapists who escaped prosecution. In a pivotal sequence, she dons a hot pink wig and crashes a fraternity party hell-bent on tracking down the perpetrators of a brutal gang rape. Noelle lures her target into her trap with this enticing mix of seduction and strength. Once she has him alone, she pounces and makes him pay a brutal price for the pain he has caused other women. Like a superhuman vigilante, Noelle uses this bright pink color as a powerful disguise allowing her to hide her own pain and demand the justice she’s been denied.
Revenge
Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge is a more fantastical examination of the rape-revenge subgenre connected to M.F.A. with a hot pink thread. When Jen (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz), a gorgeous if naive socialite on a weekend getaway with her rich boyfriend Richard (Kevin Janssens), climbs out of a helicopter in the opening scene she embodies the bubblegum innocence of a young woman in love. Unfortunately, Richard’s two associates show up unannounced and one of these brutish men sexually assaults her while his boss’s back is turned. Loving boyfriend that he is, Richard decides to handle the matter by pushing Jen off a cliff.
Having survived this horrific attack, Jen crawls into a nearby cave and tends to her wounds. She emerges transformed and becomes a warrior determined to punish these despicable men. Now a fearsome predator dressed in black, Jen looks nothing like the carefree young woman who first arrived at the desert bungalow. But despite this dramatic transformation, she never removes her pink star earrings. Jen may pick up the weapons of the men who are hunting her, but she holds onto the essence of who she is. This signature accessory becomes a symbol of female strength and a powerful reminder of who she will be on the other side of revenge.
Fargeat’s film is no doubt a harrowing watch, but it perfectly encapsulates the power of hot pink horror. Women do not have to adopt a masculine persona to find our own strength and we don’t have to lose track of what makes us uniquely identify as female. It’s called hot pink for a reason. Not only does the color imply the unique traits of a girlish joy, it also burns with the electric fire of our feminine rage.
Lisa Frankenstein is Now Playing Only in Theaters. Get Tickets Now!
Director Sébastien Vaniček has been set to helm the next Evil Dead movie, and it’s easy to see why with his feature debut, the spider horror movie Infested. Playing like a cross between Attack the Block and Arachnophobia, Infested makes you care about its characters while delivering no shortage of skin-crawling spider horror moments.
Available now on Shudder, Infested follows Kaleb (Théo Christine), a lonely 30 year old who’s estranged from his best friend and at odds with his sister over their crumbling apartment. His dreams of opening a reptile zoo get drastically thwarted when he brings home an illegally acquired desert spider, one that happens to be gravid, and it gets loose. One hatched egg sac gives way to hundreds more, plunging the apartment building into a visceral arachnophobic nightmare.
It’s not just that Infested employs real spiders for many of the skin-crawling horror moments that make it so effective, though that certainly is a factor. Or in the way the spiders’ venom inflicts a painful, grotesque demise. It’s in the constant escalation of the horror and the way Vaniček captures the arachnids on screen. These eight-legged terrors may not exist in the real world, thankfully, but the movements look authentic enough to make you squirm. That authenticity, the high octane energy, and the constant rise and fall of palpable tension as the spiders skitter about and wreak devastation are enough to leave viewers curling into the fetal position.
While Infested offers no shortage of arachnophobia-inducing moments, from tiny shoebox origins to giant garage encounters, we’re counting down six of the most skin-crawling moments of spider terror. Warning: some plot and death spoilers ahead…
6. Shoe Babies
Poor Toumani (Ike Zacsongo). He finally gets a shiny new pair of coveted sneakers after wearing his to the point of falling apart, only to get bit by a spider when he tries them on. It’s a move straight out of Arachnophobia. Director Sébastien Vanicek draws out the tension in this unsettling scene; the audience knows there’s a spider somewhere in that box as Toumani struggles with the light switch (hell, foreshadowing) before finally giving up to test his new kicks on the stairwell. That his sweet canine companion is with him heightens the suspense as we wait for the metaphorical shoe to drop. Vanicek doesn’t give his audience a reprieve when Toumani smashes the culprit behind his bite, though. A second look inside the shoe reveals the spider had a host of small babies that skittered across Toumani and inflicted even more spider trauma.
5. Air Duct Infestation
Madame Zhao (Xing Xing Cheng) is introduced as the tough building custodian who tirelessly works to get the crumbling building in order, which is no easy task. That makes her one of the first to notice the infestation as she carefully picks up a smashed spider and arms herself with bug spray, and she notices telltale signs of webbing. Zhao uses caution when handling the carcass and even more when attempting to clear the vents with her spray. In a normal world, the pesky spider problem would’ve been handled or at least slowed until professionals could show up. But this isn’t a normal spider situation and the moment Zhao pokes her head up into the vent to check the aftermath, she’s face hugged by a venomous arachnid. Vanicek ensures this terrifying moment comes with maximum suspense. We know what’s going to happen, and that makes it all the more excruciating to watch.
4. Never Put Your Face in a Spider Hole
Vanicek paints a visceral picture of what happens when you put your face in a spider hole in the film’s opening sequence. That brutal lesson lingers as Infested unfurls one of the most intense spider invasions on film in a long while. Seeing the consequences of an illegal trapper getting face hugged in the intro makes what happens to Moussa (Mahamadou Sangaré) all the more skin-crawling. His attempt to squash a giant spider lurking on his bedroom wall creates a hold in the wall, and Vanicek again slows time to an unbearable degree to let Moussa discover the hard way why some dark crevices, holes, and hidden spaces are better left alone.
3. Prime Time TV Watching
When the infestation has fully taken root, and the dire situation has convinced the protagonists to finally flee, Kaleb insists they also attempt to save the long-term residents that were there for him and Manon (Lisa Nyarko) when their mom died. It heralds a harrowing montage that demonstrates the physical and emotional devastation the spiders are causing. Most unsettling of which highlights the fate of Claudia (Marie-Philomène Nga), a parental figure to the siblings. Kaleb and Mathys (Jérôme Niel) enter her dimly lit apartment and find her seated in front of the TV. Though she appears to be sleeping peacefully, Vanicek terrifies with the sudden burst of spiders from the back of Claudia’s head. A quick shot later reveals that Claudia was infested from the inside out, and the image is pure nightmare fuel.
2. Bathroom Attack
Lila (Sofia Lesaffre) is deeply arachnophobic, so she understandably freaks out when she spots a giant spider while she’s using the bathroom. She screams for her boyfriend, Jordy (Finnegan Oldfield), to rescue her, who gallantly brings a glass to collect it. Of course, it doesn’t go well. Jordy eventually gives up and smashes it, scattering the babies on its back everywhere, just in time for dozens more to bubble up from the shower drain. Vanicek dials up the intensity of this scene from the start by showing the audience that there are far more spiders lurking about than an oblivious Lila knows. Keeping her in the dark lends unpredictability, but the anxious screaming from everyone, including nervous friends in the hall, only increases the stress of the unexpected attack. The constant misdirection and frenetic camerawork ensure this sequence gets your heart pumping out of fear.
1. Bad Timing in the Webbed Corridor
Early foreshadowing made it clear that the building’s broken timer on a crucial light switch would become a problem later. And boy does it. When the protagonists come upon it in their bid to escape, they find it now transformed into a webbed tunnel filled with an obscene amount of venomous spiders. The only path forward is through it, but the faulty timer leaves them vulnerable to death when the lights go out. Naturally, Vanicek wrings as much dread from this scenario as possible, leaving Manon (Lisa Nyarko) very nearly caught. The group hits a dead end, forcing them right back into the webbed corridor, which leads to one of the film’s most emotionally painful scenes. Everything about this particular hallway is a skin-crawling nightmare, from the close brushes with spider bites to the dizzying way Vanicek captures the sheer scale of the infestation within this hall alone.
Infested is now streaming on Shudder.
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