Horror is home to subgenres for every possible taste, but one niche that typically sits outside of the spotlight is the documentary.

The horror streamer Shudder boasts a diverse selection of films, and they’ve grown over the years to become a valuable resource for documentaries new and old. They’ve made a particular mark when it comes to producing documentaries from marginalized perspectives in horror, including 2019’s Horror Noire and 2022’s Queer for Fear, and now they’re back with another entry in that unofficial series. 1000 Women in Horror is an enlightening and entertaining film that kicks off with a simple observation…

Horror hasn’t always been the most welcoming space for women.

“Aha!” you yell emphatically at your laptop screen, “then how do you explain the existence and popularity of final girls?!” That angry enthusiasm is noted, but I’m referring to female fans and filmmakers, not characters. Although let’s be honest, final girls spend the entire film being terrorized and watching their friends die, so let’s not pretend it’s all that welcoming for them either.

1000 Women in Horror, directed by Donna Davies and adapted from Alexander Heller-Nicholas’ 2020 book of the same name, uses this understood truth as a jumping-off point towards discussing both the roles women (and girls) have played in horror movies over the years and the experiences of female horror fans who became horror filmmakers. The talking heads roster is a cornucopia of talents, including Heller-Nicholas, Akela Cooper, Lin Shaye, Roseanne Liang, Mary Harron, Nikyatu Juso, Brea Grant, and many more.

The always brilliant Kate Siegel offers up a growth chart, of sorts, that follows female characters through horror – and typically through a male gaze – and it’s used as a smart structural framework for the documentary itself. From “innocent” children to temptatious teens, from fuckable young women to unfuckable hags, female characters can feel boxed into rigidly specific roles, often in the service of their male counterparts, and the film finds much to discuss at each stage.

While seemingly limiting on their surface, these character types find new life when viewed through a different lens. In some cases, these filmmakers see themselves in those girls and women – whether as they are or as they want to be – while others see motivations for creating female characters who grow beyond the confines of those boxes. Films are referenced at each stage as examples of how horror cinema has used girls and women as objects for horror to ping off of, but genre tropes and stereotypes can’t keep good women down.

Gigi Saul Guerrero recalls being both horrified and ultimately inspired by seeing The Exorcist as a child, while Heller-Nicholas and Jenn Wexler talk about how demonic possession is used to subject a young girl’s body to the strains of grown-up behaviors and suffering. April Wolfe, Kier-La Janisse, and Heller-Nicholas talk about the contrasting presentations of menstruation in films like Carrie, Ginger Snaps, and the female-helmed Black Christmas from 2019. Chelsea Stardust, Heller-Nicholas (who authored a critical study on rape/revenge films back in 2011), and others discuss living with fear as part of your everyday life and then applying those lessons and feelings to the catharsis that the rape/revenge subgenre often provides.

The horrors of motherhood are explored through films like Cujo, Lyle, and Rosemary’s Baby, while specific attention is paid to the atypical truths of The Babadook and We Need to Talk About Kevin. While most media glorify motherhood and focuses on its joy and importance, horror films like these dare to peel back a few layers of skin to expose the raw reality that it’s not always a pretty picture. The elderly are often presented as frightening in horror films, with older women earning their own subgenre called hagsploitation. Cerise Howard, Guerrero, and Harron explore the idea of older women losing themselves to age and madness through movies like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and 2020’s still masterful Relic.

Toby Poser in 1000 Women in Horror

“Women do stuff, even if they’re monsters,” says Heller-Nicholas as a way of positively framing the genre’s generally poor history of portraying elderly women, but it’s a thought applicable to women across the board. “They have agency, and they have power, and it might be dark power, it might be fucked up power, but they do stuff.” It’s evident in the filmographies of the women present here, in those they reference, and in the observations they share about their experiences.

1000 Women in Horror is also far more quotable than you’d expect from a documentary. “Sit down, little boy, the grown-ups are talking,” says Heller-Nicholas early on in response to typically male critics who claim that approaching horror through the focus of gender is a modern phenomenon. “I didn’t need a fucking dick to hold a camera,” says Mattie Do in regard to the realization that women are every bit as capable of making movies. “Mary Shelley was goth as fuck,” says Wolfe when talking about the undeniable influence of Frankenstein. “Every single mother is a final girl,” says Siegel, who’s just on fire throughout, leading up to a wonderfully vivid description of the emergency cesarean section she endured with her first child. “Everything’s fucking terrifying,” she says, and not that my two cents are needed here, but I can vouch for it all as someone who witnessed part of it with the c-section arrival of my own child.

If there’s a fault to be found here, it’s simply that the film’s ninety-six-minute running time will leave you wanting far more. The chapter structure works well, but there’s so much to say that each section could easily occupy its own hour-long episode. As it stands, some of the more compelling ideas and insights see their surfaces barely scratched before we’re moved onto the next observation. Heller-Nicholas’ original book approaches it all with an encyclopedic format showing just how dense the subject is, and fans of the documentary who leave wanting more should strongly consider picking up a copy.

Still, 1000 Women in Horror is an engaging watch, even as an introduction of sorts to seeing horror movies through a specifically female lens. Women will appreciate it, and men might just learn a thing or two while also being equally entertained.

Watch the documentary, seek out Heller-Nicholas’ book, and then make an effort to find and thoroughly enjoy the numerous films talked about here, including gems like Poison for the Fairies, Lucky, Helter Skelter, Suicide Club, and more. 

1000 Women in Horror begins streaming on Shudder on March 20, 2026.