Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre: Women Make Horror
Women’s screen presence is the most striking in the horror genre. To be gazed upon is in part to be possessed, consumed or at the least, threatened with commodification. From silent era vampire’s desire Ellen in 1922 Nosferatu by F.W. Murnau, to Fay Wray in King Kong, to Hitchcock’s beleaguered Rebecca, to Polanski’s Carol in Repulsion, to Antonioni’s Giuliana in Red Desert, the case of female weakness, hysteria, paranoia, delusion and despair have been some of the main narrative trajectories of the horror heroine. Christopher Sharrett’s analysis of the film Haunting by Robert Wise makes up for a concise analysis of the female issue and the ultimate struggle that ensued in genre filmmaking: The film seems to recognize, in 1963, the frustrations of women under bourgeois patriarchal society, while also arguing that there is no way out. Even while offering the option of same-sex relations, the male and his property interests (symbolized by the immense Hill House) ultimately triumph. In th...