Clarice Arther
An imagined screening program that consists of a collection of films which offer a unique perspective on the depiction of women in horror, contradicting the classical "scream queen" and male gaze tropes that have been an integral part of horror cinema and the culture surrounding it since its inception.
Horror films have been around for over a century, all seeking to evoke fear from the audience. In the 1930’s, there was a huge rise in the horror genre when films like Dracula and Frankenstein were released. Fast forward thirty years later and another big wave came about. There was Hitchcock’s Psycho, and some classic 70’s films like The Exorcist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and today, horror cinema continues to be a cultural phenomenon and economic success.
Of course an abundance of horror films, such as the classics mentioned above, have shared elements since they’re in the same genre. However, there seems to be one specific trope that many horror films possess, and we’ve all seen it. The often sexually portrayed woman in a horror film is hunted down until she meets her fate, and this narrative has been cemented into horror cinema. Whether it’s “scream queens” or “final girls”, a fetishized depiction of female suffering is certainly present. On the contrary, not every great horror film follows this identical path. Take Rosemary’s Baby or Halloween, where the women have agency over their fate. But regardless of whether or not women’s narratives in this genre are used for erotic purposes, scopophilia still plays a big role in the attraction to horror films. Cinema is inherently voyeuristic and we as an audience derive pleasure from watching bad things happen. Drawing out the torture of a female, typically from a male, tends to resonate with society and horror as a genre often reflects societal values and viewing women as victims or objects.
This screening presents films which offer a unique perspective on the depiction of women in horror, contradicting the classical “scream queen” and male gaze tropes that have been an integral part of horror cinema and the culture surrounding it since its inception. We will see cinema from filmmakers Peter Tscherkassky, Cecelia Condit, Anna Biller, Conor Whelan, David Lynch, and Maya Deren who all use unconventional cinematography techniques to explore female representation in horror. Their films adopt various offbeat narratives of women such as placing beauty and horror side by side, poking fun at stereotypical female portrayal, or even using cinema itself to elicit fear.
OUThER SPACE(1999)
Outer Space (1999)
Peter Tscherkassky
10:08
Working solely with found footage, avant-garde filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky created Outer Space by warping pictures from a 1982 horror film, The Entity. Tscherkassky’s film shows a woman, Barbara Hershey, inside of a house being disturbed by a mysterious and lurking phenomenon. His stimulating editing techniques produce a different narrative for the woman in this film than seen in the original, where traditional horror film motifs are portrayed. Instead of physical beings carrying out the scare factor, Tscherkassky provokes our emotions and the main character’s by invading material dimensions and causing panic by folding images. He uses the medium of film itself as a motivator of fear, playing with what you expect of a movie, which that alone is scary.
POSSIBLY IN MICHIGAN (1983) Possibly in Michigan Cecelia Condit
Possibly in Michigan (1983)
Cecelia Condit
11:45
Cecelia Condit’s Possibly in Michigan follows two women around a mall who are being followed by a cannibal, but in the end the tables turn. Condit delves into the sinister side of women and plays with conventional female representation by placing beauty and horror side by side. Whether it’s the unsettling ways in which the two women communicate or the dichotomy of grotesque images, Possibly in Michigan successfully disturbs anyone who watches, without exploiting the female characters.
THE LOVE WITCH(2016)
The Love Witch (2016)
Anna Biller
2:00:47
Taking inspiration from film noir and rom-coms, Anna Biller’s The Love Witch mimics a classic fifties movie, but was shot only a few years ago. The film follows Elaine who is looking for love, but her desires diverge as the film goes on when she eventually longs vengeance on men. Mocking stereotypical horror and rom-com humor, Biller hints at the problematic male gaze throughout her film and is, “reclaiming the figure of the witch, the femme fatale, an old sort of male fantasy figure, and make it a femme fatale seen from the female side.” (Patterson).
MY DARLING’S SHADOW
(2016)
My Darling's Shadow (2016)
Conor Whelan
3:09
Conor Whelan is an animator originally from Dublin but currently located in Vancouver, British Columbia. His work tends to focus on the sensitivity of sound in film, and sound is definitely an aspect to keep in mind while viewing My Darling’s Shadow. The film shows a woman who realizes her lover is acting unfaithful, so she seeks revenge. However, the narrative is not as simple as it seems and can be interpreted in many different ways. Two women are shown and it’s possible they worked together, but there is not one right answer. Whelan uses the concept of female revenge and the interpretations that come along with the film to contradict classical horror cinema.
PREMONITIONS FOLLOWING AN EVIL DEED
(1995)
Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (1995)
David Lynch
1:03
One hundred years after the cinematograph was patented, Lumiere & Co. sent a proposal to dozens of filmmakers, David Lynch being one of them, to produce a film with the original cinematograph. The films were supposed to be shot in three takes and each fifty-two seconds long, but of course Lynch went a bit over. Simply put, Premonitions Following an Evil Deed is about events proceeding a murder. Lynch shows a woman who is already deceased, defying the typical draw out of female torture scenes. He also focuses on female grief, impact, and consequence, which is something Lynch draws lots of attention to in most of his work.
MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON(1943)
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
Maya Deren
13:29
Often referred to as the mother of avant-garde filmmaking, Maya Deren created the enticing Meshes of the Afternoon, where she is the somnambulist. The film itself explores the idea of Deren’s victimization and fate being inevitable, but from her own perspective. Deren says, “What I do in my films is very distinctive. They are the films of a woman and I think that they’re characteristic time quality is the time quality of a woman. I think the strength of men is in their great sense of immediacy. They are a ‘now’ creature. A woman has strength to wait because she has had to wait. Time is built into her body in the sense of becomingness. She sees everything in terms of the stage of becoming,” (Gemmill).
References
Gemmill, Allie. “Female Becomingness Through Maya Deren's Lens in 'Meshes of the Afternoon'.” Bitch Flicks, 29 Mar. 2016, www.btchflcks.com/2016/03/female-becomingneS-through-maya-derens-lens-in-meshes-in-the-afternoon.html.
Patterson, John. “The Love Witch Director Anna Biller: ‘I’m in conversation with the pornography all around us’.” The Guardian, 2 March 2017,
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