Every October, the world pretends to be scared of ghosts. Me? I’m scared of being told to “smile more.”
Horror has always been feminist; not because it puts women in danger, but because it shows what happens when they stop running. Somewhere between a blood-soaked prom queen and a nun possessed by hell itself, womanhood found its cinematic scream.
Horror is a feminist genre.
Horror has always been dismissed as “lowbrow”: blood, boobs, and bad decisions. But peel back the fake blood and latex masks, and what do you find? Women. Furious, feral, freeing themselves. Every shriek, every shatter, every perfectly-timed head tilt? That’s protest disguised as panic. Horror didn’t give women fear, it gave them a microphone made of madness.
From Carrie’s telekinetic meltdown to Jennifer’s flesh-eating feminism, the horror genre has always known what society refuses to admit: that female rage is the real jump scare. It’s the sound of centuries of silence breaking glass. And when you think about it, horror movies are basically the only place where women are allowed to be loud, unlikable, unhinged, and utterly unstoppable, without a single apology.
So tonight’s feature? A girl drenched in pig’s blood, another one eating misogynists for dinner, a demon nun, a scream queen, and a final girl who simply refused to die for plot convenience. Each of them is a mirror, cracked and blood-streaked, showing the feminist monster inside us all. The kind that doesn’t whisper “help me.” The kind that says watch me burn it all down.
Carrie White
Before there was the term “gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss,” there was Carrie White. A bullied teenage girl, ridiculed for being an outcast, turned into the literal apocalypse. You could call her a villain, but really, she’s every woman who’s ever been told to “calm down” and then decided, actually, no.
Carrie’s story is horrifying because it’s recognisable. We’ve all been that girl in a room full of laughter that wasn’t funny, in a world that punishes you for being seen, for changing, for becoming something powerful. Her telekinesis? Just a metaphor for the kind of power patriarchy fears most: a woman who doesn’t suppress her emotions. The blood, the rage, the fire: that’s puberty meeting patriarchy in a cinematic bar fight.
When Carrie stands in that gym, drenched in red, eyes glowing, everything burning, that’s not horror. That’s release. That’s her saying, “If you’re going to make me the monster, I’ll make it a masterpiece.” Every spark on screen is an act of rebellion against the “good girl” narrative. She’s not just taking revenge, she’s reclaiming the very thing she was shamed for. Period blood becomes holy water, and her breakdown becomes a baptism by fire.
Jennifer Check
Ah, Jennifer Check. Patron saint of hot girl rage. Possessed, predatory, and perfect. When Jennifer’s Body dropped in 2009, people didn’t get it. They wanted another high school slasher, not a feminist manifesto in lip gloss and eyeliner. But Jennifer wasn’t meant to be liked, she was meant to be understood.
Jennifer dies at the hands of a boy band (literally), becomes a demon, and then does what most of us only threaten on bad Tinder dates: eats men who wrong her. She’s the embodiment of female trauma turned into power. Every time she lures, seduces, devours, it’s not just horror. It’s reclamation. It’s what happens when women stop being victims in someone else’s story and start writing their own, in blood and glitter.
And the best part? She’s not ashamed of it. Jennifer doesn’t cry about being “too much” or “too toxic.” She’s self-aware, messy, sensual, terrifying, and divine. That’s the point. The film was never about a demon eating boys, rather it was about how female friendship, jealousy, and desire exist in a system that pits women against each other. Jennifer’s monster arc isn’t her downfall; it’s her liberation. She’s the scream that says, “Stop making me your morality tale.”
Valak
Valak isn’t your typical feminist icon: she’s literally a demon nun. But hear me out. Her entire existence is rebellion against the most sacred symbol of feminine purity. She takes the face of holiness and corrupts it, turning the symbol of chastity into something that terrifies everyone. That’s power. That’s control.
Valak’s design, the veil, the eyes, the smirk, feels like an artistic middle finger to centuries of the Madonna-whore dichotomy. She’s not motherly, she’s not innocent, she’s not obedient. She dares to be terrifying in a body the church wanted to make silent. You can almost hear her whispering, “You wanted a holy woman? I became unholy just to make you look.”
And that’s the thing about horror’s women, even demonic ones: they’re loud, visible, unforgettable. Valak doesn’t need a monologue to make her point. Her existence is the point. It’s an exorcism of the expectation that women should be soft, pure, and powerless. She’s divine wrath in a habit, the rage of every silenced saint who finally decided to bite back.
Other sisters of scream.
Sidney Prescott (Scream): the OG final girl. Trauma turned into armour. Every time she answers that phone, she’s answering to an entire culture obsessed with watching women suffer. But she refuses to die for their entertainment. She flips the script, literally. She’s not the hunted; she’s the hunter with impeccable bangs.
Then there’s Samara (The Ring), the cursed child no one listened to. Her vengeance? A VHS-tape TED Talk on what happens when society ignores abused girls. And Mia Goth, from Pearl to X to Maxxxine, she’s turned the female breakdown into Oscar-worthy art. Her monologues are madness and poetry blended, raw and glittering.
Each one of them shows a version of womanhood the world fears: angry, desirous, broken, defiant. They’re the opposite of “strong female character”; they’re real. Their strength isn’t stoicism; it’s survival.
The final girl in all of us.
Maybe the scariest thing about horror isn’t the blood or the bodies; it’s how much it understands us. Every jump scare, every scream, every curse is just a mirror held up to the feminine experience. We’ve been hunted, silenced, sexualised, blamed. But in horror, we fight back. We get to be the villain, the victim, and the victory all at once. It’s not tragedy, it’s theatre. It’s catharsis with contour.
At its heart, feminist horror isn’t about killing men. It’s about killing expectations. It’s about showing that the real monster was the patriarchy we met along the way. The genre gives women what real life doesn’t: the last word.
Because maybe, just maybe, every girl is one bad day away from becoming Carrie, one heartbreak away from Jennifer, one silence away from Valak. And when that happens, when the lights flicker and the scream rises — it won’t be horror anymore.
It’ll be freedom.
Want more chaos that feels like cinema and feminism that feels like a curse breaking? Find us at Her Campus at MUJ, where every scream is solidarity in surround sound. Penned by Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ, your friendly neighbourhood final girl.