Horror, as a genre, isn’t for everyone–in fact, no other genre even touches on its intense divisiveness. I can sympathize with my friends who simply “don’t like being scared”. Yet, my soft spot for horror has only grown since studying film in both an academic setting and through a feminist lens. I’m spoiled, in this regard, as no other genre is nearly as woman-dominated.
Horror needs women. Historically, women in film have often been expected to be seen and not heard, being disposable characters lacking any true purpose within a narrative. My all-time favorite film theorist, Laura Mulvey, does a perfect job of explaining “visual pleasure” and the effect that the male gaze has had on the film industry; the classical dynamic of active male v.s. passive female, where she is merely a spectacle to be gazed upon, has dominated the field. However, modern horror introduces this idea of a “monstrous feminine”, where strong female characters are intended to be frightening. So, what makes femininity the perfect addition in horror?
Both the stigma and ignorance that too often surround women’s mental health can be conveyed quite well through horror plots. Anxiety in women, like with Skye Riley in Smile 2 (Finn 2024), is pushed to the side by even her closest friends and family as “typical female craziness”. Dani in Midsommar (Aster 2019), played beautifully by Florence Pugh, has severe anxiety and PTSD that’s major to her character. Her boyfriend of four years doesn’t want to deal with her “issues”, a complaint that is validated by his best friends who belittle Dani’s emotions… at least his character gets a well-deserved ending. In films like The Visit (Shyamalan 2015) and The Taking of Deborah Logan (Robitel 2014), mental diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia in older women are conveyed metaphorically as misunderstood.
It has taken decades to reach a point where women’s mental health issues, as well as therapy, are taken somewhat seriously by society and media. In my opinion, most modern horror that focuses on mentally unwell women isn’t monopolizing off of it or contributing to stereotypes, but rather shows the frustration and mistreatment of mental illness in an approach that dismissive men could maybe understand.
Age is an important factor as any in this discussion, as horror uses each age range in women to create different effects. For instance, young girls often act as the uncanny. Thinking about the twins in The Shining (Kubrick 1980), Regan from The Exorcist (Friedken 1973), or the daughter in Poltergeist (Hooper 1982), little girls are inherently expected to be wholesome and often flipped in the narrative to make us feel uneasy.
Teenage girls are one of, if not the most, influential subgroup in the genre. They tend to be the final girl, the lone surviving female character that’s usually forced into the “badass” aesthetic with torn-up clothes and a scowl.
An overdone and outdated theme with the teens and 20s age range in women is innocence, purity, virginity, etc… Virginity tend to become almost a form of currency. Anya Taylor-Joy’s Thomasin in The Witch (Eggers 2015) is looked down upon by her puritan family for simply growing up. Modern horror, in this sense, highlights the fact that girls are unjustly shamed for entering womanhood while our male counterparts are somehow congratulated on their “manhood”.
This topic of purity comes hand-in-hand with religion. Popular subgenres like possession, witchcraft, and occult are inspired by Christianity, using crucifixes and recited bible verses as weapons against the antagonist. Every single film that’s part of the adored Conjuring universe has a female protagonist, why? I like to take it as a compliment, as though the director believes women to truly have (women’s) intuition and spiritual awareness in a way that men just don’t, which offers an explanation as to why characters like Lorraine Warren bridges the realm gap between human and paranormal.
Modern horror is increasingly comfortable exploring women’s sexuality and the subsequent societal repercussions. X (2022), Pearl (2022), and Maxxxine (2024) join forces to become one of my personal favorite trilogies of all time because of their ability to use sex as empowerment. Director Ti West creates characters that shame Pearl and Maxine for their promiscuity, makes the characters extremely detestable, then kills them off. Love it! Similarly, Sophie Thatcher’s character in Companion (Hancock 2025) begins as a robot, a being of pure submission, existing only for pleasure. By the credits, she’s fully autonomous and is a beautiful example of modern feminist horror.
Alongside themes of sexuality comes the systematic pressure for cinematic women to be appealing; returning to the discussion of age, elderly women are expected to resist aging and upkeep their youth. This exact scenario has been portrayed recently in Weapons (Cregger 2025) and The Substance (Farget 2024), in which the female leads use drugs and witchcraft to physically reverse their age.
I’ve seen complaints that films like these tease at a fear of aging at the surface level, and more importantly abusing “hagsploitation“. I’d have to disagree, as the self-harming and self-hatred by these characters can be read into as a powerful metaphor for the epidemic of surgical procedures and anti-aging in Hollywood. Not to mention that the characters struggling with their seniority are never males, seeing as men are excused from the media’s obsession with youth.
The modern horror genre has managed to birth complex and iconic female characters that are strong in a feminine way. Samara Weaving in Ready or Not (Gillett 2019), Anya Taylor-Joy in The Menu (Mylod 2022), Keke Palmer in Nope (Peele 2022)… I’ve found so many of my favorite actresses through their performances in horror. At this point, I have to stress that I believe horror needs women, yet absolutely not vice versa–horror has and will, as all other genres, perpetuate stereotypes and diminish women’s rights for the sole purpose of entertainment and profit.
While women may dominate the cast of horror, I have to admit that none of the films I’ve referenced were directed by women. Although Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, and Zach Cregger are rightfully beloved, I’m optimistic that the future of the horror genre holds space for women in the forefront of production. It’s so important to support female filmmakers and independent projects, especially in a genre that so heavily relies on our gender’s experiences and past. Just as the Scream franchise wouldn’t be Scream without Neve Campbell, and the Halloween films would suffer without Jamie Lee Curtis, horror couldn’t be horror without women.