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http://blog.lib.umn.edu/moor0605/everydaylife/2008/08/women_in_horror.html

Cassie. (2008, August 28). Women in horror [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/moor0605/everydaylife/2008/08/women_in_horror.html

(Cassie, 2008)

__**15 Facts:**__ The ** horror film ** is one of the** least respected genres of cinema **, and** yet many of the values of culture today are shown within the context of horror. **


 * 1) ** Scary movies reveal what frightens society most through monstrous representations and gore directed at victims who are feared by the public. **
 * 2) ** Horror films, and specifically the slasher sub-genre, are famous for portraying women as hypersexual damsels in distress who are usually murdered within the first five minutes as punishment for their indiscretions ** . (like in // Friday the 13th // and // Halloween // )
 * 3) Another standard of horror is the depiction of ** females ** as antagonists, which is ** a reflection of men's pathological fear of women and menstruation, resulting in castration anxiety. **
 * 4) ** Good examples of showing the female as a monstrous and horrifying person is **// The Exorcist //** and **// Carrie //
 * 5) However, ** in recent years **, ** there has been a positive step within the horror genre toward the heroic woman in films. ** ( // The Descent // and // A Nightmare on Elm Street // ) They can be seen ** defeating typically male villains and exhibiting strength and intelligence. **
 * 6) A ** horror film is defined as any movie specifically designed to cause fear, anxiety, or discomfort through a variety of monsters, supernatural beings, or frightening situations ** (Rasmussen 1).
 * 7) ** Women have originally have been showed as victims ** ( // Dracula // and // Frankenstein // )
 * 8) The subgenre of horror, ** slasher **, ** truly became popular (and disturbing) with the introduction of ** the slasher film, which shows ** a **** murderer stalking mainly female victims with a knife or other weapon, brutally murdering these sexually independent women very early in the film ** (Thornton 236).
 * 9) The ** first true slasher film is widely acknowledged to be **// Psycho //
 * Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece about a psychotic killer of women who is obsessed with his own mother.
 * 1) Generally ** in slasher films, the phallic knife is used as the standard method of murder speaks volumes about the symbolic punishment for these women. **
 * 2) ** Normally in horror films, sub-slasher, the females shown early on in the movie as sexually active are guaranteed to die first (Thornton 238). **
 * 3) ** With ** the ** knife's penetration, the sexually frustrated male serial killer ** is ** taking away all of the woman's sexuality ** and ** showing his power. (Freeland 185) **
 * 4) Only ** through penetration and murder can ** these ** men find sexual freedom. **
 * 5) ** Women in slasher films are ** often ** objectified and shown as nothing more than sex objects ** . Since many of the women are seen ** half clothed and hyper-sexualized, taking away the audience's ability to sympathize with them because they are seen as less valuable. **

**__THE GIST OF IT__**
 * 1) Generally in newer slasher/horror films, women are normally targets of male murderers. Sometimes they might be substitutes of who they are really trying to kill.
 * //Halloween//
 * Michael Myers is a demented killer bent on the massacre of his younger sister. When he cannot reach his sister in order to slaughter her, he substitutes other young women in her place in order to justify killing them (Clover 24).
 * 1) Women are shown as being weak, inferior, and less intelligent, and male killers in slasher films can never be defeated by the heroines.
 * 2) Men fear a woman's sexual power and the fact that one day women could become equal to men using their sexuality.