Sex and horror are often intertwined. Even in the case of horror heroines like Laurie Strode from Halloween and Sally Hardesty from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: They get to survive because they’re our token virginal, goody two-shoes final girls.
This applies to some degree with modern final girls like Sidney Prescott from Scream, Sarah from The Craft, and Needy from Jennifer’s Body, who live because they sidestepped sins of the flesh. I mean, sex and horror are literally the driving plot of It Follows.
But just as much as there’s sexual shame in horror, this is the genre that gave us Satanic gangbangs in movies like Rosemary’s Baby — and women stripped nude, hung upside down, and sawed in half in Terrifier, of course.
Where Do We Draw the Line
So where should we draw that line? The longer I watch horror movies, I’m starting to think that even bringing up the “male gaze” as the primary problem feels like a cop-out. In fact, I think it’s how fan culture coagulates around a film that determines whether the sex and horror combination feels empowering or “feminist.”
My favorite gut check for this happens on my FYP: I love when women horror fans let their freak flags fly through fan edits of their favorite freaky femme fatales on TikTok and Instagram.
On the internet, anyone can be Jennifer Check. You can steal Megan Fox’s ’00s sex siren status, cemented with Jennifer’s Body. You suddenly have glossy dark hair, can command a room as soon as you step into it, and have a bloody, visceral outlet for your feminine rage.
The Internet Reacts
On the internet, anyone can be Akasha. You, too, can be the Queen of the Damned, ringing your alluring eyes, moonlight glinting off your shimmering copper skin. You, too, can kill anyone who has wronged you and slither across a pool of rose petals to sink your teeth into a glistening Lestat.
You can be Elaine from The Love Witch. You can be the more outgoing of the Owen sisters from Practical Magic, or the devastatingly alluring Ellen Hutter from Nosferatu. Hell, you can be as undeniably sexy as Maxine Minx of the X trilogy, or you can be as unhinged as Nancy Downs from The Craft.
A Complicated Landscape
Seeing the thousands of likes and hundreds of comments populating posts like these, it’s clear that the existence of these complicated, messy, ultimately sexually feral characters have made a positive impression on women off-screen.
Yet only two of the above-mentioned movies that ooze sex and horror — which have found viral new life with female fans on Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok — are directed by women. Karyn Kusama did Jennifer’s Body and Anna Biller directed The Love Witch, and that’s it.
Many women have made a name for themselves by creating frightening and freaky films. Think Coralie Fargeat, Emerald Fennell, Julia Ducournau, and Nia DaCosta, to name a few. But as uncomfortable as the circumstances of this truth may be, so many more male auteurs have carved out a special place in women’s hearts.
Likewise, many male auteurs have alienated female fans because of their work, both on-screen and behind the scenes.
Lots of psychological thriller girlies are obsessed with Black Swan. Admittedly, I had a huge Nina Sayers poster plastered across my dorm room during my freshman year of undergrad. But Darren Aronofsky left a bad taste in a lot of women’s mouths because of the long-heard rumors of him pitting Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis against each other during filming — something he recently confirmed once and for all this year.
Likewise, I have horror community mutuals who say Sienna from Terrifier is their fave final girl and even dressed up as Art the Clown this past Halloween, but for years, forums like r/horror have debated whether the Terrifier franchise has a misogynistic view of women. Just last month, Catherine Corcoran sued director Damien Leone and others for sexual misconduct on set.
Whether the intersection of sex and horror in a movie is created by a man may be the wrong question. Whether the sex and horror intersection in a movie is simply “tasteful” may be the wrong question. But whatever the right questions are, I’m starting to think horror has no easy answers.
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