you can't spell "ghostface killer" without "sofia"

or horror movies no longer hate women! arousal vs. fear, the inclusivity of modern horror, and a guide to horror movies for all settings and themes

Like with many aspects of my life, my best friend had a major impact on my love for horror as a genre. Before Sofia, I knew the classics, I had seen them, but I never felt that draw toward horror. In high school, I read Dracula and Frankenstein and Edgar Allan Poe and found myself, for the first time, gravitating towards the more gothic aspects of horror. I loved the dark, empty manor homes, the sense that something was off, and the beautiful stories intertwined with these spooky descriptions. When Sofia and I met before college, I knew she enjoyed horror movies, to this day, I’ve never met anyone else who sits and happily watches all the films in the Conjuring cinematic universe on a rainy day, but when we moved in together our sophomore year, us, along with Sophie, and sometimes Grace (depending on if the movie was gory) would gather on the couch and run through different horror films. That was peak pandemic, we were living together in this apartment that was too big for the four of us, but we filled it with these movie nights, times we all spent together fixated on the mom from Hereditary, or Ghostface’s weird cape costume dress from Scream.

scream spoilers but she is the best character in the franchise

Sofia introduced me to horror as a form of entertainment, we sat on the couch, squished together under a blanket, feeling our hearts pound through our chests during the moments of tension. The fear is what makes horror such an adventure. By the time the closing credits roll, I’m letting out a breath that I hadn’t even realized I was holding, and the adrenaline rush hits me so quickly. I think that’s a telltale sign of a strong piece of horror media, when I can physically feel fear run through me. People love to feel scared, even if like me, there’s a part of them that hates that, and horror movies give us that without having to bring experiences of the characters to our real lives. I can watch the movie and remove myself from the situation, tell myself “this would never happen to me because of XYZ,” and I go about my life, entertained, a little scared, but feeling satisfied and ready to repeat the process.

Horror is entertainment, but it also contains an air of sensuality. It demands your attention, captivates you by teasing your feelings and emotions, until you finally release all of the fear and tension built up inside throughout a couple of hours. It’s a relationship, viewer and film, and horror is one of the most complicated ones you can tangle yourself in. Fear and arousal have often been linked together, and a 1970s study explored the concept of misattribution of arousal, in which people mistake strong emotions, including fear, for arousal.

This study suggested that humans want to find meaning in their experience, if they feel fear and can attribute it to something more desirable or attractive, like arousal, it’s no longer negatively connotated in their minds. Misattribution of arousal has proven effects on decision-making. In the 1974 study, male test subjects were made to walk across either a stable bridge near the ground or a (quite scary) suspension bridge 450 feet long and very far off the ground, and then interact with a woman on the other side, where the men were asked to write a story about a non-sexual ambiguous image (later analyzed for sexual content) before she offered her contact information to the men.

Looking at the study now, it’s glaring that it was influenced by the heteronormativity of the time, especially in research-heavy fields, so that must be taken into account concerning the study design. The results yielded a proliferation in erotic stories from the men who crossed the suspension bridge, along with a higher tendency to contact the woman, demonstrating that their increase in adrenaline and high heart rate—traditionally physical tells of arousal— were easily mistaken for sexual desire.

I tend to think that while horror as a genre is very sensual, a lot of the relationship between horror and arousal leans a bit sexist, or at the very least, invokes inherently sexist norms. In early, traditional horror films, the movie-goer is placed in a masculine viewing position, perpetuating patriarchal norms that force the women in these films to act as the objects of desire, with very little of their agency. This theme is explored further in Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” where Mulvey details how the horror genre relies on the victimization of female characters, often through brutal torture and violence enacted on them by men, to satisfy male audience members.

It’s impossible to have this discussion about sexism in horror without bringing up the final girl trope prevalent across slasher films. If you’re unfamiliar, this references the tendency for the last survivor of the (often male) killer to be a woman, a virginal, completely desexualized woman (also usually brunette), who is still dependent on a man to survive. This contrasts greatly with the victims, often highly sexualized, feminine, and traditionally beautiful, all murdered shortly after talking about sex or having sex. The purity culture within slasher films is incredibly weird, and I hate to keep referencing Scream (even if this is an essay dedicated to Sofia, the biggest Scream fan of all time) but prior to the film’s release in 1996, most slasher films followed the “final girl” pattern exactly, the characters in Scream even discuss Halloween (1978) as an example of this. Wes Craven’s 1996 cult classic was released as a satire of the already-existing slasher films and criticized the sexism existing within the genre while exploring the voyeuristic nature of watching horror.

jennifer’s body

Jennifer’s Body (2009), one of my all-time favorite movies, is another critique of the sexist nature of the horror genre. I’m trying to be unbiased in my analysis, but I really don’t think I can understate my love for this movie (I’m literally considering being the titular Jennifer for Halloween) and the integration of real-world issues as a subversion for classic horror tropes. Without giving too much away, Jennifer’s Body explores themes of violence against women and centers on Jennifer (shocker) who after assault transforms into a man-killing entity. Jennifer isn’t a virgin, she’s not being punished for her promiscuity, her sexuality is power, and she uses this power to fight the ultimate villain- the patriarchy. Everything we’ve come to expect from horror—women are victims, they exist in these films to satisfy masculine urges, and virginity is #sacred— is completely thrown out the window in Jennifer’s Body. It’s by women, for women, and about women loving women (I haven’t even discussed the all-consuming, queer-coded, relationship between Jennifer and Needy but know it is there and crucial to the plot) and represents an advancement in a genre that remains male-dominated.

We are lucky enough to live in a time where horror continues to push boundaries, ask questions, and speak to people who often do not find representation in mainstream media. Horror of the past is (dare I say) boring, in the sense that it’s so heteronormative, it follows the same patterns and refuses to characterize people as more than a stereotype. I don’t want to sit and watch a film where a man tortures a woman and oh look! She’s bleeding a lot but guess what?! She’s a virgin so the conveniently located and kind of handsome do-gooder that’s in love with her swoops in with a gun or a baseball bat or maybe even his fists and BAM! He really beats the killer! She survives, maybe they kiss, and the ending is left kind of ambiguously so there’s potential for (gasp!) franchization! That sounds awful to me, even writing that I’m bored.

Jordan Peele’s 2019 film, Us (a film that terrified me), and a follow-up to his masterpiece of a movie, Get Out (2017) utilizes elements traditionally associated with horror (home invasion, twins, etc.) but primarily focuses on societal change (or lack thereof) as an instrument of horror. In Us, Peele presents us with a not-so-distant past where America prides itself on progress and the hypocrisies that come with that, and focuses on how for those in privilege, there are equally those whose suffering exists and goes unnoticed. It’s a conversation that is essential to have, and the use of the horror genre to foster this discussion is essential and represents huge steps forward for the genre.

Horror has a long and unpleasant history of “othering.” Anyone who deviated from the norms (whether that be in the form of sexuality, disability, race, or gender) was made into a villain, their “otherness” was used to make them seem scary or vilified. In recent years though, it feels like a switch was flipped. The “otherness” that made a character weak, became a source of strength, something not to overcome or fight back against, but to celebrate. Horror creators are not afraid to call out the true problems that marginalized communities face, they show it through film, call out societal issues, and the preconceived notions films in the genre used to ignore, or worse, rely on as stereotypes to continue perpetrating.

As conversations about marginalized communities become more and more critical to have in a society that is very blatantly not just made up of straight, white, able-bodied, and masculine individuals, it’s essential for media to represent that as well. I find myself more excited about the horror genre now, I’m glad to see movies that don’t tell the same story over and over again, that take creative risks and ask questions and make the viewer feel uncomfortable (both mentally and physically.) It’s funny, horror is a whole world of stories about the unexpected and the uncanny, and for me at least, the most unexpected was how quickly I would find the genre so fascinating. I’m grateful to have a friend that pushes me. She, like the genre itself, made me think about what I really was scared of, and I’m grateful forever.

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there is horror everywhere for those with eyes to see: a movie guide

I could not resist an opportunity to include a guide to some of my favorite horror movies, but, rather than list them out, I’ve broken this down into different topics, or different subgenres or locations or tropes these 80+ movies fall into. If you’re looking for a slasher film, folk horror, or something more untraditional, I promise there’s a movie here for you.

Of course, I wouldn’t be writing this without Sofia’s influence, so after I compiled this list, I consulted her to indicate some of her favorites, some of mine, and some that we’ve found to be the most terrifying: