Representation of women in horror films.

The stereotype entails that woman are spineless and more delicate than men, so when presented in horror movies they are put in the role of the emotionally and physically weaker character who surrender to the darker force, also known as the victims. Horror movies have become famous for representing woman as damsels in distress who are eventually murdered as a punishment for their mistakes witnessed by the audience within the beginning of the film. This relates to how the media, in general, interprets females as sex objects; showing them wearing revealing clothes and being completely incompetent. The same level of respect for women is shown in horror movies.

The age of female characters in horror movies are always likely to be within a close range. We either normally see young females who are good looking and of the white race. An example of these is of ‘Sorority Row’ where the entire main cast are beautiful young adults or we see preteens, whereas we see male characters of different ages, different state of minds and physical strengths; for example: Ryan Reynolds in ‘The Amityville Horror’ and Patrick Wilson in ‘Insidious’.

However, in more recent horror films, there tends to be that one final girl who manages to ‘take down’ the killer/antagonist. But it appears as though this one girl needs at least a small amount of masculinity such as a unisex name, masculine clothing or even may be less attractive than the other female characters. A character example of this is Wendy Christensen from ‘Final Destination 3’. Wendy tries to save everyone from their death and even though the film ends with a cliff hanger, she is one of the people who survive.

On the other hand, some horrors present the antagonist to be a female. This is due to the development in feminism; woman can be portrayed as strong and powerful characters. Jennifer in ‘Jennifer’s Body’ breaks the convention completely as she is a young, pretty and popular girl who is possessed and strong enough to kill her male classmates. The typical storyline of a horror movie is that the killer goes after the victim, however in Jennifer’s Body; Jennifer uses her looks to manipulate the male’s sexual neediness and then feeds on them.

Although, when a female is used as the villain, it seems as if the female has to be a supernatural being or has to be possessed to be able to put aside emotions and gain physical power to kill; suggesting that a ‘normal’ female being cannot commit such deeds.  For example: Little Regan from ‘The Exorcist’, Samara from ‘The Ring' or again Jennifer from ‘Jennifer’s body’.

Comparing horror movies from 1970’s to horror movies created in 2000+, the idea that females can also be the heroes who try to figure out what to do to stop or physically do stop the killer or they can be the villain is completely valid, yet not widely used as males are still thought to have natural masculine characteristics.