It’s something of a new phenomenon these days, but lately, the ladies are getting in on the killing sprees of horror film.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; anything new in filmmaking is a cause for celebration, especially in the world of “more of the same” filmmaking that we live these days. But is it a good move? Let’s take a look.
There have been plenty of chick killers lately, and I don’t know about you, but for me it’s always sort of a surprise to find out the chick did it. It’s not expected, and the unexpected is often the scariest thing there is.
Whether it’s Dawn O’Keefe and her killer teeth–it’s really better if you don’t ask where those teeth are–or Megan Fox parading around Jennifer’s Body, or even The Uninvited, more and more horror movies are letting the ladies handle the knives. Even where they don’t, they’ve only got a guy around for muscle, which was the case in The Strangers.
Like I said, it’s the unexpected that give horror a real punch. But on an operational level, this may not work so well. One of the biggest points in horror is how the killer is an unstoppable mass of muscle. Sending a woman in to do that poses a serious challenge, especially if you pit her against men who will, on average, have superior upper body strength. You’ll be left playing a handful of basic themes–either she gets super-strength from a device or otherworldly power, or she’s constantly vamping her way through her kills, counting on looking unassuming. Unless you address the basic discrepancy in strength somehow, eventually, you’ll be repeating yourself. Then, you lose the scare effect.
So can the ladies be effective horror movie killers? They can, at least for a while, but it’ll take some doing to keep them all fresh.
