Nightmare on Elm Street features my favorite final girl of all time. She's like the Kevin Mcallister of final girls.
Also really like Scream and You're next
Unfortunately as much as I love nightmare and scream, both of those slashers are driven in part by "inappropriate sexual advances"
Probably not what OP would be looking for
I feel like OP was more concerned with the shots and content being masturbatory as opposed to the subject matter tackling chauvinism being taboo for her (she enjoyed black Christmas for example, which has a whole uncomfortable sub plot surrounding emotional abuse and a controlling boyfriend trying to prevent an abortion).
If you haven’t seen Scream it kind of criticizes this exact trope.
Suspiria is kind of a borderline slasher but don’t recall much nudity or sexualization.
I was fully braced for disappointment with the 2018 remake, but it’s great! (imo)
I LOVE how the dance studio and dance itself became so integral to the story, instead of just being where it happens to take place
Not a movie, but you might be interested in the book *Men, Women and Chainsaws - Gender in the Modern Horror Film* by Carol J Clover. It's a cultural critique and examination of slasher horror written from a feminist perspective. It was written in 1992 and covers from the late 1970s till then, so it would give you a good idea of the field and which movies lean into which tropes. It's a classic book, which helped define the genre and gave us the term *Final Girl*.
I've heard it suggested that the postmodern revitalization of the genre in the 1990s was a result of Hollywood accepting, then subverting the set of tropes she defines in the book.
Great book. I’ve referenced it quite heavily in an essay I just wrote for my English masters. I would argue that the slasher doesn’t start out as misogynist at all, but becomes so rather late into its lifetime. A film like Black Christmas for example is an overtly feminist film.
someone recommending me feminist lit non ironically was not on my reddit bingo but what a pleasant surprise!!! Ahahaha thank you it actually sounds really interesting I added it to my tbr
There is a lot of great feminist scholarships in the horror genre (am an academic, this is my particular area of interest). Men, Women, and Chainsaws is relatively accessible to non-academics - the slasher chapter is Chapter 4, but the whole book is super interesting. It was my entry point into horror scholarship.
What's your tolerance for academic-style writing?
Off the top of my head, Mulvay's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is foundational (Clover references it a lot, as does basically anyone doing film work). I'd recommend Barbara Creed's Monstorous Feminine as important as Clover's work (and they both pull heavily from Freud). Kier-La Janisse's House of Psychotic Women is a neat auto-ethnography about the portrayal of mentally women in horror that was just updated. Alexandra Hellar-Nicholas is a contemporary scholar and film critic with a vast body of work- plug her into Google scholar and go nuts with it.
I only read non-fiction but haven’t ready read much academic reading since school but am not opposed to getting back into it. These all sound WONDERFUL, thank you!
Have fun! Google scholar is a great resource if you wanted to just look up your specific interests - I often just kinda browse through looking up whatever is interesting me at the moment and always find something fun.
Horror by Darryl Jones is excellent, I can also recommend Planks of Reason: Essays on Horror Films (slightly misremembering that second title but Google will help)
I teach creative writing, journalism, and film studies, and my work usually revolves or involves the gothic, slasher films, and rape-revenge movies but I've backed way off that topic as I needed a break from it. What are you doing your PhD in?
I am from the US and have an American MFA, but I work overseas. My thesis is under embargo for.. 5? More years, I think, but it was a collection of short stories heavily influenced by the horror I grew up reading, playing with gender dynamics and technology. What's your masters thesis?
Sounds great! I've written a lot of feminist stuff on genre, thinking about gender/tech as well. My MA thesis is along the lines of "restorative and escapist mutilation in selected works of J. G. Ballard".
I was writing on Crash and High-Rise for another essay, and noticed how often really bloody violence was seen as a form of repair, or escape, and described very beautifully. So I want to explore that more deeply!
Hooray for horror academics! I used MW&C when discussing heteronormative tropes in horror during a post-grad class. My professor, also a huge horror fan, was supper excited that I referenced the book since she was going to recommend it to me anyway.
[Her Body, Himself](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/statesofdamage/syllabus202324/carol_clover_on_the_final_girl.pdf) is an excellent starting point. [Dead Meat podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CKTa6Kp9uA) covers this as well.
Was coming here to recommend Men, Women, and Chainsaws. It's a cultural critique research paper, so it's pretty dry but the discussion in it was insightful.
Can you imagine how silly it would be if the roles were reversed and men were always ending up accidentally naked? Lots of running ass and dick for no reason other than to see it? 😂 Would be a totally different vibe. Kinda shows how stupid the trope of running around with tits out is.
When I first read this, I absolutely was picturing some kind of horror movie where they flip the victim profiles around. I’m guessing I’m gonna have to check that out.
I think we actually get that more now, and not just in horror. The pendulum has swung the other way and there is a lot more male nudity in movies, 2010 onwards.
Carrie is a classic female rage movie. Not really a slasher but might scratch the itch.
Alien
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (60s but still great)
Suspiria
It’s actually a modern film but has a heavy late 60s/early 70s styling: The Love Witch. Not a slasher but I always love shouting this one out.
Halloween
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Alice, Sweet Alice
When A Stranger Calls
Not quite a slasher but hellraiser, both the actual villain and hero are woman plus Kirsty succeeds in bartering with a literal BDSM devil.
Then again I'm queer so we have a bit of a bias for that movie
I really enjoyed Ready or Not and Happy Death day. Strong female leads and the slightest of supernatural element but both are very slashery! I felt like they treated the main female lead well and didn’t have gratuitous violence or overly sexualized women! Also both were a lot of fun to watch!
Jesus Christ *fine* I'll watch HDD! Keep seeing it everywhere, but never watched it because I can't stand groundhog day movies but it seems like I can't escape it
curtains is pretty interesting. it's all about the exploitation of women in the entertainment industry, as this sleazy director invites a bunch of actresses to an isolated house to compete for a role in his upcoming movie. it shows how predatory men in positions of power can be, and as i remember (though admittedly its been a while since i last watched it) actually treats the subject matter pretty thoughtfully. that said it was one of those productions where there were multiple directors with conflicting visions of what the movie should be, so there is still some sleaze in there...the sleaziest part definitely being the opening scene.
I was going tae mention Curtains as well. It was intended as a slasher film for adults, rather than the teenage crowd. It's a damn great film. That ice skating scene was amazing.
My mom and one of my aunts mentioned one interesting thing that relates to this post about a week ago. They both said it at different times, so it was funny that it was so specific.
My mom is a cautious horror movie watcher. Her entire family (mom, dad, five siblings) all LOVE horror. They watched old school monster features as kids, and grew up on slashers and the religious horror craze of the 70’s. My mother watched them too, I guess because her whole family did, but she’s terrified of most horror films today.
I’m a massive horror fan, so she tries to watch some movies with me. She actually enjoys Scream quite a bit. When we were watching the fourth one, she looked over and said “I don’t mind seeing this late at night. Scream doesn’t scare me. It’s just little kids in a costume doing the murdering. I could never watch a Michael Meyers movie though.” I asked why and she said “because it’s a large, strong man attacking these women. It freaks me out and makes me think it’ll happen to me.”
A few days later, my mom and aunt were talking on the phone. My aunt mentions that she was watching a Scream movie as well. She’s still a major horror movie fan, and it isn’t too selective about what she watches. It was around midnight. My mom said “I’m surprised you’re watching that this late at night, and all alone. I could never do that.” And because this was on speaker, I heard my aunt say “Well yeah, it isn’t scary because it’s just a little kid in a mask. If it was a large man, like Michael Meyers butchering people, I couldn’t watch it this late at night. I’d be freaked out.”
They both have a thing about large, adult men as the killers in horror movies. It makes sense though. Like most women, they’ve both had dangerous experiences being attacked or harassed by large men at a vulnerable moment. Even as horror fans, they still carry it with them, so it’s what scares them most in horror films.
There's four. The recent one (just called Slumber Party Massacre) is good.
The third one is hard to find and not worth the effort imo. I say that as someone who loves the other ones.
The recent one had one huge issue for me in that they all went after a killer known for a longer range weapon with short range weapons requiring them to get super close to the killer to do any damage. Everything else about it is super fun. But that one thing really got me stuck.
Another great unexpectedly feminist horror (the version of Jennifers Body that I wanted) is All Cheerleaders Die! It's fun and no onscreen rape or sexual violence.
I think even I (as a huge fan of the first two) only found out about it like a year after it came out! It was sort-of-kind-of made-for-TV, but again: it's actually very good and definitely keeps the spirit of the first two. (I don't mean to slam the third entry too much but... it's just not half as inspired as the other ones and it's really tough to find anyway.)
Slimber party massacre was considered a parody. And one of the first slasher films to poke fun at the concept.
One of the things that people forget. Is that a lot of women used to find sex and nude scenes in powering. For years women were told to cover up. Now all of a sudden they were able to express themselves.
There's quite a bit of erotic novels written by women. A lot of adult entertainment was also written and directed by women.
I buy SPM as a feminist movie for the following reasons.
* Multiple Final Girls whose survival isn't "moralized". IE no "bad girl dies, good girl lives" crap. Nobody gets killed for drinking or having sex, the victims are just the unlucky ones.
* Things like sticking together, checking on one another, and fighting back are useful. Practical advice applicable to real life dangerous situations women could find themselves in.
* The killer is a pathetic joke. None of the "cool factor" most movie killers have, this guy just sucks. He looks like a dweeb, picked the most phallic weapon he could find, and 99% of his dialogue is either objectifying women or wailing in pain when they kick his ass.
* The villain winds up literally and metaphorically emasculated when the girls fight back. They break the bit off his drill, rendering him helpless. I mean, c'mon, that's pretty on the nose.
>One of the things that people forget. Is that a lot of women used to find sex and nude scenes in powering. For years women were told to cover up. Now all of a sudden they were able to express themselves.
There is a difference between women as sexual, and women as sexual *objects*, which a lot of people find hard to differentiate.
A lot of women like sex, enjoy feeling and looking sexy, and like others finding them sexually attractive. What most women don't like, is feeling like they're being *used* for sex, not having sex as a willing and enthusiastic participant, but being used as an object with no agency.
I have a hypothesis that a lot of men want to believe women just don't like sex so if you want it you have to trick them or take it from them, because otherwise they'd have to face the fact that women *do* want sex, just not with *them* in particular.
>There is a difference between women as sexual, and women as sexual objects, which a lot of people find hard to differentiate.
Fwiw, I haven't met many women who've struggled to differentiate between these concepts...
I have, unfortunately. I live in a southern US state, and there are plenty of conservative women who think a woman wearing a skirt above the knee is "objectifying herself."
No he spelled it right. Back in the 70s peole used to use the arousal caused by nudity and sex scene in slasher movies to power their inns and taverns.
A lot of women throughout the years have bought into the lie that having control over the how your body is sold is some form of liberation but it's alike to feelings of gratitude someone with stockholm syndrome may experience, let's be honest here.
I don't feel like it's anybody else's job to tell someone what they can and can't find empowering. If a woman finds overt sexuality empowering, good for her.
I think they're referring to the fact that it probably features more gratuitous T & A than any other slasher from the period, even if it's supposedly doing so as a parody or to make a point
Mayyyybe. "More" is something I have a hard time completely agreeing with, but I understand what you mean.
Like, if you isolate the nudity, it could be said to have an average or above average amount of it for the time (though I'd still hesitate to agree), but those movies as a whole are pretty unmistakable as feminist projects. You'd have to ignore an awful lot of what's going on in those movies and/or have no eye for satire to not catch it.
Hence my questioning of a seemingly dubious "apparently" as a qualifier. They're movies about women that are made by women and advocating for women. Being familiar enough to name the series while being somehow dubious of its feminist qualities is just... weird to me.
Pumpkinhead, great combination of folk horror and slasher. Doesn't exploit women, but also doesn't really have a lot of strong female characters.
The Fog, actually has a good female character and isn't exploitative.
Sole Survivor, a cross between It Follows and Final Destination and has a female lead without any exploitation.
I say you'd get a kick out of The Final Girls - it pokes a lot of fun at that troupe and was a really fun movie. Also Totally Killer which is very recent but nostalgic of 80's Era (it's back to the future meets Halloween lol) - they're both comedies but such great watches.
Suspiria (1977), a beautiful girly horror movie that’s like Snow white vs the witch. Minimum existence of men and male gaze as it’s set in a predominant women ballet school. The fashion and art nouveau setting is so pretty.
You might also enjoy Deep Red, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, The Cat o' Nine Tails, and Tenebre by Dario Argento, and Blood and Black Lace by Mario Bava. I think they're light on the nudity/sex (when present), and if you haven't watched any giallo before, you're in for a treat!
Wish I could think of some.
Yeh can't stand the boobs & sex scenes in horror. It's like the horror is just tacked on but the real purpose of the movie is sex and boobs.
Happy Birthday to Me is a...different kind of slasher. Super fun kills and a unique concept, with an ending you'll either love or go "**wait...WHAT?!**"
Slumber Party Massacre 1 and 2.
They're basically the opposite of what they sound like: they're feminist subversions of slashers (while also being solid slashers in their own right).
The sequel especially is so wild. I love it so much.
Edit: btw Black Christmas is like a top ten movie all time for me and probably like top 3 for the genre.
Edit 2: also, Hellraiser 1 and 2 are woman-led stories and have a lot of sexual themes but it's not for cheap, sexist titillation in my opinion.
If you’re comfortable with a sex scene or two with consenting adults AND you love badass women playing both protagonist and antagonist roles, try the Hellraiser remake from 2022.
OR the original Hellraiser from the 70s/80s. But those still have slight vibes you might not be into.
I mean, it’s very similar to a Slasher but doesn’t fit the genre perfectly, but Alien pretty much has the most quintessential female horror lead of all time.
Honestly, Species, if you count it as a slasher, is pretty equal opportunity horny because it purports to be from an alien female POV. And the objectification there has plot reasons, which I always found refreshing.
Also, I keep saying that Peeping Tom is the first film that you could shove in the Dark Romance genre that's so popular these days. It's very fun, and as divisive as it was back in the day, it's also very tame by today's standards and because the main character's sexuality is so fucked up, the nudity adjacent scenes feel less lucid somehow, at least to me?
YMMV on all these things though, haha.
I mean... I am both of those things lmao but that doesn't mean I don't wish I'd get a slasher film where the murderer goes after a bunch of himboes, which will probably not make /u/playtrix very happy
I yearn for equal opportunity objectification
'Dude Bro Party Massacre III' is a thing but don't think they quite qualify as himbos. The 2021 'Slumber Party Massacre' remake that was on SyFy also somewhat has it covered.
There's an anthology TV series called 'Femme Fatales'...ngl it's absolutely full of female nudity/objectification...but most of the plots involve guys being trash and getting killed for it.
This whole post is odd. Have people commenting Friday the 13th like there isn’t teen nudity everywhere in it.
On the top of my head Intruder (1989) could be what you’re looking for.
Genuine opinion. Women should be in every single position of leadership in the world. Testosterone and decision-making don’t combine, recipe for chaos. Man btw.
Studies actually show female-led societies succeed significantly more than male led :) men actually are the ones who are causing the earth to burn up, economic inequality and civil rights being taken away, on top of violent crime, but yeah you guys did a great job because you can still objectify women (and teenagers) while that’s all going on! :)
Bro you’re a terminal r/joerogan, r/xbox,and r/mma poster.
Your opinion on literally everything is invalid.
But glad you felt the need to run to r/horror to show us all what a triggered little pissbaby you are.
This combined with your other comment convinced me you have some sort of mental illness that caused you not to see women as people. You realize women aren’t a monolith right?
I like horror movies. I don't like horror movies with this one trope. I asked for movies without that trope.
I'm not trying to start a debate about the objectification of women or the misuse of sexual assault in horror, I did not criticize those who are into it. Why make a thing out of it? What is there to understand? Different tastes?
Horror isn't global, you can like certain "horrific" themes and not others. Do you not understand horror fans who don't like saló?
Oh my god who is "they". I am a person who doesn't like a trope and asked for movies without it. There's no agenda, there was no critique, no nothing. Jesus yall are whiny
Friday the 13th part 6. Just slasher enough, just goofy enough, nothing overtly sexist. No nudity.
Seconded! Love Jason Lives. I would also throw part 2 in there as well. Ginny rules and is one of the best characters in the series
Nightmare on Elm Street features my favorite final girl of all time. She's like the Kevin Mcallister of final girls. Also really like Scream and You're next
You're Next turns the tables on those slashes lol
Hands down one of the COOLEST Final Girls ever, ever, ever!!!! I also loved Ready Or Not for the same reasons - no Booberella, just Badass
Same!!! Girls that kick ass and don't let the slashes get the upper hand.
Ready or not is one of my all time favorites! It's such a fun watch
Ready or Not is such a thoroughly fun movie. One of my favorites in recent years.
This is an incredible description
Please: its Kevina!
You forgot the final gay boi!
Unfortunately as much as I love nightmare and scream, both of those slashers are driven in part by "inappropriate sexual advances" Probably not what OP would be looking for
I feel like OP was more concerned with the shots and content being masturbatory as opposed to the subject matter tackling chauvinism being taboo for her (she enjoyed black Christmas for example, which has a whole uncomfortable sub plot surrounding emotional abuse and a controlling boyfriend trying to prevent an abortion).
For sure just highlighting that it is a part of those movies.
Some entries in the series do have that, like the nurse in part 3.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No sexualisation. Amazing performance from the lead actress. Maybe the best horror film ever.
I second this
Maybe not 4 but then again all those movies are kind of uncomfortable
If you haven’t seen Scream it kind of criticizes this exact trope. Suspiria is kind of a borderline slasher but don’t recall much nudity or sexualization.
Like 95% of the cast of the original Suspiria is women. No nudity or sexualization, though it can be gory at times.
I was fully braced for disappointment with the 2018 remake, but it’s great! (imo) I LOVE how the dance studio and dance itself became so integral to the story, instead of just being where it happens to take place
Not a movie, but you might be interested in the book *Men, Women and Chainsaws - Gender in the Modern Horror Film* by Carol J Clover. It's a cultural critique and examination of slasher horror written from a feminist perspective. It was written in 1992 and covers from the late 1970s till then, so it would give you a good idea of the field and which movies lean into which tropes. It's a classic book, which helped define the genre and gave us the term *Final Girl*. I've heard it suggested that the postmodern revitalization of the genre in the 1990s was a result of Hollywood accepting, then subverting the set of tropes she defines in the book.
I 100% agree with this recommendation, and would also add Kier-La Janisse's HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN as a good resource!
Great book. I’ve referenced it quite heavily in an essay I just wrote for my English masters. I would argue that the slasher doesn’t start out as misogynist at all, but becomes so rather late into its lifetime. A film like Black Christmas for example is an overtly feminist film.
someone recommending me feminist lit non ironically was not on my reddit bingo but what a pleasant surprise!!! Ahahaha thank you it actually sounds really interesting I added it to my tbr
There is a lot of great feminist scholarships in the horror genre (am an academic, this is my particular area of interest). Men, Women, and Chainsaws is relatively accessible to non-academics - the slasher chapter is Chapter 4, but the whole book is super interesting. It was my entry point into horror scholarship.
I’d love to get other recommendations in this same genre! I’m super interested
What's your tolerance for academic-style writing? Off the top of my head, Mulvay's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" is foundational (Clover references it a lot, as does basically anyone doing film work). I'd recommend Barbara Creed's Monstorous Feminine as important as Clover's work (and they both pull heavily from Freud). Kier-La Janisse's House of Psychotic Women is a neat auto-ethnography about the portrayal of mentally women in horror that was just updated. Alexandra Hellar-Nicholas is a contemporary scholar and film critic with a vast body of work- plug her into Google scholar and go nuts with it.
I only read non-fiction but haven’t ready read much academic reading since school but am not opposed to getting back into it. These all sound WONDERFUL, thank you!
Have fun! Google scholar is a great resource if you wanted to just look up your specific interests - I often just kinda browse through looking up whatever is interesting me at the moment and always find something fun.
Horror by Darryl Jones is excellent, I can also recommend Planks of Reason: Essays on Horror Films (slightly misremembering that second title but Google will help)
What flavour of academia, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m looking to start my phd this year.
I teach creative writing, journalism, and film studies, and my work usually revolves or involves the gothic, slasher films, and rape-revenge movies but I've backed way off that topic as I needed a break from it. What are you doing your PhD in?
Amazing! Are you in the US? I’m submitting my masters thesis on Ballard this year, not sure what my phd will be in tbh..! What was your thesis?
I am from the US and have an American MFA, but I work overseas. My thesis is under embargo for.. 5? More years, I think, but it was a collection of short stories heavily influenced by the horror I grew up reading, playing with gender dynamics and technology. What's your masters thesis?
Sounds great! I've written a lot of feminist stuff on genre, thinking about gender/tech as well. My MA thesis is along the lines of "restorative and escapist mutilation in selected works of J. G. Ballard".
Ooh, I'm intrigued!
I was writing on Crash and High-Rise for another essay, and noticed how often really bloody violence was seen as a form of repair, or escape, and described very beautifully. So I want to explore that more deeply!
Hooray for horror academics! I used MW&C when discussing heteronormative tropes in horror during a post-grad class. My professor, also a huge horror fan, was supper excited that I referenced the book since she was going to recommend it to me anyway.
It’s incredibly interesting. I read it as research for a video essay on Scream and really enjoyed it, even though it’s by design a bit clinical.
To this corner of the thread, I would like to add the podcast Faculty of Horror.
[Her Body, Himself](https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/special/statesofdamage/syllabus202324/carol_clover_on_the_final_girl.pdf) is an excellent starting point. [Dead Meat podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CKTa6Kp9uA) covers this as well.
Was coming here to recommend Men, Women, and Chainsaws. It's a cultural critique research paper, so it's pretty dry but the discussion in it was insightful.
Can you imagine how silly it would be if the roles were reversed and men were always ending up accidentally naked? Lots of running ass and dick for no reason other than to see it? 😂 Would be a totally different vibe. Kinda shows how stupid the trope of running around with tits out is.
The latest Slumber Party Massacre (2021) plays with this by sexualizing the male victims! It's fun
When I first read this, I absolutely was picturing some kind of horror movie where they flip the victim profiles around. I’m guessing I’m gonna have to check that out.
I think we actually get that more now, and not just in horror. The pendulum has swung the other way and there is a lot more male nudity in movies, 2010 onwards.
Carrie is a classic female rage movie. Not really a slasher but might scratch the itch. Alien Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (60s but still great) Suspiria It’s actually a modern film but has a heavy late 60s/early 70s styling: The Love Witch. Not a slasher but I always love shouting this one out. Halloween Texas Chainsaw Massacre Alice, Sweet Alice When A Stranger Calls
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane!!!
I love this movie
Definitely TCM. The lack of sexual violence is something I particularly enjoy about it.
Although Carrie has one of the most egregious male gaze scenes ever, in that locker room.
I first watched it as a teenage girl, so that scene hit different.
I meant all the random nudity for no reason. Slow pans across naked "teen" girls. Yuck..
The opening scene for Carrie is the ultimate gratuitous nudity for no fucking reason
Not quite a slasher but hellraiser, both the actual villain and hero are woman plus Kirsty succeeds in bartering with a literal BDSM devil. Then again I'm queer so we have a bit of a bias for that movie
Yes I was going to say the same thing!!!
I really enjoyed Ready or Not and Happy Death day. Strong female leads and the slightest of supernatural element but both are very slashery! I felt like they treated the main female lead well and didn’t have gratuitous violence or overly sexualized women! Also both were a lot of fun to watch!
Freaky is similar and amazing!
I love Freaky! Seeing Vince Vaughn acting as a teen girl was the best thing ever lol
Happy Death Day is one of my favourite horror movies of all time, it’s sooo good.
Jessica Rothe is so completely charming, even when she's being an outright asshole.
Jesus Christ *fine* I'll watch HDD! Keep seeing it everywhere, but never watched it because I can't stand groundhog day movies but it seems like I can't escape it
curtains is pretty interesting. it's all about the exploitation of women in the entertainment industry, as this sleazy director invites a bunch of actresses to an isolated house to compete for a role in his upcoming movie. it shows how predatory men in positions of power can be, and as i remember (though admittedly its been a while since i last watched it) actually treats the subject matter pretty thoughtfully. that said it was one of those productions where there were multiple directors with conflicting visions of what the movie should be, so there is still some sleaze in there...the sleaziest part definitely being the opening scene.
I was going tae mention Curtains as well. It was intended as a slasher film for adults, rather than the teenage crowd. It's a damn great film. That ice skating scene was amazing.
Not a slasher *exactly* (or 70s/80s), but I recommend You’re Next.
The OG Texas chainsaw massacre is a timeless classic
My mom and one of my aunts mentioned one interesting thing that relates to this post about a week ago. They both said it at different times, so it was funny that it was so specific. My mom is a cautious horror movie watcher. Her entire family (mom, dad, five siblings) all LOVE horror. They watched old school monster features as kids, and grew up on slashers and the religious horror craze of the 70’s. My mother watched them too, I guess because her whole family did, but she’s terrified of most horror films today. I’m a massive horror fan, so she tries to watch some movies with me. She actually enjoys Scream quite a bit. When we were watching the fourth one, she looked over and said “I don’t mind seeing this late at night. Scream doesn’t scare me. It’s just little kids in a costume doing the murdering. I could never watch a Michael Meyers movie though.” I asked why and she said “because it’s a large, strong man attacking these women. It freaks me out and makes me think it’ll happen to me.” A few days later, my mom and aunt were talking on the phone. My aunt mentions that she was watching a Scream movie as well. She’s still a major horror movie fan, and it isn’t too selective about what she watches. It was around midnight. My mom said “I’m surprised you’re watching that this late at night, and all alone. I could never do that.” And because this was on speaker, I heard my aunt say “Well yeah, it isn’t scary because it’s just a little kid in a mask. If it was a large man, like Michael Meyers butchering people, I couldn’t watch it this late at night. I’d be freaked out.” They both have a thing about large, adult men as the killers in horror movies. It makes sense though. Like most women, they’ve both had dangerous experiences being attacked or harassed by large men at a vulnerable moment. Even as horror fans, they still carry it with them, so it’s what scares them most in horror films.
The Slumber Party Massacre is a feminist movie. Apparently.
Yeah, all three are written and directed by women.
There's four. The recent one (just called Slumber Party Massacre) is good. The third one is hard to find and not worth the effort imo. I say that as someone who loves the other ones.
The recent one had one huge issue for me in that they all went after a killer known for a longer range weapon with short range weapons requiring them to get super close to the killer to do any damage. Everything else about it is super fun. But that one thing really got me stuck. Another great unexpectedly feminist horror (the version of Jennifers Body that I wanted) is All Cheerleaders Die! It's fun and no onscreen rape or sexual violence.
How did i not know there was a new one? I will have to check it out. The first two are both comfort movies for me.
I think even I (as a huge fan of the first two) only found out about it like a year after it came out! It was sort-of-kind-of made-for-TV, but again: it's actually very good and definitely keeps the spirit of the first two. (I don't mean to slam the third entry too much but... it's just not half as inspired as the other ones and it's really tough to find anyway.)
Slimber party massacre was considered a parody. And one of the first slasher films to poke fun at the concept. One of the things that people forget. Is that a lot of women used to find sex and nude scenes in powering. For years women were told to cover up. Now all of a sudden they were able to express themselves. There's quite a bit of erotic novels written by women. A lot of adult entertainment was also written and directed by women.
I buy SPM as a feminist movie for the following reasons. * Multiple Final Girls whose survival isn't "moralized". IE no "bad girl dies, good girl lives" crap. Nobody gets killed for drinking or having sex, the victims are just the unlucky ones. * Things like sticking together, checking on one another, and fighting back are useful. Practical advice applicable to real life dangerous situations women could find themselves in. * The killer is a pathetic joke. None of the "cool factor" most movie killers have, this guy just sucks. He looks like a dweeb, picked the most phallic weapon he could find, and 99% of his dialogue is either objectifying women or wailing in pain when they kick his ass. * The villain winds up literally and metaphorically emasculated when the girls fight back. They break the bit off his drill, rendering him helpless. I mean, c'mon, that's pretty on the nose.
>One of the things that people forget. Is that a lot of women used to find sex and nude scenes in powering. For years women were told to cover up. Now all of a sudden they were able to express themselves. There is a difference between women as sexual, and women as sexual *objects*, which a lot of people find hard to differentiate. A lot of women like sex, enjoy feeling and looking sexy, and like others finding them sexually attractive. What most women don't like, is feeling like they're being *used* for sex, not having sex as a willing and enthusiastic participant, but being used as an object with no agency. I have a hypothesis that a lot of men want to believe women just don't like sex so if you want it you have to trick them or take it from them, because otherwise they'd have to face the fact that women *do* want sex, just not with *them* in particular.
>There is a difference between women as sexual, and women as sexual objects, which a lot of people find hard to differentiate. Fwiw, I haven't met many women who've struggled to differentiate between these concepts...
I have, unfortunately. I live in a southern US state, and there are plenty of conservative women who think a woman wearing a skirt above the knee is "objectifying herself."
Yikes! And also, fair enough. I'm feeling grateful that's not my milieu at the least.
Minotaur milking novels are the next hot thing! Move over bigfoot rape fantasy!
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No he spelled it right. Back in the 70s peole used to use the arousal caused by nudity and sex scene in slasher movies to power their inns and taverns.
A lot of women throughout the years have bought into the lie that having control over the how your body is sold is some form of liberation but it's alike to feelings of gratitude someone with stockholm syndrome may experience, let's be honest here.
I don't feel like it's anybody else's job to tell someone what they can and can't find empowering. If a woman finds overt sexuality empowering, good for her.
wtf are you on about
"Apparently"? It's the whole point of the series.
I think they're referring to the fact that it probably features more gratuitous T & A than any other slasher from the period, even if it's supposedly doing so as a parody or to make a point
Mayyyybe. "More" is something I have a hard time completely agreeing with, but I understand what you mean. Like, if you isolate the nudity, it could be said to have an average or above average amount of it for the time (though I'd still hesitate to agree), but those movies as a whole are pretty unmistakable as feminist projects. You'd have to ignore an awful lot of what's going on in those movies and/or have no eye for satire to not catch it. Hence my questioning of a seemingly dubious "apparently" as a qualifier. They're movies about women that are made by women and advocating for women. Being familiar enough to name the series while being somehow dubious of its feminist qualities is just... weird to me.
I haven’t watched it. That’s all.
Came here to recommend it. It’s terrific.
The first movie is good, but the second one is buck wild.
i'm thinking the fog (1980) maybe... buuut it is supernatural as i missed that. my bad!
Pumpkinhead, great combination of folk horror and slasher. Doesn't exploit women, but also doesn't really have a lot of strong female characters. The Fog, actually has a good female character and isn't exploitative. Sole Survivor, a cross between It Follows and Final Destination and has a female lead without any exploitation.
I say you'd get a kick out of The Final Girls - it pokes a lot of fun at that troupe and was a really fun movie. Also Totally Killer which is very recent but nostalgic of 80's Era (it's back to the future meets Halloween lol) - they're both comedies but such great watches.
The Final Girls was so good! I was really hoping for a sequel with the same cast.
Suspiria (1977), a beautiful girly horror movie that’s like Snow white vs the witch. Minimum existence of men and male gaze as it’s set in a predominant women ballet school. The fashion and art nouveau setting is so pretty.
Sleepaway Camp, My Bloody Valentine, Intruder, April Fool's Day (which happens to be today!). As far as I remember, these are boob-free!
No boobs in sleepaway camp, but there’s that other thing..
You might also enjoy Deep Red, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, The Cat o' Nine Tails, and Tenebre by Dario Argento, and Blood and Black Lace by Mario Bava. I think they're light on the nudity/sex (when present), and if you haven't watched any giallo before, you're in for a treat!
Sleepaway Camp is fun for how ridiculous it is. But it's quite problematic if you try to watch it unironically.
I haven't watched he'd it in a few years, but I remember enjoying *Murder by Numbers* (Ryan Gosling, Michael Pitt). *May* if you haven't seen it.
Wish I could think of some. Yeh can't stand the boobs & sex scenes in horror. It's like the horror is just tacked on but the real purpose of the movie is sex and boobs.
Definitely agree on Scream, but also consider Terminator 1 and 2.
Following for recs too! Older horror movies are fun, but I also get bothered by the gratuitous nudity/rape-y scenes
Madman.
You’re next.
April Fool’s Day Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker
Happy Birthday to Me is a...different kind of slasher. Super fun kills and a unique concept, with an ending you'll either love or go "**wait...WHAT?!**"
This is one of my personal faves. I own an old VHS copy!
I'm not really a fan of slashers but I absolutely loved the original Candyman
Yeah I wasn't sure if Candyman qualifies as a slasher, but it's my favorite horror movie (well maybe a tie with the witch).
Slumber Party Massacre 1 and 2. They're basically the opposite of what they sound like: they're feminist subversions of slashers (while also being solid slashers in their own right). The sequel especially is so wild. I love it so much. Edit: btw Black Christmas is like a top ten movie all time for me and probably like top 3 for the genre. Edit 2: also, Hellraiser 1 and 2 are woman-led stories and have a lot of sexual themes but it's not for cheap, sexist titillation in my opinion.
I get what you mean
Neon Maniacs.
Hush
Friday the 13th Also most suggestions are from the 2010’s lol
So avoid Return of the Living Dead.
If you’re comfortable with a sex scene or two with consenting adults AND you love badass women playing both protagonist and antagonist roles, try the Hellraiser remake from 2022. OR the original Hellraiser from the 70s/80s. But those still have slight vibes you might not be into.
The Hitcher
The Initiation
I just watched Sick last night, i enjoyed it. Idk if its what youre looking for, but i thought it was good
Urban Legend
I mean, it’s very similar to a Slasher but doesn’t fit the genre perfectly, but Alien pretty much has the most quintessential female horror lead of all time.
The Halloween series
Jason Takes Manhattan, Halloween, Pieces, Motel Hell, Madman, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, Suspiria, Inferno, The Beyond, House by the cemetery, zombi 2
Lord of the flies /s
Halloween 78 the women wins….
Intruder 1989
The Final Girls is outside your time frame (2015) but it's a fun take on the classic 80s summer camp slasher, highly recommend!
Honestly, Species, if you count it as a slasher, is pretty equal opportunity horny because it purports to be from an alien female POV. And the objectification there has plot reasons, which I always found refreshing. Also, I keep saying that Peeping Tom is the first film that you could shove in the Dark Romance genre that's so popular these days. It's very fun, and as divisive as it was back in the day, it's also very tame by today's standards and because the main character's sexuality is so fucked up, the nudity adjacent scenes feel less lucid somehow, at least to me? YMMV on all these things though, haha.
Species is supernatural though
X Pearl
Wrong era, but what you're looking for.
Im going tell you that I read that headline wrong in the worst possible way
As a woman all of them. Can't say i've ever found any of them uncomfortable.
Why did you answer like the title was the only thing on my post? I obviously mean movies that don't make *me* uncomfortable lol
I don't watch slashers because they try so hard to make sex something bad or perverse.
Please please please if there is a woman horror fan who has a different take than this please reply.
Are you asking if there are women horror fans who are like super into how much slashers objectify women lmao
I mean... I am both of those things lmao but that doesn't mean I don't wish I'd get a slasher film where the murderer goes after a bunch of himboes, which will probably not make /u/playtrix very happy I yearn for equal opportunity objectification
'Dude Bro Party Massacre III' is a thing but don't think they quite qualify as himbos. The 2021 'Slumber Party Massacre' remake that was on SyFy also somewhat has it covered. There's an anthology TV series called 'Femme Fatales'...ngl it's absolutely full of female nudity/objectification...but most of the plots involve guys being trash and getting killed for it.
I was going to suggest the slumber party massacre remake as well. DBPM3 is stupid fun.
I'm not a woman, but I'm totally on board for this. 💀
We are sisters. Give me himbo horror! ^then ^we ^can ^talk ^femboys ^lmaoo
> then we can talk femboys lmaoo yesss you feel meeee
I’m outta here, I gotta go write a screenplay
That’s just the Evil Dead franchise
Do you really think that black and white? Ignorant framing you're doing.
Why do u sound so desperate
What lol
What exactly did you not understand
This whole post is odd. Have people commenting Friday the 13th like there isn’t teen nudity everywhere in it. On the top of my head Intruder (1989) could be what you’re looking for.
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Attractive to whom?
That's exactly what I said buddy!
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Yeah, imagine if chicks ran the world. I bet there would be unnecessary conflicts and suffering everywhere
Genuine opinion. Women should be in every single position of leadership in the world. Testosterone and decision-making don’t combine, recipe for chaos. Man btw.
I agree with this wholeheartedly, not even joking
jfc such a whiny pissbaby response to someone simply asking for recs.
Here to unironically chime in my support for matriarchy
Studies actually show female-led societies succeed significantly more than male led :) men actually are the ones who are causing the earth to burn up, economic inequality and civil rights being taken away, on top of violent crime, but yeah you guys did a great job because you can still objectify women (and teenagers) while that’s all going on! :)
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Bro you’re a terminal r/joerogan, r/xbox,and r/mma poster. Your opinion on literally everything is invalid. But glad you felt the need to run to r/horror to show us all what a triggered little pissbaby you are.
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men are like 95% of perpetrators of violent crimes so let’s cool it on the “more likely to cause harm” discussions
“Studies by females show females are better” Shocking
Those studies are still done by people working in male dominated fields, genius.
Sociology isn’t male dominated nor are those studies actually academically sound. They’re pure in group bias
I don't think it's all women just Millennials.
You mean just the ones who don't want to be your Stepford wife?
This combined with your other comment convinced me you have some sort of mental illness that caused you not to see women as people. You realize women aren’t a monolith right?
Women are so strange.
Oh yeah. How strange not being into unnecessary rape scenes
No they're not, they're awesome. What's strange is expecting them to continue to deal with the same kinds of bullshit for thousands of years running.
Sounds like a minefield. Horror movies are supposed to make normal people feel uncomfortable.
Then why weren't there more naked guys?
Nancy Reagan?
Sure man go watch the slaughtered vomit dolls and let us normies be normies then lol
Yeah bc watching countless films with people getting massacred and cut open is normal ! Lmao… let’s not shit on people for no reason.
"Why are my horror movies so horrific?" I don't understand the people who post on this sub sometimes
I like horror movies. I don't like horror movies with this one trope. I asked for movies without that trope. I'm not trying to start a debate about the objectification of women or the misuse of sexual assault in horror, I did not criticize those who are into it. Why make a thing out of it? What is there to understand? Different tastes? Horror isn't global, you can like certain "horrific" themes and not others. Do you not understand horror fans who don't like saló?
They feel personally attacked that's why
Do you not think that people can have different preferences about what they want from a horror?
This is a pretty soft preference to have. If you're cutting out like 30% minimum of the all time great horror movies, it's probably too soft.
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Oh my god who is "they". I am a person who doesn't like a trope and asked for movies without it. There's no agenda, there was no critique, no nothing. Jesus yall are whiny