A Horror Fan’s Guide to Surviving Womanhood
“Always check the backseat before you get in the car.” This is what my grandfather told my mom when she was a teenager. Recited it so often it became second nature to her. By the time she passed the same advice on to me, it was something I'd already been doing for years. No one needed to tell me. I'd already learned it from horror movies.
With new additions to the cultural zeitgeist like Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman (2020) and Shana Feste's Run Sweetheart Run (2020), we are finally starting to get more big-name scary movies written and directed by women. Movies that address female safety from a place of first-hand understanding. With that comes reflection on survival, both on and off the screen. Now, is Leatherface running around with a chainsaw? No. Is Michael Myers really out there, stalking babysitters? Unlikely. But the questions horror movies force us to ask ourselves are valid—and often, inherently tied to the female experience.
"Are we safe?" This is a question Vicky (Linda Hamilton) asks her boyfriend Burt (Peter Horton) when they are about to separate in Children of the Corn (1984). It's a loaded question, particularly for young women, most notably because of Burt’s reply. With a tender look and reassuring voice, he says "It's weird here, but we're safe." As an audience know this is not true. Vicky and Burt are about to be kidnapped by bloodthirsty children who have already murdered their own parents, but this exchange, in a nutshell, notes the difference between how men and women perceive the world around them. Vicky asks the question because she knows to ask it, because she has spent a lifetime asking it, as will younger female viewers preparing to enter the adult world. Are we safe?
In Run Sweetheart Run, Cherie (Ella Balinska) fights for her life after a blind date goes very, very wrong. Writer-director Shana Feste based the film on a blind date she went on in her early twenties, and the terrifying truth is that many women can relate to this scenario, or a fear of this scenario. "I think for any woman, that’s a very horrifying experience," said Feste, "and the genesis for real-life horror for me.” Comparatively, in Promising Young Woman, there is a moment where a very panicked Al (Chris Lowell) says, “It's every man's worst nightmare.” - to be accused of assaulting a woman. Cassie (Carey Mulligan) responds without missing a beat, “Can you guess what every woman's worst nightmare is?” It harkens back to the famous observation by Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them,” declared Atwood. “Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
Every woman under the sun has likely experienced a direct correlation between ‘femaleness’ and feeling unsafe. I was ten the first time a man I did not know made a remark about my body. The memory remains vivid, even after twenty years. I'd been standing in a group of other kids (mostly boys) and felt a drop in my stomach the instant it happened. Suddenly, being a girl made me feel uneasy. I had no foundation to comprehend how or why my gender was a factor, only that it was. When I discovered horror movies three years later, I found a surprisingly safe space to work out unsafe situations. These films taught me to ask, "Am I safe?" under the veil of dire circumstances, removed enough to not be overwhelming to my teenage self but nonetheless relevant to what I was beginning to experience as a young woman.
There have been studies upon studies on how horror is a comforting medium for those dealing with anxiety. “It’s about trying to learn to predict the world around you,” noted one psychological exploration of the issue on Health.com. “What do other people do, even if they’re fictional, when they’re in this kind of situation? What do other people do when they find themselves facing some particular kind of threat or challenge?” This is particularly poignant when framed around female viewership. Everything I learned about safety and self-preservation, lessons often reinforced by my parents and news headlines, were first introduced to me—made memorable and tangible to me—through watching horror movies as a teenager. Almost through osmosis, lessons and warnings became ingrained in my subconscious.
For instance, look at Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960). The first time I saw this picture, I was struck by the brilliance of Perkins in the role. The way he carries himself is so innocuous, his manner so ordinary when he comes out in the rain and apologizes to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) for keeping her waiting. The way he smiles and talks pleasantly while she checks into the motel is incredibly disarming. Norman seems harmless but will go on to murder Marion in one of the most iconic horror scenes of all time. He does not look like a monster—and that's the point. Writer/director Emerald Fennell underlines this point in Promising Young Woman by casting recognizable actors known for playing "nice boys" (television stars like Adam Brody from The OC, 2003-2007 and Max Greenfield from New Girl, 2011-2018) as men who turn out to be more detrimental than our preconceived notions would like us to believe. "If you’re making a movie about a complicated subject, it’s very easy to talk about this stuff when the people involved are people you don’t like or respect, or you’ve always thought were sleazy," Fennell told Entertainment Weekly. "Where this subject matter is tricky is that these people you love and respect."
When I was growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s, school safety programs taught "stranger danger" while skirting the issue that sometimes the monster is someone you know, someone you trust. You know who did bother to explore the complications of such circumstances for me? Horror movies. They address this over and over, constantly, and without reprieve. Let's use Scream's (1996) Final Girl Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) as a blueprint. When my thirteen-year-old self watched this classic slasher flick it left an indelible impression. Sidney is careful. Sidney is smart, scoffing at the way people behave in scary movies. "Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door," she remarks. "It's insulting." Of course, running up the stairs is the first thing Sidney does when the killer is after her and despite how careful she is in trusting her boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich), he still turns out to be the murderer. Because being self-aware doesn't automatically mean you are safe and trusting someone you think you know doesn't mean that person is trustworthy. A potential partner can still hurt you and, while all the authority figures in my thirteen-year-old life were telling me to beware of strangers, horror delved into how misleading such an oversimplification can be. Yes, strangers can be dangerous—but so can people you know. People you are willing to put your faith in. The Amityville Horror (1979), The Shining (1980), The Craft (1996), Secret Window (2004)—all films I watched and re-watched between the ages of thirteen and eighteen—said the same thing. In Night of the Living Dead (1968), it is not a legion of zombies that proves to be Barbra's (Judith O'Dea) undoing. It is her own brother's inclusion among them which ultimately breaks her.
Horror movies have always inspired audiences to question their surroundings. After a late night home alone watching scary movies, who hasn't jumped at the slightest noise? Pushed the shower curtain open just to make sure there was no one lurking behind it? The genre is designed to make you think about the sinister side of everything and, as a woman, that comes to be a very important tool in navigating the world around you. It trains you to look for red flags and emphasizes what consequences of ignoring them.
Halloween (1978) co-writers John Carpenter and Debra Hill often said that Laure Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) doesn't survive in the cult classic because she is a virgin, as horror lore would have you believe, but because she's paying attention. "The other girls were busy with their boyfriends, they were busy with other things," explained Carpenter. "Laurie had the perception because she’s not involved in anything. She’s lonely, she’s looking out the window.” In this case, paying attention means the difference between life and death. Laurie's ability to question her surroundings keeps her alive. This is, of course, the narrative as male writ. To survive within patriarchy – no, to exist – women must alter their behaviour, be hyperviligent. Girls like me grew up—and continue to grow up—learning to pay attention from movies like Halloween.
My oldest niece, who recently turned eighteen, has always loved horror films, her favorite being Saw (2004), and has admitted that she too does certain things because of the lessons she's learned from the screen. Though we'd never discussed it before, it turns out we both check the backseat when we get in the car. She also makes sure to always be holding something to protect herself with when she walks from her car to the door at night, just in case. I see my own behaviors reflected in the way I navigated train stations or parking garages at night, clocking my surroundings. Knowing who and what is where and when…asking Vicky’s timeless question: Are we safe?
Recently, I watched Children of the Corn for the first time since I was sixteen and that line hit me right in the gut, now more than ever, because almost two decades have passed and I know more about the world than I did then. Are we safe?It's a question slasher flicks and monster movies taught me to ask. At this point, it's instinct. A way of life. And I know I'm not alone in this because other women, young and old, do the same. Because we know the worst-case scenarios. Perhaps we've seen one too many horror movies but Google "woman attacked" on any given day and see what comes up. Real-life acts of horror. News stories about women abused or murdered by strangers and confidants alike. Movies are fiction, yes—but that doesn't mean they don't apply to the real world. Fiction is always sprinkled with moments of truth and it is from these moments that female horror fans first learn to glean wisdom and guidance. By the time we’re old enough to be off on our own, no one needs tell us to check the backseat. We already know what can happen when you don't.
Emily Ruth Verona received her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and Cinema Studies from the State University of New York at Purchase. Previous publication credits include essays/articles for Bookbub, Litro, The Toast, Medium and BUST.com. Her fiction has appeared in The Pinch, LampLight Magazine, and Mystery Tribune. For more visit www.emilyruthverona.com or follow her on Twitter here.
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