Also, the Final Girl is usually the one who is the most "pure", morally or sexually. ie, the Virgin (to tie in with your loss of innocence idea.) Hell, this was a traditional leftist complaint about slasher films being "right wing"!
Well-executed horror is always right-wing, and that's why Lovecraft still gets ripped off to this day. A monster is a foreigner and a raider. A ghost is an unattended past. They're breaching your day-to-day existence and bringing a new order onto it. In leftist thought, foreigners, iconoclasm, and revolution are all good things. That's why their horror feels so fake.
How many haunted house stories begin with a family that has some fracture that isn't being addressed, and the ghost is banished when the family is mended?
I haven't seen Don't Breathe, so I can't comment on that specifically, but it sounds like a rape thing. Feminism tends to be classified as left-wing since it allies with leftists and uses a lot of leftist strategy, but it's really just some combination of opportunistic and schizo - there's a reason why it's considered the politicization of women's neuroses.
There's a Jekyll and Hyde dynamic between feminism and patriarchy. They believe the "patriarchy" (the powers that be) are okay with rape. So, they demand (and are granted) that men/the state/institutions take even more responsibility for women's safety, rather than taking on any for themselves, and in doing so, make themselves less safe. Then, as women are now less safe, and have no agency of their own, the patriarchy is enabling rape, and feminism is the one fighting it, when they themselves are the one making themselves less safe.
All that's just to explain how feminists believe that they, solely, are against rape, and that depictions of rape as bad are therefore feminist. That's one of two reasons I sometimes hear for horror movies being feminist, and the only one that fits what I'm guessing you mean.
Well-executed horror is always right-wing, and that's why Lovecraft still gets ripped off to this day. A monster is a foreigner and a raider. A ghost is an unattended past. They're breaching your day-to-day existence and bringing a new order onto it. In leftist thought, foreigners, iconoclasm, and revolution are all good things. That's why their horror feels so fake.
99% of all modern movies are intrinsically feminist. But, if we ignore those, I'd still say no. One of the major trope of horror movies was the sexy naked girl scene which a feminist would say is blatant objectification. Also, women are usually not spared from brutal deaths even if there's a final girl. Worst yet, when they survive, they're often saved by the sacrifice of a hetero male love interest (the horror!!!). Too many dumb blonde characters too. All these things go against the feminist's goal of showing perfect women + weak men in an attempt to brainwash the masses into thinking this is reality.. But I'm sure everyone here already knows this
All of media has been a playground for all aspects of liberalism for a long time because that's what we live under. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is, for example, extremely gay. That said, some people have interpreted the slasher movie trope of "be promiscuous; get murdered" with actually being socially conservative. AFAIK John Carpenter, who started that trope with Halloween, has said that was not his intent, but it's still a message people pick up on. It's even stated overtly in Scream, with one of Randy's rules for surviving a horror film being never having sex.
Horror movies are no more intrinsically feminist than video games or TV shows. These things are the way they are because of the people in charge.
Nope. It's just an easy sell on feminist tropes for all the reason Daucus9 said.
All the best horror films are ones starring males, typically because they take action and don't act like retards.
The only exception to a female-led horror film series being good is Alien/Aliens, and even then a large part of Aliens are the surviving marines kicking the xenomorphs arse, which is why people love it so much.
Predator 1 is considered an action-horror thriller, and one of the very best ever made, and there's only one female in it who does absolutely nothing. It's all about masculinity, wits, and brawn winning out in the end. Flipping that trope on its head led to the absolutely horrible Prey, where basic reality and common logic had to be completely abandoned so a superhuman teen could fight the Predator, even though she would have died in one hit.
The very best horror movie ever made, The Thing, also has no females in it. It's another completely masculine film based around tough guys making hard choices to survive. No one does anything stupid in that film; you're rooting for anyone but the thing to survive. The movie plays it straight with no stupidity, and no females acting emotional and ridiculous, and that's why it's so good. The same thing applies to the original Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York (no surprise all those films are made by John Carpenter).
Films like Demoni (1985) is also another example of needing masculinity to resolve the situation, because a screaming, frightened female is useless in a situation like that (same thing applied to the sequel).
Dawn of the Dead is the same way; the only woman who survived in that one was also completely useless (for the most part, until she flew the helicopter at the end, but only did so because her husband had taught her how before he died).
City of the Living Dead was another where it was far-removed from anything feminist, since women acted like women in that film and... well... most died because of that.
Alligator (1980)
Rogue (2007)
Silent Rage (1982)
Green Room (2015)
Stakeland (2010)
Split Second (1992)
Sunshine (2007)
Jaws (1975)
They Live (1988)
In The Mouth of Madness (1994)
The Hitchhiker (1986)
From Dusk 'Til Dawn (1996)
Daylight's End (2016) and Vampires (1998 -- and this is one of my absolute all-time favourites ever) are all badass films that are horror but with masculine leads, and better for it.
In fact, I would say that horror films starring males are the best kind of horror films because typically you can expect men to be proactive rather than reactive. It makes for an entertaining film since most people want to see protagonists who are capable and willing to fight back.
Women, however, have a fetish for feeling victimised and wanting to gain some sense of "empowerment" through victimhood, which is why they really like films like Scream, The Descent, and other slasher films that fit the feminist tropes; but few (or none) of those films are up to the quality of most male-led horror films where they're willing to kick butt and take names (like Predator).
Good point about Aliens. I actually prefer Alien but the best parts are not when Ripley is running from the alien on her own, but when the crew is working together as a team trying to figure out and solve the problem.
Yup, exactly. It was the non-feminist aspects that were the best, because audiences were captive to the intrigue of how the crew were going to deal with this growing problem.
Movies follow whatever is the dominant power, generally speaking. So if a movie is feminist, it implies the dominant culture is feminist. Which given Hollywood, isn't an unlikely condition.
Horror movies in particular are movies, generally speaking, about disenfranchisement and disempowerment fantasies. In Saw2, they could have just walked through the wall, or stood in the front doorway, and escaped, no danger, no harm. But they went through the deathtrap maze because the MCs need to be killed off, need to be disempowered. Disenfranchised.
In that regard, that horror movie protagonists could be successful and healthy but choose to be a victim, yes, they are often feminist movies. Often, the only difference between an action movie and a horror movie is the protagonists of horror movies are inept, useless, and weak, while action stars are innovative, inventive, and strong. Left wing vs right wing. Die Hard is a horror movie where innocent office workers are killed off one by one, only for the rest to die horrifically at the end... Except there's a strong, inventive, not-terminally-stupid fellow yelling "Yippy kai yay, mutherfuckers!".
I wouldn't say feminist but more female leaning. When we look at what media each gender views the most, women are into WAY MORE fucked up things than men and horror being one of them.
Plus when you see how characters react typically in those films, most guys would instead either nuke it from a safe distance or do this. Centuries of being hunters has taught us if you face an unknown situation, best bet is to run the fuck away to live another day. None of this 'let's check out the abandoned asylum at night' shit, I watch real Ubex channels and they do their exploring in the day time in teams of two or more majority of the time.
There are a few films that do this kind of thing but they are the minority than the majority.
In Jason X, they catch Jason in a Holodecks with teenage coeds sleeping in the woods everywhere. He picks up one sleeping bag and beats the other one with it. So, no, I can't say it's feminist.
I just watched The Void, thanks for the recommendation BTW, and I can't find a single feminist trope in it. I could point out plot holes, or things medical staff will never do, but not feminist.
Apparently in Scream V (which I haven't seen), Dewey gets killed by getting into melee range of the killer (who has a vest under the cloak and feigns death after being shot) instead of double-tapping from out of range, which is established as the thing to do in multiple prior Scream films. 🤡🤡🤡
You basically said in a much more eloquent way what I was thinking
Also, the Final Girl is usually the one who is the most "pure", morally or sexually. ie, the Virgin (to tie in with your loss of innocence idea.) Hell, this was a traditional leftist complaint about slasher films being "right wing"!
I usually hate horror movies, but Cabin in the Woods was kind of an amusing semi-satire of the genre.
Well-executed horror is always right-wing, and that's why Lovecraft still gets ripped off to this day. A monster is a foreigner and a raider. A ghost is an unattended past. They're breaching your day-to-day existence and bringing a new order onto it. In leftist thought, foreigners, iconoclasm, and revolution are all good things. That's why their horror feels so fake.
How many haunted house stories begin with a family that has some fracture that isn't being addressed, and the ghost is banished when the family is mended?
I haven't seen Don't Breathe, so I can't comment on that specifically, but it sounds like a rape thing. Feminism tends to be classified as left-wing since it allies with leftists and uses a lot of leftist strategy, but it's really just some combination of opportunistic and schizo - there's a reason why it's considered the politicization of women's neuroses.
There's a Jekyll and Hyde dynamic between feminism and patriarchy. They believe the "patriarchy" (the powers that be) are okay with rape. So, they demand (and are granted) that men/the state/institutions take even more responsibility for women's safety, rather than taking on any for themselves, and in doing so, make themselves less safe. Then, as women are now less safe, and have no agency of their own, the patriarchy is enabling rape, and feminism is the one fighting it, when they themselves are the one making themselves less safe.
All that's just to explain how feminists believe that they, solely, are against rape, and that depictions of rape as bad are therefore feminist. That's one of two reasons I sometimes hear for horror movies being feminist, and the only one that fits what I'm guessing you mean.
Insightful and well said
99% of all modern movies are intrinsically feminist. But, if we ignore those, I'd still say no. One of the major trope of horror movies was the sexy naked girl scene which a feminist would say is blatant objectification. Also, women are usually not spared from brutal deaths even if there's a final girl. Worst yet, when they survive, they're often saved by the sacrifice of a hetero male love interest (the horror!!!). Too many dumb blonde characters too. All these things go against the feminist's goal of showing perfect women + weak men in an attempt to brainwash the masses into thinking this is reality.. But I'm sure everyone here already knows this
Honestly, horror might be the only genre that isn't horribly feminist.
That depends what you consider "horror" ;)
All of media has been a playground for all aspects of liberalism for a long time because that's what we live under. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is, for example, extremely gay. That said, some people have interpreted the slasher movie trope of "be promiscuous; get murdered" with actually being socially conservative. AFAIK John Carpenter, who started that trope with Halloween, has said that was not his intent, but it's still a message people pick up on. It's even stated overtly in Scream, with one of Randy's rules for surviving a horror film being never having sex.
Horror movies are no more intrinsically feminist than video games or TV shows. These things are the way they are because of the people in charge.
Fuck off, film!
I definitely smell shite
Nope. It's just an easy sell on feminist tropes for all the reason Daucus9 said.
All the best horror films are ones starring males, typically because they take action and don't act like retards.
The only exception to a female-led horror film series being good is Alien/Aliens, and even then a large part of Aliens are the surviving marines kicking the xenomorphs arse, which is why people love it so much.
Predator 1 is considered an action-horror thriller, and one of the very best ever made, and there's only one female in it who does absolutely nothing. It's all about masculinity, wits, and brawn winning out in the end. Flipping that trope on its head led to the absolutely horrible Prey, where basic reality and common logic had to be completely abandoned so a superhuman teen could fight the Predator, even though she would have died in one hit.
The very best horror movie ever made, The Thing, also has no females in it. It's another completely masculine film based around tough guys making hard choices to survive. No one does anything stupid in that film; you're rooting for anyone but the thing to survive. The movie plays it straight with no stupidity, and no females acting emotional and ridiculous, and that's why it's so good. The same thing applies to the original Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York (no surprise all those films are made by John Carpenter).
Films like Demoni (1985) is also another example of needing masculinity to resolve the situation, because a screaming, frightened female is useless in a situation like that (same thing applied to the sequel).
Dawn of the Dead is the same way; the only woman who survived in that one was also completely useless (for the most part, until she flew the helicopter at the end, but only did so because her husband had taught her how before he died).
City of the Living Dead was another where it was far-removed from anything feminist, since women acted like women in that film and... well... most died because of that.
Alligator (1980)
Rogue (2007)
Silent Rage (1982)
Green Room (2015)
Stakeland (2010)
Split Second (1992)
Sunshine (2007)
Jaws (1975)
They Live (1988)
In The Mouth of Madness (1994)
The Hitchhiker (1986)
From Dusk 'Til Dawn (1996)
Daylight's End (2016) and Vampires (1998 -- and this is one of my absolute all-time favourites ever) are all badass films that are horror but with masculine leads, and better for it.
In fact, I would say that horror films starring males are the best kind of horror films because typically you can expect men to be proactive rather than reactive. It makes for an entertaining film since most people want to see protagonists who are capable and willing to fight back.
Women, however, have a fetish for feeling victimised and wanting to gain some sense of "empowerment" through victimhood, which is why they really like films like Scream, The Descent, and other slasher films that fit the feminist tropes; but few (or none) of those films are up to the quality of most male-led horror films where they're willing to kick butt and take names (like Predator).
Just adds to the difference between horror and slasher films. I consider the two to be completely separate genres.
Good point about Aliens. I actually prefer Alien but the best parts are not when Ripley is running from the alien on her own, but when the crew is working together as a team trying to figure out and solve the problem.
Remember Ripley wasn't written with a woman, or man, in mind for Alien. The character was faceless until cast.
Yup, exactly. It was the non-feminist aspects that were the best, because audiences were captive to the intrigue of how the crew were going to deal with this growing problem.
They have it backward - feminist movies are horrors.
Movies follow whatever is the dominant power, generally speaking. So if a movie is feminist, it implies the dominant culture is feminist. Which given Hollywood, isn't an unlikely condition.
Horror movies in particular are movies, generally speaking, about disenfranchisement and disempowerment fantasies. In Saw2, they could have just walked through the wall, or stood in the front doorway, and escaped, no danger, no harm. But they went through the deathtrap maze because the MCs need to be killed off, need to be disempowered. Disenfranchised.
In that regard, that horror movie protagonists could be successful and healthy but choose to be a victim, yes, they are often feminist movies. Often, the only difference between an action movie and a horror movie is the protagonists of horror movies are inept, useless, and weak, while action stars are innovative, inventive, and strong. Left wing vs right wing. Die Hard is a horror movie where innocent office workers are killed off one by one, only for the rest to die horrifically at the end... Except there's a strong, inventive, not-terminally-stupid fellow yelling "Yippy kai yay, mutherfuckers!".
I wouldn't say feminist but more female leaning. When we look at what media each gender views the most, women are into WAY MORE fucked up things than men and horror being one of them.
Plus when you see how characters react typically in those films, most guys would instead either nuke it from a safe distance or do this. Centuries of being hunters has taught us if you face an unknown situation, best bet is to run the fuck away to live another day. None of this 'let's check out the abandoned asylum at night' shit, I watch real Ubex channels and they do their exploring in the day time in teams of two or more majority of the time.
There are a few films that do this kind of thing but they are the minority than the majority.
In Jason X, they catch Jason in a Holodecks with teenage coeds sleeping in the woods everywhere. He picks up one sleeping bag and beats the other one with it. So, no, I can't say it's feminist.
I just watched The Void, thanks for the recommendation BTW, and I can't find a single feminist trope in it. I could point out plot holes, or things medical staff will never do, but not feminist.
Nothing is intrinsically feminist. Feminism is completely inorganic.
Read the book “men, women, and chainsaws”
The topic you posted about. Horror films and tropes of the genre.
Apparently in Scream V (which I haven't seen), Dewey gets killed by getting into melee range of the killer (who has a vest under the cloak and feigns death after being shot) instead of double-tapping from out of range, which is established as the thing to do in multiple prior Scream films. 🤡🤡🤡
If someone tried to kill me they'd need a close casket funeral