Growing up as a young lady in this fine world of ours, one is often taught to be sweet, charming, polite. Wait your turn. Say thank you. Smile. Every once in awhile, however, a nice young woman slips through the cracks, becoming assertive, aggressive, violent, or even ... monstrous.
This Halloween season, we’re conjuring the best horror flicks starring female monsters. There is something awesomely feminist about the woman villain, even especially when she’s donning pigtails, catering to her sexual fantasies, sucking blood, losing her virginity, spewing vomit, biting genitalia, and just generally causing a ruckus. If you’re looking for a badass role model of the most dangerous sort, this bunch of killers, demons and vampires will do the trick.
1. "Teeth" (2007)
The mythical vagina dentata, Latin for toothed vagina, is pretty much that. Stick anything in there and prepare to be mutilated, emasculated, castrated, etc. In this 2007 horror black comedy, Dawn is a Christian high schooler with a purity ring who loses her virginity when her boyfriend forces himself upon her. Big mistake, dude. Penis biting ensues. And is it just a coincidence that her name is Dawn O'Keefe?!
2. "Drag Me to Hell" (2009)
When you are a loan officer, there is pretty much no worse scenario then denying a mortgage extension and subsequently humiliating an elderly gypsy woman who just happens to be a demon who, in return, will curse you, torture you and drag you to hell. The demonic Sylvia Ganush, with her propensity for projecting vomit as a form of attack and a thing for face-biting sans dentures, is repulsive in the best way.
3. "The Bad Seed" (1965)
The 1956 cult classic proves nothing is scarier than a little blonde girl with pigtails -- assuming, of course, she's the descendent of a serial killer and will stop at nothing to win a penmanship medal. If you're personally offended by the old rhyme "sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of," this film proves that a 9-year-old cutie pie can be a cold-blooded killer.
4. "Excision" (2012)
Teenage girls are often shamed and shunned for possessing sexual desires of any kind. If, however, your sexual fantasies involve performing surgeries and ingesting the innards of your partners, you're really going to feel like an outcast. This 2012 horror comedy is often billed as a contemporary, super campy and super, super bloody "Carrie." Pauline is our high school heroine and a monster as well, who dreams of becoming a surgeon and having all kinds of fun, bloody sex. But of course, as every high school outcast knows, it's never that easy.
5. "Cat People" (1942)
As the trailer to the 1942 horror film says, "Cat People" is "the exciting story of a modern girl cursed by an ancient legend, a legend of the Cat People, women whose kiss means death, whose love turns them into vicious, gnarling, beasts of prey!" Irena is a Serbian-born fashion designer in NYC whose family history includes witchcraft and devil worship. As a result, now, when she's turned on, she transforms into a murderous panther.
6. "Misery" (1990)
Based off Stephen King's novel of the same name, the 1990 film stars Kathy Bates as a psychotic nurse and superfan of a series of romance novels starring a lady named Misery Chastain. When she's casually following the author around, he gets in a car accident and she takes him in to evilly nurse him back to health. That is, until she finds out he recently killed off the main character to focus on more "serious" writing endeavors. And then the crazy comes out.
7. "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" (2014)
From the title, you might assume that the girl is the victim in this story, but you'd be wrong. She’s the predator -- a vampire to be more precise. When someone asks her what she is, the girl simply replies, “I’m bad.” But when she’s not sucking blood in the fictional Iranian town of Bad City (filmed in the California desert), she behaves like any other teenager -- bedroom-dancing to New Wave, piling on the black eyeliner, and skateboarding as her hijab flaps in the wind.
8. "Goodnight Mommy" (2015)
Do you remember watching those reality shows where women would get extreme makeovers with multiple plastic surgeries? And the look of horror in their children’s faces when they didn’t recognize their own mothers? This Austrian film is like an extreme, arthouse version of that moment. Twin brothers Elias and Lukas question their mother’s identity after she undergoes reconstructive surgery, increasingly unsure of who -- or what -- lies beneath the bandages. The quietly disturbing premise taps into a primal fear that feels surreal yet entirely possible.
9. "Jennifer’s Body" (2009)
In this hormonal horror film, a mean girl graduates from “high school evil” to the murderous kind after being possessed by a hungry demon in a virgin sacrifice gone wrong. The boys in her small town become her favorite after-school snack. Jocks, goths, nerds -- they all taste the same to her. Immersed in an epic toxic friendship battle, it’s up to her wallflower BFF Needy to end Jennifer’s all-you-can-eat rampage.
10. "Species" (1995)
Engineered by scientists, Sil is a female alien-human hybrid. After escaping the lab where she was being held captive, the bombshell alien has one mission in mind -- to make babies. Luckily for her, Sil has no trouble seducing men at singles’ bars (in the pre-Tinder year of 1995). A scientist explains to the search team entrusted with hunting her down that Sil was purposely made female to be “more docile and controllable,” to which another character replies, “I guess you guys don’t get out much.”
11. "Ginger Snaps" (2000)
Hair growing in new places? Feeling moody once a month? It could be puberty, or it could be that werewolf bite. In this teen horror tale, Ginger and Brigitte are a pair of macabre sisters who feel alienated in their small town. After Ginger is attacked by a werewolf, she begins to act even more strangely than before. Sisterhood is powerful, but Brigitte has to decide between joining Ginger or saving herself.
12. "Nurse" (2013)
Paz de la Huerta stars in this dark comedy -- which was originally in 3D -- about a blood-soaked healthcare provider named Abby Russell. Vengeful and unhinged, she uses her expert medical knowledge to brutally murder people. Her main target? Cheating men. Trust us, you don't want her scalpel anywhere near your trousers. When her obsession with a younger nurse becomes a threat, it's hard not to root for the charmingly insane Abby.
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