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Turns out for some of us, thats spooky enough.
And by us, I mean anyone who sees themselves in these terrified female protagonists.
Gaslight(1944)
No better place to start than with the source of gaslighting.
What makesGaslighta classic is that Bergman is such a revelation to watch.
I mean this guyreallyhates women!
But our young female protagonist, like the rest of her family, positively adores her uncle.
Who would believe you?
Exhibit A: Hepburns piercing delivery of Doctor!
See how she destroys us with her tongue for a hatchet?
Youve got to cut this hideous story out of her brain!
Thats like sayingThe Wizard of Ozis about tornado safety andCitizen Kaneis about a sled.
The real crimes against Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) are much more earthly and terrifying than devil worship.
The prevailing feeling is thatTHEYRE ALL IN ON IT,and its an all-too-familiar one.
You cant go on suffering like that!).
That in and of itself is worthy of late-night discussion with your favorite feminists.
Shes just pissed that nobody ever told her about her period.
The worst part is the famous climax when Carrie vengefully sets all around her ablaze.
This isnt actually the final scene; instead, for all her teen-girl triumphs, Carrie is punished relentlessly.
Andthat, more than the bloody havoc she wreaks, should haunt us still.
The Shining(1980)
IfRosemarys Babyis all about bodily autonomy, thenThe Shiningis all about marriage.
What caused the Overlook Hotels previous off-season caretaker to murder his family with an axe?
Does anyone else hear wedding bells?
She backs her way up the stairs, swinging a bat in self-defense as he stalks up after her.
Love you too, honey.
But just as scary as a maniacal cannibal: workplace harassment!
Why send a student to do what nobody else in the bureau can do?
Thus begins her uphill battle to do an impossible job while fending off sexual harassment at every turn.
Its a no good, very bad workday, and it doesnt stop there.
The Stepford Wives(1975, 2004)
What do you miss most about New York?
a reporter asks Joanna (Katharine Ross) in the original 1975Stepford Wives.
Joanna has just relocated to a Connecticut suburb with her husband and children.
The noise, she says.
I miss the noise.
That the women tend to short-circuit inside this system is just a glitch to be worked out.
But Joanna and her new BFF, Bobby (Paula Prentiss), are real women.
They drink, ask questions, make art, and trade cutting quips.
They sweat, fight, and when theyre cut, they bleed.
He answers with a simple, Elon Muskian Because we can.
Among them: The grand technocratic scheme now has a VR component (!
Whats not to like?
That sounds rhetorical, butDont Worry Darlings contribution to the genre is actually taking that question seriously.
What if theres an abundance of orgasms and cocktails, and the women still get to be funny?
Then what do you do when you discover the same old misogynistic values are underpinning the project?
Beauty in control, grace in symmetry, the enemy of progress is chaos is this towns motto.
Its the familiar Stepfordian ideal, now with a fascist twist toward uniformity and regimentation.
All of this raises the exceedingly pertinent question, What willful ignorance is your comfort trading upon?
How much inhumane horror does it take to get another drink around here?
What if, instead of a bad guy, youre trapped in an overwhelming, interlocking system?
Then what do you do?
Then where do you go?
Its the hostile, sexually oversaturated atmosphere director Jane Campion creates thats so compelling here.
Fear is in the air.
In the Cuttakes those age-old questions (Can I trust him?
Did he do it?)
There are also some seriously under-interrogated racial dynamics as well as a cheesy moment or two.
WhatIn the Cutgets right, though, is this unrelenting hum of sexualized fear.
SeeSuspiria, both the 1977 Italian original andthe 2018 remake.
AddStarry Eyes(2014) andNeon Demon(2016) for a recent look at Hollywoods gendered pressure chamber.
(1962), andSunset Boulevard(1950).
and never really stops being about how annoying kids can be and how hard parenting is.
She says cuttingly mean things just to finally get some peace and quiet.
This is no boring domestic drama though its all extremely scary.
Look at me!).
But, the more you deny it, the stronger I get, says the Babadook.
It was aliens all along!).
Not to mention the noose left hanging on a dorm-room door and the cross burning on a lawn.
To make matters even worse, amid this cavalcade of racism and sexism Jasmines dorm room is cursed!
A witch was burned centuries before, and a girl jumped to her death a few decades back.
And Bishops master house is haunted to the max too.
Men(2022)
Yes, all men.
Queue the men, who arrive one by one to terrorize her on her solo retreat.
But Harper didnt come here to be afraid!
After her ex-husbands death its own manipulative maneuver of sorts she rented this house to heal.
Thus unfolds the films central nightmare: What happens when the site reserved for healing becomes haunted?
But a menacing figure appears, as always.
With this, Evie steps out of her life and into what is essentially aDownton Abbeyepisode.
But these old, moneyed white people harbor a dangerous secret, as they so often do.
Welcome to colonialism I mean capitalism, I mean our castle.
The footman will take you to your room.
Ready or Not(2019)
Let the games begin.
The future of the family jewels hinges upon our class-interloper female protagonist.
Will she play along or flip the board?
What does it look like to beat the ruling class at its own enterprise?
As in life and U.S. elections, the women must decide between complicity or burning the whole thing down.
), but she then also has to convince everyone else that this is happening, too.
#BelieveWomen, ya know?
