Bloody Women: Women Directors of Horror

Description

Bloody Women traces changing gender dynamics in the horror film industry to explore how women have played a crucial role in defining the genre of horror understood as a scholarly discipline, cultural institution, and site of pleasure. While acknowledging that women in the industry face ongoing challenges, this book focuses on their diverse contributions as creators, consumers, and critics of horror, showing how women have been essential in shaping the goals and methods of the genre. Aimed at both scholarly and general readers, the chapters bring together the expertise of filmmakers, festival programmers, and scholars to argue that women have effected a reimagining of horror. To this end, the volume considers a range of historical and theoretical issues relevant to gender and the genre of horror, broadly conceived. The collection explores, for example, female-directed horror films as a distinctive enterprise, one that is potentially marked by unique cinematic techniques and topical concerns. The book also moves into a more public domain, probing how the cultural experience of horror is transformed when the genre’s major festivals and conventions are developed and directed by women. Together, these essays offer a wide-ranging investigation into the stakes of women’s growing prominence in the horror industry. Most centrally, Bloody Women analyzes how the ethics, investments, and objectives of the genre shift when women deploy horror for their own enjoyment. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction One. Horror’s Founding Mothers: Women in Proto-cinema, Visual Avant-Gardes, and the Silent Era Two. Women’s Filmmaking and the Male-Centered Horror Film Three. Angela Bettis: Gender in the Space of Collaborative Horror Four. Stitches, Screams, and Female Beauty: Canadian Women Horror Film Five. “They’ve Got Something You Haven’t. A Cock.” Exploring the Gendered Experience of Horror Filmmaking in Britain Six. At Our Table: Conceptualizing the Black Woman’s Horror Film Aesthetic Seven. Women in Horror Film Festivals: Representation, Dark Storytelling, and an International Community of Filmmakers Eight. “But Are You Really Into Horror?” The Importance of Female-Centric Horror Film Festivals, Horror Curators, and Industry Champions Nine. Short Sharp Shocks: An Interview with Women Who Make Horror Shorts Ten. His Canon, Herself: Teaching Horror as Feminist Cinema Appendix. A Cultural Study of the (Western) Horror Film (Abridged Viewing List) Index About the Editors and Contributors