The Bite #150

Female Filmmakers: Reclaiming An Exploitative Genre, Fortnite Aliens, Serial Killers Galore, And More

March 02, 2021

In this Issue:

Horror History: Ernesto Alonso: EL MALEFICIO’s Demonic Mafioso Dandy
Image of the Week: A Big Problem Calls For a Pinhead
Tiny Bites – This Week’s Best Horror Headlines
Things We Love: What a Pain in the Neck
Hey, That’s Us! – Shudder in the News

HORROR HISTORY

Female Filmmakers: Reclaiming An Exploitative Genre

Exploitation cinema isn’t exactly known for its feminist messages and careful treatment of female characters. It is built upon the torture, rape, and trauma of women. But, isn’t that we’re meant to expect from the genre? Those who wish to avoid such topics should just avoid films like I Spit On Your Grave and The Last House On The Left at all costs. It’s also often assumed that only men could enact such cruelty to their characters. But such an assumption erases a growing canon of women-directed exploitation cinema that illustrates how these violent films can be captured through a female gaze without sacrificing the expected blood and gore.

While the number of female filmmakers working with exploitation has grown in the past decade, there were women making these films in the genre’s heyday. Most notable is Doris Wishman, who made upwards of 30 sexploitation films throughout her career, which spanned from the ‘60s into the late ‘00s. Her film Bad Girls Go To Hell (1965) exemplifies her work within the movement as her protagonist Meg follows the well-known story beats where she is raped and subsequently murders her rapist. But, this isn’t Wishman’s only focus. Meg then embarks on a sexual adventure with numerous partners, not letting her trauma define her relationship to intimacy. Whitman worked in the realm of commercially desired sex and used that to her advantage to make films that pushed against generic conventions; sex was not just a man’s game. She paved the way for women that would experiment with the exploitation form and use it for more than spectacle.

Other female directors dabbled in exploitation after Wishman, such as Vera Chytilová with her 1998 film Traps and Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi with their 2000 film Baise-Moi. Again, these films take ideas of titillating sex and violence, but place them in the context of critiquing rape culture. In Traps, the rapists are castrated and their struggle to adapt to their new condition is comedic; the male body here becomes spectacle and something to be ridiculed. In Baise-Moi, while the two protagonists are assaulted, they use their rage to embark on a sex-fueled murder spree where they embrace their own narrative through their sexuality and refusal to be rendered victims.

Now, following in their predecessors’ footsteps, more women are tackling exploitation cinema, particularly rape-revenge films, that actively reject the male gaze and instead refute the idea that the broken female body is a spectacle. The female body has become a site for revolution and nuanced discussions of individual experiences with sexual assault, such as Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge, Natalia Leite’s M.F.A., and Isable Ekloff’s Holiday. No longer is it just hillbilly strangers raping city girls; these films portray the horrifying reality that rape is often perpetrated by friends and romantic partners. Emotional repercussions and trauma are placed in the forefront, but blood and gore never disappear. They just take on new meaning when revenge gets much more personal. Women are shown trying to heal through more than just revenge, and are often struggling with what revenge even means, which is again seen in M.F.A. and other films such as the upcoming Violation and Rose Plays Julie. Sometimes, revenge is not guaranteed catharsis.

The #MeToo era has opened up new spaces for women to tell stories about experiences with trauma, but that doesn’t dismiss the work of the directors before them who were navigating a male-dominated industry that saw the female body as disposable. Directors such as Wishman, Chytilová, Despentes, and Thi were operating against the norm and speaking out against typical representation of women on screen through the same sexualized and violent framework. In following the expected story beats of rape, revenge, and death, directors of both the past and present are reframing the idea of what exploitation films can be and that women can, in fact, create stunning violent cinema.

Mary Beth McAndrews is a freelance film critic, editor, and podcaster based in Washington, DC. She is also the co-host of Scarred For Life, the podcast devoted to exploring the films that traumatized the horror community as kids. She will defend found footage with her dying breath.

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

Gimme Some Sugar, Baby

Director Abner Pastoll ran several horror posters through the Deep Nostalgia tool to give them movement and the results are rather nightmarish.

TINY BITES

FORTNITE ALIENS, SERIAL KILLERS GALORE, AND MORE

You know what would make heist movies more exciting? Zombies.

The Ringer created a video essay on the 12 most essential serial killer films.

Looking to get into Spanish horror? Paste Magazine has a great starter’s guide.

Learn all about Brazilian horror master José Mojica Marins and his nightmarish creation Coffin Joe.

Tigers Are Not Afraid director Issá Lopez shared 10 women-directed films she loves.

Animation gets gory and spooky as Film Daily recommends five scary animated films.

Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins look back at The Silence of the Lambs for its 30th anniversary.

Lit Hub pays respect to Shirley Jackson, one of the greatest horror writers ever.

Rev your engines and make sure you’ve got a Sweet Tooth because Twisted Metal is getting a TV series.

In Fortnite, no one can hear you scream. The Xenomorph and Ripley are joining the wildly popular battle royale game in season 5.

The Ghost Beaters live on in video game form as Ray Santiago’s Pablo is officially part of Evil Dead: The Game.

Fans were quick to get over here as the red-band trailer for Mortal Kombat shattered previous viewership records.

THINGS WE LOVE

These Stories Are Scary

We’re in love with artist Andy Sciazko and his Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark-inspired original art. If you want some to hang on your walls, check out his Etsy page.