The Beautiful Suffering of Women in Horror: A Feminists Rant about Modern Horror Movies

I've been watching horror movies ever since I was probably four years old. As a child, my parents wouldn't care to play The Walking Dead when I was in the room, although I was never scared. I knew that all of what was being displayed from the staticy box television was all but reality. It was the CGI, pig guts, strawberry jam, and food coloring that made the intestines of the zombies look so vivid and lifelike. I've fallen in love with the horror genre over the years, I've seen many movies on my parents DVD player, pirated websites and YouTube reviews, and throughout those years I've come to the realization of something. There is an abundant amount of horror movies that focus on women being in pain. 

To more simple-minded people, they wouldn't be able to comprehend what I might be suggesting,

 "Oh but not ALL horror movies are like that"

"Men die in horror movies all that time!"

Well, I'm not talking about those movies. I'm not talking about the SAW franchise, where John Kramer traps his victims regardless of race, or gender. I'm not talking about Final Destination or Alien.
I'm talking about movies such as Terrifier, Martyrs or Megan Is Missing.
These movies, along with several others, are prime examples of women suffering throughout the entire runtime, where the girls shown never get a scene where they can finally take a break from the man trying to torture them. 

Perhaps it may be controversial of me to bring out Terrifier, because it's a franchise loved by many women, hell, even some of my IRL girl friends are obsessed with Art the Clown. However, we have to admit that throughout the first Terrifier movie, the female characters are constantly being tortured, and even perpetuate harmful stereotypes about women. 

TERRIFIER, Directed by: Damien Leone
The MC's friend is portrayed as a blonde bimbo who later is stripped naked and sawed in half by Art the Clown. The "crazy homeless woman" - obsessed with a doll who she believes is her child - is skinned by her breasts that Art wears to taunt the MC when she finally begins to think she is safe. When I was watching this movie, I couldn't help but feel bored. The crappy acting, the cheap jump scares, the shock-value gore, I wasn't impressed. 

MARTYRS, Directed by: Pascal Laugier
For Martyrs, a woman by the name of Lucie, escapes from a torture facility as a child and finds the people who used to torture her and shoots them. This involves shooting the entire family, the boy, the girl, the mom and dad. Later, Lucie is killed and her lover investigates the families house, only to be kidnapped by the same facility that tortured Lucie, and she goes through the same treatment Lucie went through. This involves being beaten everyday by a stronger man and being force-fed a disgusting porridge. By the end of the film, she's skinned alive. The torture facility only targets women, because apparently, "women are more likely to become Martyrs"... How convenient.
This film, also left me unimpressed. An hour and 30 minutes of a woman being beaten and humiliated? Boring. 

MEGAN IS MISSING, Directed by: Michael Goi 
Megan is Missing is what I believe to be the worst one I've seen. I watched this movie fairly recently, and as someone who's gone through SA, it was extremely triggering and I had a panic attack shortly after watching it. This movie is a poor depiction of the ACTUAL murder case that the movie was loosely based on. Throughout the entire first half of the movie, Megan, a 14 year old girl, is sexualized, verbally abused and taken advantage of. Her friend Amy, a 13 year old girl, is also seen being assaulted and laughed at by an older man named "Gideon" during the "party" scene, and then later is humiliated and SA'ed on screen by the predator targeting them, Josh, who then buries Amy alive with Megan's corpse. This movie was terrible, not to mention both the actresses for Megan and Amy were under the age of 18 as the movie was filmed. This movie was fetish content for the director with the guise of it being a "warning" for parents who have children that use the internet. I was left feeling disturbed, sick, and having flashbacks of my trauma.

But, while you're reading this, haven't you realized something?
These three movies I've listed and critiqued, I have never said that I was scared by any of them, and not exactly in a "these movies are for babies" kind of way, I mean these movies just weren't scary. Sure, they had some jump-scares, but I wasn't left with the sigh of relief that the horror had ended, I was left with a sigh of annoyance that I had wasted my time watching movies that never made me scared. Instead, these movies based their horror off of the pleasure of women being tortured, and not actual horror that can make anyone scared. The normalization of women's suffering has made me and other viewers, bored and unphased, because it's nothing that hasn't already been seen or done to women over the past 300,000 years humans have been around.

Perhaps, that's also where a lot of these movies fail. The three movies I've listed don't even have a minimum of 70% on Rotten Tomatoes. These male directors focused so much on making movies that are so dramatic with gore, blood (and often times nudity) that they don't realize that the gore isn't the only thing that makes a scary movie, well, scary. It's suspense, not splatter. It's having an engaging story that captivates the viewers attention before shocking them with an unexpected twist. 

Within the past two or three years, I've noticed that there is more uproar with making movies that normalize violence against women more mainstream. To that, I'll say that it's no surprise that these men suffering from the "male loneliness epidemic" are now getting off to the suffering of females in "horror" movies. These men stick their chests out with confidence and find any chance to weasel in the phrase that a movie like "Megan is Missing" or "Terrifier" isn't scary, because of course it isn't. It isn't made to scare you, it's made to make a woman uncomfortable.

Of course, I'm open to everyone's thoughts and opinions. Let me know whatever critiques or complaints you might have about this blog in the comments.