The All-Female Horror Cast, Part 1: Suspiria and The Craft

For this, my second official post for Women in Horror Month, I want to take a look at the all-female horror cast. I'll be talking about four different films that have the following things in common: they all have a female in the roles of both protagonist and villain, they all have a healthy head-count of females in the supporting roles, and they all pass the Bechdel Test. The question I'm putting forward is this: When the cast of your horror movie is either predominantly or exclusively female, does it automatically negate or subvert the harmful negative stereotypes that women tend to occupy in horror as a whole?

This blog post wound up a little longer than I originally anticipated, so I've split it into two parts. For this half, I'm going to take a look at Suspiria and The Craft.

( Read on... )

I haven't drawn my conclusions quite yet though. Next time, I'll be talking about Silent Hill and The Moth Diaries.