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The horror genre is and always has been populated by women, who can be seen to be at once both objectified and empowered. Building off the preexisting gender hierarchies and dynamics embedded in the history of horror cinema, this chapter looks at a number of New French Extremity films that assault audiences with unrelenting scenes of violence, torture and self-mutilation, which are performed almost exclusively upon or by women. Although the films of the New French Extremity have been dismissed as exploitative in their representations of wounded and suffering female bodies, their narratives also offer internal criticisms of the misogynistic portals of victimhood that are prevalent in the genre. Through a close analysis of the films Inside (Bustillo & Maury, 2007) (French title: À L’intérieur) and Martyrs (Laugier, 2008), this chapter will examine how both films deviate from the male monster/female victim dichotomy. Although the women of these films may start off vulnerable, they take charge of their situations, while also compacting the nature of feminine identity.

This chapter investigates the recent surge of social media (mis)use in horror films including The Cabin in the Woods (2012), Unfriended (2015) and #Horror (2015) and how young women’s relationship to social media in these films often pillories females for existing under, and delighting in, an anonymous, ubiquitous gaze. In these narratives, women are slut shamed both in the plot and through the threat of social media’s panoply of screens, sur- and selfveillance. In my discussion, I will utilize feminist film theory including the writings of Laura Mulvey, Linda Williams and Barbara Creed, while also including contemporary cultural criticism from writers and journalists like Nancy Jo Sales and Leora Tanenbaum to explore the horror genre from a more contemporary, multi-discourse perspective. The technology in these films serve as harbingers, intimating the figurative and literal dangers to come for their female protagonists, ultimately suggesting that the horror in these films is the medium itself and the patriarchal social media culture that these devices cultivate.

This chapter will focus on the Netflix television series The Exorcist (2016–) starring Gina Davis as Angela Rance/Regan MacNeill and Ben Daniels as Father Marcus. The Rances are a well-off urban family in Chicago, with Angela, a successful and powerful professional woman. The Exorcist allows Angela Rance, a woman in midlife, to be central to the narrative, despite the paucity of positive, central roles for women over 50.

The chapter will also examine the depiction of gender through the themes of families and homes. Homes are sanctuaries but can also be a site of violence. The Rance home is the first clue that all is not well, when Angela hears noises in the walls. Families, homes, faith and betrayal are everywhere in The Exorcist, including the Rances, the Church, the priesthood, the Friars of Ascension and the homeless settlement. Traditionally, families and homes are where women can achieve creativity and some kind of agency, as well as being contained.

The third approach of this chapter will be to compare gender representations in the television series and the film The Exorcist (1973). In theory, the intervening 44 years could have seen gains for women and feminism, but 2017 has seen women’s rights eroded yet again. The film was made at the height of the women’s liberation movement and second-wave feminism, and at the start of the era of ‘video nasties’ and explicitly gory slasher and cannibal films, so I will use the historical context to frame a discussion about the two different versions.

Since the turn of the Millennium, horror has had a resurgence both in cinema and in television. With programmes like The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer paving the way for other horror shows such as The Walking Dead, American Horror Story and Penny Dreadful, this introduction discusses the way that TV has become a bedrock of new, exciting, vibrant and bold horror productions.

What relation does the monster figure have to gender? It is widely accepted that monsters in television, cinema and literature commonly stand in for the Other, be that a social, political or racialised Other. To consider monsters and monstrosity through the lens of gender is to investigate the links between the monster figure and the Others that exist under the system of patriarchy – most notably women, gender-diverse people and queer folks. In this collective chapter, Francesca Lopez, Russ Martin and Chloe Olivo explore how the monster figure relates to gender via a conversation that traces the links between three individually written chapters – X-Men: The Normative System Disguised as Mutant, Dragula and the Expansive Queerness of the Drag Supermonster and Femicide on the Frontier: Analysing Motives Behind the Femicide Crisis in Ciudad Juàrez. Each of these chapters investigates social norms relating to gender and those who challenge or defy them. Ultimately, the authors argue, it is those whose gendered and sexual identities are not associated with social power that are made monstrous by the patriarchy. This conversation-based chapter considers both real-life situations in which real people are made monstrous and monsters from fiction films and reality television. Ultimately, the authors suggest that the monster figure can be powerful and transformative for those who exist on the margins of the patriarchy – though, as this chapter documents, such is not always the case.

Testing boundaries in the context of encountering horror representations have long been of interest to cultural studies scholars. There have been rich cultural accounts of how audiences negotiate with what is frightening or disgusting on screen (Hill, 2005) not just in general but also in what concerns specific social groups as well (e.g. children, Buckingham, 2000). Horror, disgust and the emotion of fear have not been examined in the Greek context so far and it is our aim to attempt a first investigation of how certain groups of viewers engage with the horror genre. We draw upon the argument that fear from encountering horror is a socially based emotion through which people do not just test their own boundaries but also their boundaries within a group of peers (Hill, 2005). Given that women are stereotypically thought to be more afraid than men, we are particularly interested to see how women aged between 20 and 35 in Greece engage with fear or disgust in the mainstreamed context of the horror offered by American Horror Story. We are particularly interested in the ways they perceive horror but also deadly women or female villains. Our interest in this particular series lies not only in its popularity across the world but also because of its nature as a representative series of the horror genre and because all different narratives it offers are mostly based on female characters primarily as villains. Also, as a text available across different cultures, it could probably allow us to engage with cross-cultural research in the future. Therefore we wish to conduct an online survey with women aged 20–35 in Greece, followed by focus groups with women of the same age group in an attempt to provide both a mapping and a further investigation of the topic.

The woman has appeared in many films as an unknown dangerous monster for men. Barbara Creed, in The Monstrous-Feminine. Film, Feminist, Psychoanalysis (1993), recognized the fear of women as a vampire and as witch. Masters of Horror (Showtime, 2005–2007) is a TV series that focuses their attention on distinct monsters, including female monster.

The aim of this chapter is to analyze some episodes of these two acclaimed TV series: ‘Deer Woman’ (Season 1 Episode 7) and ‘Jenifer’ (Season 1 Episode 4), in Masters of Horror. Both episodes show the struggle between the female threatening monster and the defensive male normalcy, where liberated women (they break the established rules) resist the males’ domination through cultural transgressions.

This chapter is based on different methodologies: cultural studies, history, discourse analysis and TV studies. That way, it will be essential to delve into the different readings about woman as a monster (dangerous creature for the established order) and as the otherness, where the flesh temptations (cannibalism, sex) and supernatural narrations place her outside society.