Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
Page 20
A major influence on the paranormal mythology of the 1980s, and on the Tina Resch case in particular. Centers on a mother’s quest to protect her helpless baby girl.
Lester, Mark L. Firestarter. DVD. From a novel by Stephen King. Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, 1984.
Stephen King’s second trip. Drew Barrymore plays a little girl who can set fires with her mind, pursued by a government-assassin-slash-pedophile-slash-possible-Native-American played, for some reason, by George C. Scott. Terrible, but the visual of Barrymore concentrating really hard in a government lab while a fan blows her hair around foreshadows half of Stranger Things.
Schmid, Hans-Christian. Requiem. Streaming. Berlin, DE: X Verleih AG, 2005.
The second unofficial Anneliese Michel biopic, with a lot less bug eating. Serious, respectful, and realistic, which makes the final vision of her “possession” all the more wrenching: just a teenage girl, shouting at her mother.
TELEVISION
Stranger Things. Created by Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer. Netflix, July 2016.
Shoves Stephen King and Stephen Spielberg into a blender and presses “liquefy.” The romance between a nerdy boy and a telekinetic tween girl is a reminder of how often men still read femininity as an alien invasion.
NONFICTION
Goodman, Felicitas D. The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel. Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, 1981.
A sympathetic and religious accounting of the exorcism—I could not disagree more strongly with it, but this is the most detailed document we have.
THEORY
Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London, UK: Routledge, 1993.
Without Creed’s theory, this book doesn’t exist. She, too, roots monstrosity in the maternal body, and specifically in Freud’s theories of castration anxiety, arguing that men see women not as castrated, but as potential castrators. I differ from her on the more severely Freudian bits, though I agree that it’s all ultimately about your mom.
Creed, Barbara. “Baby Bitches from Hell.” UCLA Film & Television Archive. Accessed January 22, 2019. http://old.cinema.ucla.edu/women/creed/creed1.html.
Creed’s thoughts on monstrous girlhood.
Geffen, Sasha. “Trans Horror Stories and Society’s Fear of the Transmasculine Body.” Them, August 21, 2018. https://www.them.us/story/transmasculine-horror-stories.
There’s not much about transmasculinity in this book; I don’t feel qualified to write about how this territory looks or feels to a guy, even if he was assigned female at birth. Geffen’s essay is an opening into that other perspective, and a fascinating read about how “one gender swirled up into another creates a monster.”
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjectioın. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1982.
Kristeva’s theory of the abject is the foundation for Creed’s book and a powerful influence on this one. The horror generated by the abject is one of abomination and uncleanliness, the revulsion we feel for any substance that is both us and not-us: blood, mucus, feces, pus, and any of the other substances you might catch spewing out of Regan in The Exorcist. Kristeva roots this in the primal, boundary-blurring horror of the fact that we were once part of, and dependent upon, our mothers.
CHAPTER TWO: VIRGINITY
FILM
Carpenter, John. Halloween. DVD. Culver City, CA: Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1978.
There is some debate as to which movie deserves the title of “first slasher”; different sources point to Peeping Tom, Black Christmas, or (my preferred theory) Psycho. The movie that actually kicked off the slasher craze, however, was Halloween. Still probably the peak of the form.
Cooper, Buddy, and John Douglass. The Mutilator [Restored 2016 Cut]. Streaming. Hertfordshire, UK: Arrow Video, 2016.
this Page.
Coppola, Francis Ford. Bram Stoker’s Dracula. From a novel by Bram Stoker. Culver City, CA: Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1992.
Dracula has often been adapted, and rarely adapted faithfully; Lucy Westenra, in particular, is cut out of most screen adaptations. Here, Lucy gets fantastic outfits and is perpetually busting out of them. The Monica Belluci–led Brides are pretty great, too.
Craven, Wes. A Nightmare on Elm Street. DVD. Los Angeles, CA: New Line Cinema, 1984.
The most surreal and inventive of the slasher mega-series that dominated the 1980s. Accused domestic abuser and generally obnoxious scenery-chewer Johnny Depp, here in his early teen-heartthrob mode, meets a fate that contemporary audiences will no doubt find cathartic.
Craven, Wes. Scream. DVD. New York, NY: Dimension Films, 1996.
this Page.
DiBlasi, Anthony. Most Likely to Die. Streaming. Los Angeles, CA: MarVista Entertainment, 2015.
A neglected script from the ’90s teen-slasher craze that was inexplicably picked up and filmed in the mid-’10s. The slasher wears a graduation cap and gown, has yearbook-themed kills, and at one point, rips a lady’s head off with his bare hands. Nonetheless, you will recall this as “the one with Perez Hilton.”
Fischa, Michael. Death Spa. Streaming. Orland Park, IL: MPI Home Video, 1990.
It’s called Death Spa. Why haven’t you already watched it twice?
Goddard, Drew. The Cabin in the Woods. Santa Monica, CA: Lionsgate, 2012.
A loving homage to the slasher genre that exults in “the Whore” and her death even as it notes how ugly our enjoyment is.
Green, Kitty. Casting JonBenét. Streaming. Los Gatos, CA: Netflix, 2017.
Documentary covering the JonBenét Ramsey murder and its surrounding media furor, inviting actors to “audition” for the roles of the main players and share their own theories and reactions to the case. Less interested in the murder than in understanding the public fascination with it.
Lynch, David. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. DVD. Burbank, CA: New Line Cinema, 1992.
this Page.
Lynch, Paul. Prom Night. Streaming. Montreal, QC: Astral Films, 1980.
A group of children accidentally push a classmate out of a window. When they’re about to graduate, someone who knows what they did several summers ago begins to kill them. Among the many casualties: disco, which is all the kids here ever dance to.
Mitchell, David Robert. It Follows. Streaming. New York, NY: RADiUS-TWC, 2015.
Stylish, Stranger Things–ish ’80s nostalgia, with an on-the-nose metaphor—the monster is an STD—that nonetheless works.
Rosman, Mark. The House on Sorority Row. Streaming. Atlanta, GA: Artists Releasing Corporation / Film Ventures International, 1983.
A group of sorority girls accidentally murder their mean old hag of a house mother, at which point her large, adult mutant son begins stalking them.
TELEVISION
Twin Peaks. Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. ABC, April 1990.
Twin Peaks: The Return. Created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. Showtime, May 2017.
Laura Palmer dies and Laura Palmer rises again, both times to upsetting results.
LITERATURE
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Salt Lake City, UT: Project Gutenberg EBook, 2013.
this Page.
THEORY
Clover, Carol. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film—Updated Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Classics, 2015.
If you know nothing else from “horror theory,” you know about the Final Girl.
West, Alexandra. The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and a New Hollywood Formula. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2018.
A reevaluation of the girl-powered, “lightweight” slasher films of the ’90s, and one of the most convincing arguments you will ever read for Scream as Important Cinema.
OTHER MEDIA
Hardstark, Georgia, and Karen Kilgariff. “My Firstest Murder,” My Favorite Murder.
Podcast audio, January 13, 2016. https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/exactly-right/my-favorite-murder/e/45613062?autoplay=true.
As good an introduction as any to the pleasures of the form, the first episode is about—you guessed it—JonBenét.
CHAPTER THREE: SEDUCTION
FILM
Broomfield, Nick. Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. Streaming. USA: DEJ Productions, 1992.
Broomfield, Nick, and Joan Churchill. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. Streaming. UK: Channel 4 Television Corporation, 2003.
Documentaries. Broomfield visits the case of Aileen Wuornos at ten-year intervals, covering first her trial, then her execution, reeling in every corrupt cop, incompetent lawyer, abusive parent, and media-hungry profiteer in her orbit. The first film, in particular, is a classic for a reason, though you probably shouldn’t watch it if you can’t afford to spend the next few days consumed with rage.
Donaldson, Roger. Species. DVD. Beverley Hills, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1995.
this Page.
Ducournau, Julia. Raw. Streaming. Universal City, CA: Focus World, 2017.
Another entry in the “once you pop, you can’t stop” Lucy Westenra canon: a girl who has been raised as a strict vegetarian takes one bite of meat and soon finds herself craving human flesh, in more ways than one. Watch for the brief but all-important mentions of the girl’s mother.
Glazer, Jonathan. Under the Skin. Streaming. From a novel by Michel Faber. New York, NY: A24, 2014.
One of the best horror movies of the twenty-first century, a haunting look at what it means to be alien. Also, basically, an art-film reboot of Species. Scarlett Johannsson is a murderous lady alien who seduces men in order to steal their organs; hijinks ensue.
Hardy, Robin. The Wicker Man. Streaming. Santa Monica, CA: Lionsgate, 2014.
A Christian virgin—a man, for once—arrives on an island of sex-worshiping pagan throwbacks. Their plans for him are grisly and executed largely by the dangerously nude Britt Ekland, prancing about to folk rock in a manner we are meant to find very sinister.
Janiak, Leigh. Honeymoon. Streaming. New York, NY: Magnolia Pictures, 2014.
When a newlywed couple arrive at their rural honeymoon cabin, the groom notices that his wife doesn’t appear to remember certain events from their life together, leading them straight into territory once explored by Bridget and Michael Cleary.
Jordan, Neil. The Crying Game. Streaming. London, UK: Palace Pictures, 1992.
Along with The Silence of the Lambs, created most of contemporary cinema’s go-to tropes about trans women. This was not a good thing.
Kusama, Karyn. Jennifer’s Body. DVD. Los Angeles, CA: Twentieth Century Fox, 2009.
Jennifer, as played by Megan Fox, is a fairly direct descendant of Lucy Westenra; she becomes the object of a “virgin sacrifice” staged by a boy she likes, and rises from the dead full of inhuman hunger. However, her distended, Lamian maw—which is impressively gross and snaky—and her love of swimming ominously through dark waters also makes her a latter-day Melusine figure, and a sort of missing link between these two monsters.
Lyne, Adrian. Fatal Attraction. DVD. Los Angeles, CA: Paramount Pictures, 1987.
Ushered in the incomprehensibly popular wave of Michael Douglas “erotic thrillers.” Basic Instinct is probably the peak of the form, but this harrowing tale of a woman who won’t get an abortion on demand is still the go-to reference for jokes about crazy bitches.
Miike, Takashi. Audition. Streaming. From a novel by Ryû Murakami. New York, NY: Shudder, 2015.
A casually sexist man who believes that no woman is good enough for him holds a fake “audition” so that he can find a perfectly submissive, old-fashioned wife. The woman he chooses turns out to be a psychopath who makes men eat her vomit. Oh, well.
Smoczyńska, Agnieszka. The Lure. DVD. Warsaw, Poland: Kino Świat, 2015.
A musical adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” which really doesn’t prepare you for the sight of a woman having a corpse’s vagina transplanted into her body. Smoczyńska has said her intent is to portray mermaids as “sisters of dragons.”
Tourneur, Jacques. Cat People. Streaming. New York, NY: RKO Radio Pictures, 1942.
Seminal and glossed over in the main text because there have been a thousand feminist analyses of Cat People. The vision of Simone Simon slowly, carnivorously advancing on an attempted rapist is both terrifying and fantastic.
Verhoeven, Paul. Basic Instinct. Streaming. Culver City, CA: TriStar Pictures, 1992.
Sharon Stone leads an underground mafia of bisexual women who murder their male sex partners, and no fewer than two of those women are dating rapist cop Michael Douglas. Much less fun than that description makes it sound.
LITERATURE
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Christabel.” The Poetry Foundation. Accessed January 26, 2019. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43971/christabel.
this Page.
Keats, John. Lamia. Salt Lake City, UT: Project Gutenberg EBook, 2013.
this Page.
NONFICTION
Bourke, Angela. The Burning of Bridget Cleary: A True Story. New York, NY: Viking, 2000.
A history of the Cleary murder, with a particular focus on how the case illuminated the politics and cultural undercurrents of turn-of-the-century Ireland.
THEORY
de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957.
I owe a lot to her theories of feminine alterity, and even more to her chapter structure, which I ripped off for this book.
Lorde, Audre. “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, 2007.
Any feminist writing about female eroticism—or how patriarchy has warped and contained it—is writing in a vein tapped by Lorde.
Rose, Elena. “The Seam of Skin and Scales.” Taking Steps, January 15, 2007. https://sites.google.com/site/theseamofskinandscales/.
An influential and very beautiful manifesto on transfemininity and the glory of the monstrous.
CHAPTER FOUR: MARRIAGE
FILM
Cohen, Diego. Honeymoon. Streaming. Mexico City, Mexico: Cinenauta, 2015.
A woman is abducted, kept in a basement, and tortured by a man who insists he wants to marry her, which is a bit on the nose, feminism-wise, but works.
Cukor, George. Gaslight. DVD. Beverley Hills, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1944.
The term gaslighting has been used, misused, and overused so much that it’s easy to forget it comes from a really spectacular movie. A singer with a troubled past gives up her career to marry a man who begins intentionally driving her mad, in ways that are tiny, petty, and gasp-inducingly horrible.
del Toro, Guillermo. Crimson Peak. Streaming. Universal City, CA: Universal Pictures, 2015.
An opulent dive into Gothic tropes and mid-century horror aesthetics, with a straightforward Bluebeard story at its core. Intentionally and effectively feminist.
Kubrick, Stanley. The Shining. Streaming. From a novel by Stephen King. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros, 1980.
Horror’s most famous look at the nuclear family: a violent dad, a disturbed kid, and the nervous wreck of a mom trying to get them all through the winter intact. Not overtly Gothic, but like Crimson Peak or Rebecca, hinges on the dread of being isolated with someone you love but can never truly know.
Taylor-Johnson, Sam. Fifty Shades of Grey. From a novel by E. L. James. Film. USA: Universal Pictures, 2015.
Just watch the movie, it’s faster.
Żuławski, Andrzej. Possession. DVD. Neuilly-sur-Seine, France: Gaumont, 1981.
The story of a disintegrating marriage and a woman who gives birth to, then has an affair with, a man-eating octopus demon. If I re
ad the ending right, the movie insists that marriage ultimately turns both partners into worse versions of themselves, and our children pay the price.
LITERATURE
Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre: An Autobiography. Salt Lake City, UT: Project Gutenberg Ebook, 2007.
Reader, she marries him.
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Salt Lake City, UT: Project Gutenberg Ebook, 2010.
Emily Brontë’s ferocity breaks the Gothic apart and reconfigures it into something even weirder, giving us characters so wracked with emotion that they barely seem human (and Heathcliff, it’s worth noting, might not be). These characters don’t talk; they scream like maniacs and bash their heads into trees and torture puppies and die out of pure spite. Very romantic.
Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2015.
The title story is one of the best contemporary Bluebeard retellings.
du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.
this Page.
Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl. New York, NY: Broadway Books, 2014.
this Page.
Levin, Ira. The Stepford Wives. New York, NY: Perennial, 2002.
There are two movie adaptations, both cheesy, but Ira Levin’s original 1972 novel—in which a feminist photographer moves to the suburbs with her stellar Male Ally™ of a husband, only to find that he may not be telling her everything—still works, and shows you why this story was the missing link between Gaslight and Get Out.