BEAUTY IS PAIN

In both The Substance and The Outside, female protagonists use a product marketed to them by mysterious men in an effort to achieve an ideal of beauty that they feel is currently out of reach. Despite the detrimental effects it has on them, they repeatedly return to the product and convince themselves of the benefits, their drive to feel acceptable and loved outweighing their well-being. The brutal process of transformation — which in The Substance necessitates a series of terrifying injections that become increasingly difficult to watch, and in The Outside involves worsening rashes and blistering skin — calls out the dehumanisation and pain that is inherent in many beauty treatments. Although society praises the result of cosmetic surgery and other aesthetic alterations, it rejects awareness of the process. However, Fargeat and Amirpour refuse to let us look away. You need to know the cost.

In her famous book Gender Trouble, Judith Butler refers to performing gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance.” This is evident in both films, which uses body horror to highlight the impossibility of meeting constantly shifting beauty standards and the absurdity in even trying. They show how societal standards drive women towards unsustainable, increasingly extreme practices in order to produce an image of themselves that society accepts. Both films culminate in a fusing of identities for the protagonists, a transformation into something monstrous and unfamiliar, committing acts each of the women would have previously found unthinkable. However, Fargeat and Amirpour do not blame their protagonists, instead casting a side-eye at those who made them feel they needed to change in the first place. In the films, there is an obvious answer for both women: just stop using the product, but the directors empathise with their protagonists, showing how easily it can get out of hand, highlighting the lengths people will go to feel worthy of love and acceptance, and exploring the ultimate cruelty that it will never be enough.

"A BOY'S BEST FRIEND IS HIS MOTHER"

The history of horror cinema is permeated with mothers. One of the most famous is Norman Bates’ (Anthony Perkins) mother from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, but Mrs. Bates doesn’t even exist outside of Norman’s head, where she is smothering and cruel. Norman is not to blame for his monstrous acts, it’s his mother’s influence that turned him into the man he is. So, as highlighted by Sarah Arnold in her incredible text Maternal Horror Film: Melodrama and Motherhood, the fact that one of the most iconic mothers in horror history never even materialises outside of a male construction says a lot about maternal representation.

According to Creed, when women are presented as monstrous in horror films, it is almost always in relation to their reproductive functions, which is evident in some of the genre's most well-known films, including The Brood and Rosemary’s Baby. Surprisingly, there have not been many female-authored films about pregnancy and motherhood, but Feminist New Wave Cinema has reclaimed the concept of monstrosity to liberate their protagonists from the oppressive constraints of motherhood, which demand women be nurturing, self-sacrificing, and submissive.

In her hilarious horror comedy Prevenge, Alice Lowe satirizes the contradictory nature of being the perfect mother-to-be through Ruth (Lowe), who is guided by the disembodied voice of her unborn baby to kill. As Ruth slashes throats, breaks skulls, and castrates misogynists, she also dutifully attends her prenatal appointments. Her midwife tells her that her body is no longer her own, and that she must do everything in service of the fetus. Ruth expresses that she’s finding her pregnancy difficult, without disclosing her murderous urges, but the midwife reiterates, “baby will tell you what to do.” So, Ruth does what she is told. Lowe takes the idea of maternal selflessness to the extreme, with Ruth committing decidedly unfeminine acts, but all in service of the unborn child, unsettling the notions of maternal identity.

Amelia (Essie Davis) in Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook is in a similar position to Ruth as a recently bereaved single parent. Significantly, both characters express regret and reluctance in relation to motherhood, and both are told to prioritise their children and, essentially, get over themselves. Both try to repress their grief with disastrous results. Ruth kills whilst Amelia and her son are tormented by the terrifying Babadook, a literalisation of her anxiety. Like Ruth, Amelia is not the one who is monstrous, but the societal pressures that demand so much of her; however, they both perform ideas of monstrous femininity as a cathartic, liberating act that foregrounds the female experience and criticises idealised expectations of motherhood.

REVISING THE RAPE REVENGE FILM

Understandably, rape revenge films have not been viewed favourably by general audiences. They’re viewed as exploitative, inherently misogynistic, and generally disturbing. Defining films of the canon are Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left and Meir Zarchi’s I Spit on Your Grave, which involve brutal depictions of sexual violence that focus on female suffering and degradation. However, Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge and Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli's Violation show that revenge films can not only be liberating, but even feminist, emphasising the subjectivity of their female protagonists and exploring the societal conditions that perpetuate rape culture.

Revenge presents an interesting challenge for feminist interpretation through its employment of the male gaze in the first half of the film. The protagonist, Jen (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz), is undoubtedly sexualised initially, flaunting her appearance for the gratification of men, but this is done to challenge the audience. Fargeat implicates the viewer in their assumptions about Jen, drawing attention to the discourse associated with victims of sexual violence, e.g., “she shouldn’t have been wearing that if she didn’t want it.” Just because Jen is flirtatious and sexualised does not mean the men around her are entitled to her body, which is underscored by her transformed demeanour after she is raped. She becomes almost animalistic, covered in dirt and grime, wielding a gun, and efficiently stalking and killing the men involved as she exacts her satisfying revenge.

Fargeat also handles the rape scene uniquely to her male predecessors by limiting visual access and instead using sound and cuts to portray Jen’s ordeal. Whilst Jen’s screams can be heard, the camera focuses on her face and cuts away only to highlight the other man’s indifference to her suffering. This juxtaposes the way the camera voyeuristically captures Jen in the first half of the film, showing Fargeat’s disinterest in indulging a sadistic male gaze.

Violation similarly implicates viewers in their assumptions. Through a non-linear storyline, it is revealed that Mirian (Madeleine Sims-Fewer) consensually kisses her attacker, who is also her sister’s husband, prior to the rape. This draws attention to the issue of assumed consent, as well as the sadly common assumption that a victim may have “asked for it” through behaviour.

Similarly to Revenge, the rape scene in Violation focuses on the victim, emphasising Mirian’s feelings of betrayal and paralysing inaction. The use of macro photography lenses results in very tight close-ups, whilst the shaky, handheld camerawork creates a fragmented perception of the ordeal. The sound of Mirian’s whimpers are heightened above the score, which plunges the viewer into her sense of helplessness, especially when paired with the claustrophobic framing.

Mirian’s revenge involves tricking her attacker before knocking him out cold and methodically dismembering his body. The process is grueling for both Mirian and the viewer, and although she doesn’t achieve the cathartic transformation of Jen in Revenge, she is shown to be traumatised and exhausted, demonstrating that the psychological impact of sexual trauma is not so easily erased. Both films show there is no single way of experiencing, or coping with, sexual violence through understated yet impactful scenes of the attacks, and they interrogate the ways in which the blame is situated with the victim rather than holding perpetrators accountable.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Clearly, this recent wave of female-authored horror films is significant. The surge in the proliferation of successful films that belong to Feminist New Wave Cinema shows that female horror filmmakers are increasingly gaining traction in the genre with their unique approach to the tropes and aesthetics of horror whilst also gaining more opportunities to tell their stories. This continues into 2025 with many exciting horror releases helmed by women. The body horror trend carries on with Sasha Rainbow’s feature debut Grafted, set to premiere on Shudder later this month, with director Rainbow commenting that the film will follow the female protagonist's "wild and bloody pursuit of perfection." On top of that, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s I Know What You Did Last Summer sequel will hit cinemas in the summer, Maggie Gyllenhaal's highly anticipated The Bride! will be released in late September, and Lynne Ramsay’s psychological thriller about the pressures of motherhood, Die, My Love, is expected to premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.