Format: Streaming video from Amazon Prime on Fire!
I’m not really a documentary guy. I like them in general when I watch them, but I don’t tend to seek them out. The exception to that is documentaries about horror and horror movies. These, I love and watch them as soon as I can. That includes round-up shows like the Bravo 100 Scariest Movie Moments, but also actual documentary films like Nightmares in Red, White and Blue and Horror Noir. So, when I became aware of 1000 Women in Horror (thanks, Brittani!), I watched it immediately.
My desire to watch this is not just that I like horror documentaries. It’s also that I think the most interesting horror being done right now comes from women and minority populations. Sure, there are going to be exceptions, and a lot of horror movie history rides on the backs of the three Cs of horror—Carpenter, Cronenberg, and my personal favorite Craven. But today, the really interesting stuff, the really transgressive stuff, and the films that genuinely have something more to say than just blood and jump scares are coming from women, and I am absolutely here for it. Mike Flanagan gets honorary woman status for this observation.
The film is based on the book of the same name by author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, who is pictured above, and wears really cool glasses. Heller-Nicholas is an encyclopedia of women in horror, as are the other, many women who show up to talk about their own films both as actors and directors in the genre.
It would be easy to think that what we’re going to see is, to coin a phrase, a lot of bitching about the treatment of women in film in general and in horror specifically. And, to be fair, there are moments of legitimate complaint about the way women are treated, not on camera but behind it, Hollywood still trying to stretch itself (often unsuccessfully) from its old boys’-club mentality. That said, the bulk of this is truly celebration of the genre and of women’s place in it, again both on the screen and behind it.
This is exactly how it should be. While a lot of horror looks on the surface like a male-dominated slice of the industry (and with reason), women are essential to the way the stories work and how they function. Sure, there are exceptions like The Thing where the entire cast is male, but women are central to the way that horror works and how the stories come forth. The realization that creation of life is closely connected to horror in a lot of ways puts them in that central position—it’s women who drive the stories and also tend to live at their emotional center.
The joke here, of course, is that there are far more than 1000 women involved in the horror movie industry over time. The secondary joke is that this film, running just under 100 minutes, can barely scratch the surface of the topic. That’s really my only complaint here--1000 Women in Horror doesn’t do anything like justice to the topic. I would love to have this as a 10-part series where topics could be really dug into in much more detail. There are so many more women-helmed horror films worth discussing and so many more horror films with women in central roles that are ignored here that are worth discussing at length. Bride of Frankenstein is mentioned only in passing, and personal favorite woman-helmed horror Ravenous is ignored completely. Same with Baby Blood, which feels like it could cover almost the entire section on birth trauma.
That said, I enjoyed the hell out of this and would love another 8 hours or so of it. The book that spawned this documentary has been immediately placed on my Christmas wish list, and if I don’t get it, I’m going to buy it for myself.
Why to watch 1000 Women in Horror: The future of horror is female.
Why not to watch: It’s not long enough.
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