The nights have drawn in, there’s a chill in the air and it’s that time of year where I like to do what I, admittedly, like to do pretty much the rest of the year: gather the family around a nice cosy horror film and scare the bejeezus out of ourselves.

I’m especially fortunate, living in Brighton, that there’s a thriving scene of horror fanatics, including the founders of the Classic Horror Campaign, whose raison d’etre is to bring back British horror to our TV screens and who run a brilliant occasional horror film festival called Frighten Brighton.

Last year they ran a day of screenings that traversed the decades from the Thirties to the Seventies. It was fascinating to watch an intricate snapshot of women in horror unfolding before me, reflective of Hollywood’s complex relationship with sexuality, equality, objectification and empowerment.

In just the five films screened – Mad Love, The Cat People, Them, Plague of the Zombies and Phantasm – a gamut of femininity was presented, from virginal innocent to sexual seductress, strident powerful woman to flailing damsel in distress, repressed lesbian to swooning romantic.

In almost all these films there is a notable slide towards objectification; the woman’s body as a object of desire for the monster or mad scientist, the virginal sacrificial lamb, or the slutty cannon fodder helpless to avert her fate. This is reflective of the wider problems within a genre that still churns out women’s bodies to be fondled, fucked, kidnapped and sliced up.

The brilliant, feminist-principled Women in Horror Recognition Month campaign¹ recognises this difficult relationship with horror. Their campaign illustrates that it can be one of the most objectifying genres, but is also an important genre for exploring a vast array of issues – power, psyche, politics, social constructs, war, violence, gender – and therefore that it’s important that women’s roles are recognised and supported.

They provide a platform for women directors, writers, actors and aficionados to get their work seen and to address issues within the industry, as well as misogyny in the genre. They’ve also used social media, blogging and film festivals to explore what horror has to contribute to the female narrative.

It’s a massive area to dig into. There’s been a swathe of material written about women as survivors in horror films – they occupy a myriad of roles: the Final Girl, the matriarch (all hail Ellen Ripley!), the victim who finds her nerve and the avenging angel survivor – frequently a victim of sexual violence.

It’s a rich seam to explore, and there’s a whole other vein to mine exploring the ones who live and the ones who die in horror movies, and what this represents metaphorically, culturally and politically. Equally, there’s a huge area to address when it comes to representations of race in horror – for example, why the last one to live is often a white woman (think Night of the Living Dead). But what about when women themselves are the stuff of nightmares?

Women aren’t always the victims in horror, and whilst there have been significant problems in the history of the genre, it has also been willing to explore areas of female experience that other genres just weren’t ready for, often at times when it would have been deeply contentious to make a film that discussed, say, sexuality or sexual violence, let alone the fact that you’d still be hard pushed to find a film about what a nightmare getting your period can be! There are numerous examples of fantastic writing and performances in horror that explore the feminine diabolique whilst also touching on real world issues underneath.

1936’s Dracula’s Daughter is a fine example of how horror can reflect both the cultural perception of women and the abiding social currents, as well as exploring key issues for women through the figure of a female monster. It was produced as part of the Universal stable of horror films, following directly on the heels of Tod Browning’s Dracula.

Gloria Holden plays the troubled and lonely Countess Zaleska, desperate to cure herself of vampirism. She tries both the occult and psychiatry before giving in to her bloodlust. The film is a Gothic delight, and Holden is dark and intense, quietly terrifying and tragic at the same time.

The film barely contains its sapphic undertones. Zaleska lingers over her female victims, covets their bodies and beauty, and prowls the streets at night in search of blood. The countess is very much a creature of her time in cinematic history, reflecting both the notion that homosexuality was considered a psychiatric malaise, and the censorship movements of the 1930s, with the Hays Code being introduced just a few years before. This was the first regulation code for cinema, reflecting religious and conservative views that any deviant behaviour had to be hidden, including sexual acts, prostitution, white slavery and homosexuality. The film is also a shining example of the demonisation of homosexuality, the portrayal of lesbians as predatory and dangerous and this is reflected in the scene where Zaleska attacks a young model, Lili.

1942’s Cat People likewise has a female monster at its heart. Irena moves to New York from Serbia, falling in love with the charming Oliver and marrying him. Underneath the surface, however, is the secret that she is descended from a wild people who can turn themselves into cats. Irena seems convinced that if she gives in to her passions she will lose control and turn into a cat herself – and her marriage becomes strained by a lack of intimacy.

Again, there is subtext around psychology, sexual repression and the power in a woman unleashing her sexuality. There is also a queer subtext as Irena stalks her husband’s mistress, Alice, and her inner cat is unleashed, suggesting that the repression she felt was her sexuality rather than her lack of ardour for her husband. All this is neatly tucked away from the heavy-handed censors, but easily readable.

Horror provided a way to express and explore female sexuality as complex and powerful – although again, it’s a sign of the times that it was also dangerous and deadly. Both films provided bold representations of female sex and sexuality at a time when it just wouldn’t have been possible to do so in a straightforward feature film. Although the subtext was ultimately tragic and fatal, it was a fair reflection of both the turmoil of coming to terms with being queer and the risk of society’s response if the fact was made public. Horror was the perfect cypher.

Moving forward, horror has continued to provide the perfect medium to explore these themes. The female monster has been a great platform for exploring puberty and all its commensurate delights: it’s all blood, mayhem and rage, after all. Think Carrie at the prom, exploding with fear, confusion and violence at her tormentors, triggered by her menstruation. Think Ginger in Ginger Snaps (2000) – first period, first full moon, morphing to discover her sense of identity, her confidence and her sexual liberation.

Both Carrie and Ginger Snaps are reflective of the fact that we are also still culturally trained to view periods and puberty with a sense of revulsion. There are several key moments in Ginger Snaps where adult characters view menstruation with disgust, implying that the girls should be ashamed of even speaking about it. Our bodies are the centre of the change in puberty, and this is interpreted into a kind of body horror, where the confusion, pain, hormones of puberty are projected outwards.

Carrie acquires powers to impact on the world around her to be able to make herself visible, powerful and a force to be reckoned with for the first time. Ginger starts to pay attention to and receive attention from her peers – she becomes a sexual being as well as a creature of rage. Bianca Nielson’s fascinating article Something’s Wrong, Like More Than You Being Female delves even further into Ginger Snaps’ representation of puberty and is well worth a read.

What is great about the film is the way that Brigitte and Ginger deconstruct their experiences together, sharing their views of their society, their bodies, and of their relationships. It’s notable how isolated Brigitte becomes when she can no longer share Ginger’s experiences. Although these conversations revolve around the fantastical, trying to deal with Ginger’s ‘wolfing out’, they’re also painfully familiar.

The female monster also allows us opportunity to address expectations of the female body. Hammer has a lot to answer for when it comes to heaving bosoms and frail victims in flimsy nighties, but in Countess Dracula (1971) it also addressed ageing. In particular, it addressed the fear of no longer meeting the expectation that women should be beautiful, and the anxiety that to age means to no longer be desirable.

The countess, fearing the loss of her young lovers, takes to bathing in the blood of virgins to retain her youth. Played by horror queen Ingrid Pitt, she was also rooted in the real life Elizabeth Bathory, who was imprisoned for murdering over 80 women and allegedly bathing in their blood. Countess Dracula is a silly, campy horror film, but it also manages to contain moments of poignancy, especially as the countess is forced to face her fate – old, hated and done for. It’s not a cheery message, but it’s a fair reflection of the cultural obsession with youth and beauty.

The girl monster also allows us to explore the idea that what’s outside doesn’t necessarily reflect what’s inside – ideas around appearances that fall outside the norms of society, the idea that ‘the other’ isn’t necessarily horrific, and the idea that monsters, conversely, can come in appealing packages. This is especially powerful when it challenges perceived notions of womanhood and beauty.

In Return of the Living Dead 3, reluctant zombie Julie bodily punishes herself because she’s no longer wholesome and good. She uses pain and piercing to control herself and to make her outside appearance reflect the badness she feels within, self-harming, cutting, modifying and piercing until she loses control. Again, on the surface it’s a silly film, but it’s a powerful scene when we begin to unpick the body as an object of aberration for young women. When Julie modifies herself she appears dangerous and sinister, but ultimately she’s still Julie underneath – she’s still a young woman mortified by herself.

This issue is also brilliantly addressed in last year’s breakthrough horror American Mary. Filmed by twins Jen and Sylvia Soska, and from their point of view explicitly feminist, it deals with the world of extreme body modification – carried out by trainee doctor Mary.

The modified women are deeply challenging representations of femininity and beauty. Their appearances are shocking and extreme, although underneath, they are caring and gentle despite seeming monstrous. This is exemplified by the character Ruby Realdoll, who desires to become sexless and doll-like. Her body has been cut and sliced to become featureless – monstrous to the accepted notion of beauty, but beautiful to her and vital to her self acceptance. The modification has dire consequences and accurately reflects how society rejects the other, often violently.

Mary herself – the ‘normal’ girl – is herself made monstrous, violent and increasingly amoral. In part, this is due to the societal pressures on her, including the fact that surgery is a boys’ club from which she is excluded as a young woman. It is also in part caused by an awful attack carried out by someone who presents themselves as the nice guy – nice job, caring profession, well respected, known to Mary. It’s a very challenging scene, mostly because the directors don’t allow you to look away, and because they refuse to fetishise it to make it more bearable. Horror reflects reality – as the directors themselves said, there are no cutaways in real life.

Importantly, though, Mary is also not a particularly nice person. She looks stunning, but she is not what we expect. She is sharp edged, cold, and self-absorbed; neither a fluffy air-headed beauty nor a bookish high achiever. Horror allows us to subvert some accepted tropes and often spits cultural expectations and stereotypes back in our faces. The fact that American Mary has generated so much discussion about what is and isn’t feminist cinema is fantastic.

Mainstream cinema is still deeply prescriptive about how women can act, talk and be – the girl monster refuses to be chained by these prescriptions. Horror is a brilliant, bloody palate for our real issues, and as a result it’s provided a forum for us to to talk about being a woman in a way that other genres could only dream of.

Of course we should enjoy the thrill of being scared. Of course we should immerse ourselves in the delight of a silly campy horror or a terrifying splatterfest – and no, I’m not suggesting that every horror fest should be an exercise in cinematic analytical criticism. But I love our sinister sisters. They’ve been reclaiming the night for decades.

• Ruth Sullivan is a children’s charity worker by day and avid gamer and consumer of pop culture by night. A former teacher and history nerd, she blogs in a personal capacity at i-conoclastic and is part of the reviews team for Close-Up Film. She tweets as @littlespy.

1. Ed’s Tiny Note: We were ambassadors for the 2013 WiHM campaign, and you can read the blogfest we curated for it here.

If you like scary stories and those who create them, you might be interested to know that February was Women in Horror Recognition Month. This is the second year of the initiative, which was started by Hannah Neurotica out of frustration because of the often-repeated myth that ‘there are no women creating horror’.

While women participate in the horror industry (literature, films, comic books, video games, etc) in fewer numbers than men, they are not absent. Many of them have been working in the field for a very long time, and have considerable credentials. Yet somehow they are rarely remembered and people scratch their heads when trying to recollect their names.

Where women are featured in horror events or magazines there is often an over-emphasis on actresses (Scream Queens and Last Girls) rather than the novelists, screenwriters or directors who are also involved in the field. No doubt this is due to two factors: an over-abundance of male journalists who want to meet their favourite actress, and the usual cultural bias that stresses the value of a woman’s appearance over the strength of her other talents.

No one dismisses the importance of actresses, since women are under-represented in film and television anyway, but women and men deserve more exposure to the variety of work that women accomplish in the field.

Need recommendations?

Here are five of the current crop of female horror writers who are well worth reading.

USA: Sarah Langan

Sarah grew up in Long Island, but went to university in Stephen King territory (Maine), before completing an MFA at Columbia University. After starting to write and publish short stories she graduated quickly onto novels, and in 2006 The Keeper was published to widespread critical acclaim.

Since then she has published two more novels, The Missing (2008) and Audrey’s Door (2009), numerous short stories and one audio drama, Is This Seat Taken (2010).

She’s won three Bram Stoker Awards (two for Best Novel, and one for Best Short Fiction), and a Dark Quill Award.

Canada: Gemma Files

Gemma was born in the UK, but moved to Toronto, Canada when she was a year old. She graduated university with a degree in journalism, and began her career with an eight-year tenure at Eye Weekly in Toronto, where she established her reputation as a genre-friendly film critic.

Five of her short stories were adapted for the US/Canadian horror television series, The Hunger (1997-2000), and she wrote the screenplays for the episodes from the second series “Bottle of Smoke” and “The Diarist”. She also taught screenwriting for eleven years. Her short story “The Emperor’s Old Bones”, won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Short Story of 1999. Two collections of her short stories are available: Kissing Carrion (2003) and The Worm in Every Heart (2004).

Gemma’s first novel, A Book Of Tongues (2010), the first book in her Hexslinger series, won the 2010 Black Quill award for “Best Small Press Chill” (both Editors’ and Readers’ Choice) from Dark Scribe Magazine. The sequel, A Rope of Thorns, is due in May 2011.

Australia: Kaaron Warren

Kaaron was born in Australia, and after a sojourn in Fiji has returned to Canberra, Australia. Her horror short fiction has been gaining attention since she was first published in the early 1990s. She’s now had over 70 stories published in a variety of venues, and has two collections in print: The Grinding House (2005) and Dead Sea Fruit (2010).

Her debut novel Slights (2009), was published to much attention due to its disturbing premise and gripping prose style, and she followed it quickly with Walking the Tree (2010) and Mistification (2011).

In 1999 she won the Aurealis Award for best horror short story, and in 2006 she won the Ditmar Award for Best Short Story and Best Novella/Novelette. She also bagged the 2006 ACT Writing and Publishing Award for best fiction. In 2010 she won a Ditmar Award again, this time for Best Novel for Slights.

UK: Sarah Pinborough

Sarah was born in Buckinghamshire, and she spent her early childhood travelling in the Middle East because of her father’s career as a diplomat. After college she worked as a teacher before becoming a full time writer.

She’s published six horror novels with Leisure Books – The Hidden (2004), The Reckoning (2005), Breeding Ground (2006), The Taken (2007), Tower Hill (2008), Feeding Ground (2009) – and a tie-in novel for the Torchwood TV franchise, Torchwood: Into The Silence (2009).

Her futuristic horror crime novel, A Matter of Blood, the first of her Dog-Faced Gods trilogy, was released in March 2010. She is also publishing a Young Adult fantasy trilogy called The Nowhere Chronicles under the name of Sarah Silverwood. The first book in the series, The Double-Edged Sword, was published last year.

Her story The Language of Dying won the 2010 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella.

USA: Mira Grant

Mira is the pen name of the multi-talented writer/illustrator/composer/singer Seanan McGuire, who is the author of the October Daye and InCryptid series of urban fantasy novels.

Last year her zombie horror novel, Feed, written as Mira Grant, was published to considerable popularity. The sequel, Deadline, is due out in May 2011, and her Newsflesh trilogy will be rounded up with the publication of Blackout next year.

Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and Feed was named as one of Publishers Weekly‘s Best Books of 2010.

It’s difficult to pick five out of such a talented field, so I feel obliged to list a number of other writers people should read: Lisa Morton, Margo Lanagan, Tananarive Due, Caitlin R Kiernan, Sara Gen, Lisa Tuttle, Kathe Koja, Joyce Carol Oates, Nancy Holder, Catherynne M Valente, Holly Black, Yvonne Navarro, Lisa Mannetti, Tanith Lee, Lucy Snyder, Marjorie Liu, M Rickert, Mary SanGiovanni, Pat Cadigan, Melanie Tem and Helen Oyeyemi.

We should also give a hat-tip to a representation of the women editors (some of whom are also writers) in horror, such as Ellen Datlow (Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror, Best Horror of the Year 2), Ann VanderMeer (Weird Tales), Heidi Martinuzzi (editor-in-chief of FanGirlTastic.com), Barbara Roden (All Hallows, At Ease with the Dead, co-edited with Christopher Roden), Paula Guran (Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror), Nancy Kilpatrick (Evolve, Outsiders), Monica S Kuelber (Rue Morgue), Christine Makepeace (Paracinema) and Angela Challis (Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror).

This is just a small sample of the talented women who are writing and editing horror. There are far more, with new writers breaking into the field every day. I take it as a good sign that this year’s longlist for the Bram Stoker Awards included a more diverse list of writers and editors.

Of course, there are also many supportive men in the industry who have published women and promoted their inclusion.

Let’s hope in a few years there will be no need for Women in Horror Recognition Month. For the moment, however, it’s a necessary reminder to strive for a better representation of the diversity of voices in the horror business.

• Maura McHugh has been a horror fan since she could read gory fairy tales and sneakily watch creepy movies without parental intervention. Her work in various media have been published in a number of venues such as Black Static, Shroud Magazine, and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. She co-organised the Campaign for Real Fear horror competition last year. Her first graphic novel, Róisín Dubh, is due this summer from Atomic Diner in Ireland.