Vampires have appeared in various incarnations throughout the history of cinema. From lonely Nosferatu, to Dracula, to vampire cowboys, vampire teenagers1 and, erm, vampire motorcycles.2
For a stylish, slinky and subversive depiction of a bloodsucker, Daughters of Darkness (directed by Harry Kümel, 1971) is well worth a look. It’s a hypnotic cocktail of horror and arthouse. The DVD has a campy Hammer-style cover and the tag line, ‘An erotic nightmare of vampire lust!’ Subtle. For some reason, there were a lot of lesbian vampire movies released in the 70s. However anyone looking for straight-up naughtiness will be disappointed with Daughters of Darkness. The vampires are beautiful women, but it’s not about titillation. It’s a lot weirder than that.
The story: a pair of newlyweds arrive at an out-of-season hotel in chilly Ostend. The bride – Valerie – is dressed all in white and appears to be the picture of naïve innocence. The groom – Stefan – has a handsome face, but there’s something not quite right about his smile. It almost looks like a sneer.
Their relationship appears to be a bit, well, peculiar. She’s concerned that he hasn’t told his mother about their marriage. He seems to be in no hurry to do so. Prior to their unscheduled stop-in at this beautiful but lonely place, they have both confessed that they don’t love one another and both seem okay with this. And then, during dinner, the sapphic vampire aristocrat arrives with her assistant/lover.
The Countess Bathory, played with otherworldly grace and just a hint of vulnerability by Delphine Seyrig, tells the couple that she is a descendant of the infamously murderous Hungarian countess. (A real historical character and template for the ‘glamorous female vampire’ archetype, Elizabeth Bathory was supposed to have been a serial killer but apparently wasn’t really into drinking virgins’ blood. That was a rumour that came about years after her death. The real Countess was never a vampire, just as Catherine the Great probably never even got to first base with any horses.)
Her loving description of the horrors her ancestor inflicted on young ladies gets Stefan a bit excited. Valerie is horrified. At first. And then the couple are drawn into the vampire’s world. In which the notions of victim and monster get turned sideways. And then the film briefly shows us Stefan’s ‘Mother’. (As the the none-more-seventies voiceover man enthuses in the film’s trailer, ‘She’s something else!’).
And there are some deaths. Including death by bowl.
Yes, bowl. And a lovely crystal bowl it is too. And someone knocks an entire lobster on the floor in the act. Such decadence! The film could be read as a mediation on power and relationships. (In their own ways, Countess Bathory and Stefan are both bullies.) Or an exercise in playing around with genre tropes. Or a daft-but-enjoyable confection of crazy featuring some splendid outfits (sequins, feathers, PVC capes!).
Actually, it’s probably a bit of all of these. It’s a strange and beautiful work. Even the bits that make you snigger might crop up in your dreams a long time after you’ve seen it.
- Emily McQuade is the co-author of Film Burble, where she likes to discuss all things cinematic. She’d like to live in a world where action figures are manufactured for all Mike Leigh characters. When not thinking about films, she likes to skulk around London in search of books, comedy and mandrills. She can also be founding loafing about on Twitter: @missmcq.
- I once had to walk through a cinema foyer full of Twilight fans and had to restrain myself from bellowing, ‘It’s not as good as The Lost Boys.’ In a couple of decades hence, they’ll probably have to resist the urge to be similarly snarky about some future vampire boy-fest.
- Yes really. I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle is a British horror/comedy from the late 80s. I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it, so can’t comment on its quality.
In the dim and distant past, I edited an original anthology of horror stories called Skin of the Soul. Most of the stories were new (there were two reprints) and all of the contributors were women. What sparked my decision to do it was an all-male horror anthology published a couple of years earlier to much acclaim: Prime Evil, edited by Douglas E. Winter, was a showcase for “the masters of modern horror”, and Winter’s introduction was dedicated to the argument that horror is not a genre but an emotion, to be found throughout all literature,from high to low.
I agree; I don’t care much for generic “horror”, even if I prefer it to generic “romance”, and although I’ve written a lot of horror stories, and most of my novels have some element of horror in them (one, Lost Futures, published as horror in the US, was nominated for a science fiction award in Britain) I’m not that comfortable identifying myself as a “horror writer”.
The writers Winter invited to contribute to his anthology included nearly all the big names of the time (Stephen King, Peter Straub, Clive Barker) but also lesser-known writers (Jack Cady and Paul Hazel). Even the introduction, pointing to the many sources of horror in the mainstream, gave a name-check to just one woman writer throughout literary history.
Who was this paragon? You might guess Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, Christina Rossetti, Edith Wharton, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice, Joyce Carol Oates… but no, the solitary example the editor chose was “…the best-selling novels of V.C. Andrews.” (I did wonder if he knew her first name was Virginia rather than, say, Victor.)
So I was horrified – not in a good way – by this compilation of horrors, and daydreamed about selling my own anthology, inviting a list of excellent writers to contribute, writing my own erudite introduction about great horror fiction of the past. If anyone pointed out that all of those writers were women, I’d act surprised, pretend it was just the luck of the draw, these were the best stories submitted and naturally the examples I chose were my personal favourites.
I certainly did not set out to deliberately exclude men; there were lots of good male writers, but now that I came to think about it, not many of them wrote horror. I mean real horror, genuinely well-written and original, not that childish gross-out stuff, not those tired generic clichés, not dreary old male fantasies, but the kind of thing I wanted to read, because, after all, it only counts as horror in my book if it fits my definition… and I reserve the right to change the rules whenever I like.
Over years of going to conventions, and reading and writing and reviewing (even teaching classes) in the fields of science fiction, fantasy and horror, I’ve noticed how much time is devoted to definitions of genre. Any genre. Once you start putting labels on books, you must justify the inclusion of one and the exclusion of another. This is science fiction, of which I approve, while that is merely fantasy. (I remember Charles Platt defending his choice of interviewees for his first Who Writes Science Fiction? – Kate Wilhelm was the only woman, and she was interviewed in tandem with her husband – but, he explained, Ursula LeGuin had refused his request, and he couldn’t think of any other woman who wrote what he considered to be proper science fiction.)
“Literary” authors are given a pass time and again, not tarred with the genre brush (it’s “magic realism” or “speculative fiction”) and it pops up in discussions and reader reviews all the time: “I don’t call this horror.” “This is all about atmosphere and character and not scary at all.” “Maybe works as literature, but not as horror fiction.” “Vampires wouldn’t do that.” Etc.
Critics may praise authors who “push the boundaries” or subvert expectations, but these are the very actions that can make the dedicated genre fan feel cheated, and respond angrily, as if when they ordered chocolate ice cream, they’d been served a bowl of extra-hot chilli.
When, more than twenty years after the publication of Skin of the Soul (“which proves indisputably that horror fiction is not a male preserve”, or so said Clive Barker in 1990) , I find that women are still fighting that old battle, still having their contributions to horror ignored or forgotten, I wonder if this isn’t – at least partly – something to do with definitions and expectations of genre. And with who is defining it, and why.
Myself, I’ve never limited my reading to one type of fiction, and I don’t write novels that fall neatly into a narrowly defined slot, either. (Maybe this is my problem!) There are some readers for whom genre fiction is comfort food, and they don’t want any nasty surprises when they’ve snuggled down to read – even in a genre celebrated as the purveyor of nasty surprises. Maybe, for some readers, it doesn’t count as horror unless the author plays by certain rules, unless the story is purveyed via the male gaze, and the name on the title page does nothing to break the illusion that we’re all boys together in this clubhouse.
- Lisa Tuttle is an acclaimed author whose achievements include winning the International Horror Guild Award, a BSFA Award, and most recently the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.
- The novel The Silver Bough is just out in a new paperback edition from Jo Fletcher Books.
- www.lisatuttle.co.uk
I was delighted when Bad Reputation asked me to recommend the work of five women working in horror, to coincide with Women in Horror Recognition Month. It’s the perfect time to celebrate each other’s work and shout about what women have achieved in the field. So here are five personal picks…
1. Thana Niveau, short story writer
I first came across Thana’s work in various anthologies, including several editions of The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, where her work had rightfully been selected as among the most outstanding of the year.
Most recently though, I read her first collection of short stories, From Hell to Eternity (published by Gray Friar Press, with an introduction penned by none other than Ramsey Campbell).
From Hell to Eternity is a wonderful read. I particularly loved the opening story, ‘The Curtain’, with its eerie underwater world, and ‘Stolen to Time’, with a photography session that captures more than is bargained for. This is a strong debut, and definitely marks Thana out as one to watch.
Furthermore… this is a lady who really lives the life. As her bio says, she ‘lives in a crumbling gothic tower in Wicker Man country. She shares her life with fellow horror scribe John Llewellyn Probert, in a Victorian library filled with arcane books and curiosities.’
Her online home (‘a little dusty, little dark, a little strange,’) is at thananiveau.com.
2. Marie O’Regan, anthologist
Marie is another talented short story writer as well as a top-flight anthologist. She has also worked behind the scenes of the FantasyCon gathering, putting programming together and bringing some fantastic guests of honour to the event.
One of her latest titles is The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women (published by Robinson), a project aimed at showcasing the work of women writers in the field. It includes stories dating back to the nineteenth century through to contemporary ghostly tales. I have a story in there too, and can vouch that Marie is a pleasure to work with.
With husband Paul Kane, Marie also edited Hellbound Hearts (Pocket Books), a Clive Barker tribute anthology that includes stories by Neil Gaiman, Sarah Pinborough, Conrad Williams, Tim Lebbon, Barbie Wilde, Kelley Armstrong and many more, and features a foreword by Clive Barker.
Next up on my ‘to be read’ pile is The Mammoth Book of Body Horror (Robinson), which includes more big names and potentially more visceral fare…
Find Marie at www.marieoregan.net.
3. Sarah Pinborough, novelist
Sarah Pinborough has published a number of novels, including The Hidden, Tower Hill, The Reckoning and Breeding Ground, a wonderfully chilling book that reimagines motherhood and birth in an entirely different way.
Her novella, The Language of Dying (PS Publishing) is an intimate and harrowing account of a father’s terminal illness. The fantasy elements are interwoven with the lightest touch – this is more akin to true-life horror, and brought me to tears. It won the 2010 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella.
The Dog-Faced Gods series (Gollancz) is a widely acclaimed trilogy combining crime with the supernatural. Coming up is a duology of historical novels that again combine crime with horror: Mayhem and Murder (Jo Fletcher Books). Sarah also has a movie, Cracked, in development, and is making inroads into writing for television, with an episode of New Tricks under her belt. Her short story ‘The Confessor’s Tale’ was among my favourites in the Marie O’Regan/Paul Kane anthology, Hellbound Hearts.
See more from her at sarahpinborough.com.
4. Angela Slatter, short story writer
Winner of a British Fantasy Award and two Aurealis Awards, Angela Slatter is an Australian writer of dark fantasy and horror. She has a Masters (Research) in Creative Writing and a PhD in Creative Writing.
2010 saw not one but two short story collections published – Sourdough and Other Stories (Tartarus Press) and The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales (Ticonderoga).
Sourdough is full of dark fairy tales, where babies are fashioned from bread and dolls are given souls. The Girl with No Hands has retold stories, including The Little Match Girl and Bluebeard.
I tend to think of fairy tales as the original horror stories, and Angela’s work is ideal for anyone who likes their dark fiction with a good measure of the magical and folkloric.
It’s good to hear that she is currently working on an urban fantasy novel, Brisneyland by Night.
5. Muriel Gray, novelist and TV presenter
Muriel Gray was a special guest at FantasyCon last year, where she brought boundless enthusiasm to the role (and the biggest grin that I’ve ever seen!). She originally hails from East Kilbride, Scotland. She graduated from the Glasgow School of Art, played in a punk band and went on to be a successful TV presenter as well as an author. She also founded one of the UK’s leading independent television production companies.
Her writing career began in 1995 with the bestselling horror novel The Trickster, which was followed by Furnace and The Ancient (all HarperCollins), which Stephen King described as “scary and unputdownable”.
She has also contributed many short stories to anthologies and magazines, the most recent including The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women and A Carnivàle of Horror: Dark Tales from the Fairground (PS Publishing).
Apparently Muriel was a horror fan from childhood, when she hid The Pan Book of Horror Stories under her bed covers and read it with a torch.
- Alison Littlewood’s latest novel, Path of Needles, will be out in June 2013. Her first novel, A Cold Season (Jo Fletcher Books) was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club, where it was described as “perfect reading for a dark winter’s night.” Her short stories have been picked for the Best Horror of the Year and Mammoth Book of Best New Horror anthologies, as well as The Best British Fantasy 2013 and The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10.
- www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk
Sponsored by the US-based Viscera Film Festival, WiHM has really taken off since we covered it in 2011, and we’re very proud to be WiHM Ambassadors – check us out on the list!
We recently kicked off a set of posts on Women in Horror with a return to our soapbox by Irish horror author Maura McHugh, who returned to BadRep Towers to spotlights some women she admired working in the genre across a range of media.
Before we go further, though, we’d like to share the Women in Horror Month Mission statement.
This Mission Statement is taken from the Women in Horror Recognition Month website. They’ve asked that it be shared, quoted and spread about as much as possible, so we’re giving it the spotlight in itself for a moment, before we get down with our horror-nerdy selves in these pages.
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The Mission
Women in Horror Recognition Month (WiHM) assists underrepresented female genre artists in gaining opportunities, exposure, and education through altruistic events, printed material, articles, interviews, and online support. WiHM seeks to expose and break down social constructs and miscommunication between female professionals while simultaneously educating the public about discrimination and how they can assist the female gender in reaching equality.
The Vision
A world in which all individuals are equally given the opportunity to create, share, and exploit their concept of life, pain, and freedom of expression.
IT’S THE YEAR 2012, NOT THE 1950s. IS THERE REALLY A NEED FOR WiHM?
Absolutely. Otherwise, WiHM would not exist. Women are still not offered the same pay and opportunities as their male colleagues in many industries, particularly the arts. Discrimination runs rampant in Hollywood and it’s very difficult for females (even well-known actresses) to get their films funded by major studios.
Statistics prove that women are still not offered the same opportunities as men due to an array of reasons, from discrimination to female professionals accepting less than they are worth in order to receive the same opportunities as their male colleagues.
In other parts of the world, women are still stoned to death for speaking their minds, excommunicated when they are sexually violated, and not offered proper education. Atrocities continue to happen that force the female gender to be subservient to a patriarchal system that tells them how to dress, who to marry, and what they should do with their lives. All discrimination must be exposed and obliterated for the female gender to truly achieve equality.
WiHM focuses on supporting the achievements of women who utilize the most extreme mirror available in storytelling: horror. We encourage women to explore and represent these horrors constructively, in positive environments.
WHAT ARE THE INDUSTRY’S STATISTICS?
- In the 1920s there were no more than 10 women working in Hollywood in leadership positions.
- In 2009, the mainstream film industry’s ratio was 16% women to 84% men.
- In 2011, women made up only 5% of directors working in Hollywood.
- www.womeninhorrormonth.com
- www.viscerafilmfestival.com
- www.facebook.com/WomenInHorrorMonth
- womeninhorrormonth.tumblr.com
- Ed’s Tiny Note: Our team are in full support of this; given the diverse make-up of our own team’s, we would likely expand this phrase where it occurs to “all genders” and “all gender identities, presentations and expressions”.
SO WiHM IS ALL ABOUT WOMEN. WHAT ABOUT MEN?
WiHM was created with no exclusion. Men play a vital part in the female gender reaching equality. There are many male WiHM Ambassadors and artists who choose to assist and work with professional and talented underrepresented female practitioners. Be a guiding example of a man who respects both genders equally.1
WHAT CAN THE PUBLIC DO TO ASSIST WOMEN?
Personal Responsibility
We all must take personal responsibility for our beliefs, values, and actions. Participating in positive, constructive environments that encourage and provide a safe platform for women to share and explore is vital.
Education
Education is essential. Knowledge is power. Understanding history and where that puts us today, politically and socially, demonstrates how we are interpreting each other and ourselves.
Work with Women
Finding professional women to work with in leadership positions is one of the most important actions you can take to assist the movement. Don’t just work with a woman because of her gender, work with her because she has a lot to bring to the table.
Banish social constrictions
Stereotyping, judging, cattiness, competitiveness, comparing, and gossip – all of these actions hurt men and women. We are all on our own path in life, careers, and personal relationships. We are encouraged to play into these cultural expectations when we are young, which can create judgment of those who are different. Stop it.
Be a WiHM Ambassador
Every February, WiHM Ambassadors host charity events (blood drives, film screenings, art shows), write blogs and articles, conduct interviews, and create videos and podcasts for mass consumption. All of these events and content specifically represent and assist the underrepresented female genre artist and are for philanthrpopic reasons only. No profit is made from WiHM, or the Viscera organization.
Participate
Go to the events, read the articles, watch the videos. Be conscious of the fact that you are consuming different perspectives of a movement that is assisting a struggle that women have experienced for at least the last four thousand years: equality. We have incredible potential right now to destroy discrimination. It deserves your attention.
Donate
Donate to WiHM. All funds go directly into the organization to improve the events, materials, and outreach. WiHM needs the support of the public.
Support other organisations
Organisations such as CARE, Women for Women International, RAINN, and WIF. All these organisations work hard all year round to assist women in achieving equality. Visit their websites and educate yourself.
The Board
The Board of Directors for WiHM is comprised of women from all facets of the horror film industry, including WiHM founder Hannah Forman, Debbie Rochon, Jovanka Vuckovic, Heidi Honeycutt, Jen and Sylvia Soska, and Shannon Lark.
The Organisation
WiHM is a service provided by the Viscera Organization, a 501(c)3 non profit organization expanding opportunities for contemporary female genre filmmakers and artists by raising awareness about the changing roles for women in the film industry.
Dear Deep Silver,
I have just seen the parody ad for the collector’s edition of Dead Island: Riptide. While violence against women and graphic dismemberment are fairly cheap, extremely tasteless and far too easy targets for “shock value”, I’m impressed by your provocative attempts to further the dialogue about the sinister and ingrained misogyny of videogame culture by taking it to a disgusting extreme.
Limited Edition! Specially designed and crafted! Completely and utterly terrible!
Oh… wait, hang on, I’ve just heard from Rock, Paper, Shotgun that you’re actually serious about this. This apparently isn’t just a misguided pastiche of publicity stunts. Oh. Oh dear.
You claim that this hunk of resin will:
… make a striking conversation piece on any discerning zombie gamer’s mantel.
Well, as someone who has notched up damn near 1,000 hours of zombie killing in recent years (thanks, Steam, for keeping track of that. I was starting to worry that I was wasting my life), let’s have a conversation about it. I’ll go and brew up a steaming cup of Sityourassdown while you perch on the naughty stool and think about what you’ve done.
I can hear it already, the rumbling of defensive PR managers approaching.
“But it’s a zombie game! The whole point of it is to commit heinous acts of violence against the undead in self defence! A zombie torso with its limbs severed is a trophy that represents your prowess!”
Before I address this, in the interests of full disclosure, I have to say that I am not a qualified physician. However, from my forays into the study of human and zombie biology, I can confirm that the healthy, warm-tanned skintone, obvious freshness of the blood, the lack of any sort of necrosis or decomposition of the flesh indicates that this torso was certainly not a zombie at the time of her dismemberment.
Exposure of the lower ribs suggest traumatic chest injury; however, it’s not clear whether this occurred before or after the time of death. My working hypothesis is that her death had something to do with either decapitation or the loss of all her blood. Even without formal medical training, I am fairly confident in positing that there is no coming back from complete removal of the head.
There isn’t even any artistic merit in what you’ve created, which is almost as offensive as the glorification of horrific violence against women. You have the gumption to describe it as:
…Dead Island’s grotesque take on an iconic Roman marble torso sculpture.
No. Stop. Please. The skies are filled with the anguished cries of Classics and Art History students, joined by the despairing sobs of everybody with a functioning pair of eyes. There are several salient differences between your abomination and classical works of art, but I’ll set out a few of these for your convenience:
- Artistic merit. Marble sculptures are exquisite works by highly-skilled craftspeople demonstrating the depth of their abilities. Weeks of work go into a marble sculpture, creating something dynamic and evocative from a chunk of something cold and unyielding drawn from the earth. These are not pieces that can be “designed” in an afternoon by a gaggle of fratboy marketers over their weekly office keg.
- Anatomy. Sculptors who work with marble show an intimate and thorough knowledge and understanding of human anatomy. Every muscle, every curve, every millimetre of skin is honed to a perfect representation of the human form. What you have done is plonked two tennis balls on a solid block of resin, doodled in a crude cleavage with a Sharpie, then splashed raspberry sauce all over it and called it a day. Which brings me neatly onto my next point…
- Overt sexualisation and glamourisation of violence against women. Classical torso sculptures are not without limbs due to some horrible run-in with a horde of undead and a crazed survivor with a katana. If any Classics types would like to weigh in on this, I’d be interested to learn. However, I’m pretty sure that the motivations of those classical sculptors was not “Hurr, violence is EPIC. You know what else is epic? TITS! Yeah! But you know what’s not epic? Any part of a woman that isn’t tits or crotch. Let’s put, yeah, some tits and a crotch in a string bikini, and like, cut everything else off. Gamers will eat that up. Oh man, I’m jizzing my pants already. Tits and extreme violence. We’re geniuses.” (Again, classics students, if there’s any evidence of the great Graeco-Roman sculptors having had this discussion, I will withdraw this point. Let me know.)
In summary: what the hell? After the first Dead Island game failed to quite live up to its own teaser trailer, do you just feel like you need to continue along this trajectory of disappointment? Were you hoping to hit rock bottom with today’s sick display in the hope that thereafter, the only way would be up? If that’s the case, I’d be tempted to applaud your shamelessness, had it not been such a swing and a miss.
Now, I’m a feminist, but I also don’t believe that every catastrophic misunderstanding of how to exploit the “desirability” of anything that vaguely resembles a woman’s body (usually one that conforms to narrow standards of Western beauty) is born of true misogyny.
I believe it’s quite possible that you “just didn’t think” of the implications and repercussions of showing a violently dismembered female torso and selling it as an ornament. For those of us – women and some men – who actually live in bodies like the one messily represented in your collector’s edition, it isn’t possible to “just not think” about the possibilities and the realities of violence.
Women are disproportionately more likely to be the victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse, both by people they know and by strangers. We are taught from childhood that our bodies are weaker, that if we don’t want to be attacked we have to dress demurely, to know our limits, to keep our mouths shut and to do as we’re told.
We live in a victim-blaming world that constantly promotes the idea that the only way to not be a victim is to not provoke those strong and burly menfolks, who cannot be held to account if they attack you because you were obviously “asking for it” if and when it happens. Although this line of reasoning was born of institutionalised misogyny, it doesn’t exactly paint men in the most flattering of lights either.
The discussion is thankfully broadening, so this is not an issue I’ll go deeper into here. But Deep Silver, consider yourselves called out. There’s a wealth of resources, information, blogs, zines, articles, and opinion pieces out there. You have no excuse for not educating yourselves about why what you have done is damaging and irresponsible.
Everybody fucks up sometimes when it comes to the way they think about or treat people less privileged than they are. What really proves whether or not they’re capable of meeting the criteria for being a decent human being, or a company with any integrity, is how they handle and learn from their fuckups. My advice? Apologise. Be humble. Be grateful to people who have called you out on this. Make the choice to educate yourselves. And for the love of all things zombie, don’t do it again.
I do, however, have one thing to be grateful to you for about this. Should I find myself romancing a fellow gamer in future, and we go back to their house, this statuette will be an immediate and unmistakable red flag that this person has questionable taste in games, décor and attitudes towards women. This information will be a clear indicator that this isn’t somebody I should be spending time with.
Perhaps your statue could replace the endless whining about “the friendzone” as the hallmark of somebody utterly clueless about human relationships and endlessly disrespectful to women. Then I would laud you for your achievement, because that shit is getting very, very tiresome.
Yours sincerely,
Mia Vee
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In February 2010, Hannah Forman (under the pen name Hannah Neurotica) began Women in Horror Recognition Month as a way to celebrate women’s contribution to the horror industry.
She began the campaign out of frustration at the lack of coverage of women working in horror media, and received a terrific response to the initiative. People used social media and blogging platforms to discuss their favourite women creators throughout the month of February, and aided the conversation about horror and women’s participation in it. It’s a fine example of how online communities can be harnessed to a positive effect. It’s become an annual event since then.
In the past four years there’s been a discernable increase of attention given to women’s contributions across the creative spectrum. This has not been given freely. It’s come about because women and men have asked to see a more equal representation of work by creators they enjoy. It’s because of campaigns liked Women in Horror Recognition Month that some media sources have finally noticed there are women in the industry, and that many of them have been around for a long time.
Hopefully there will come a time when such an initiative is redundant, but since the Vida statistics on the participation and coverage of women’s work in many media sources remains low, that time is not upon us yet.
Two years ago, Bad Reputation asked me to write an article called Women in Horror: Five Recommended Writers, and this year I’m singling out the work of women who create across horror media.
1. Livia Llwellyn – Short Story Writer
Livia Llwellyn was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and raised in Tacoma, before moving to live on the East Coast. She’s been making a reputation for herself in horror circles since her stories began to be published, from 2005 onwards. Her work has been printed and reprinted in many prestigious anthologies.
She writes difficult, fascinating characters coping with disturbing situations. Some of her stories are unashamedly erotic in a way that honestly reflects the terrible fixations of desire.
Her first short story collection, Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors, was published by Lethe Press in 2011 and contains ten of her stories. It received rave reviews, and was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection. It announced the arrival of an original talent, and one fans of horror fiction should watch.
2. Jen and Sylvia Soska – Screenwriters, Directors, Actors, Producers
Jen & Slyvia Soska are Canadian identical twins, long fans of horror, and have trained in martial arts and stunt work. Their first short film was a trailer for a movie, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, which they then made as their début film. They wrote, produced, directed, and acted in the movie, and it gained a lot of attention on the horror film festival circuit.
They created their own production company, Twisted Twins Productions, and made other short films, such as The Hornet, Together We’re Heavy, and Bad Girls.
It was last year’s movie, American Mary, which showed the development of the sisters’ work. Once again they wrote, directed, and appeared in it. It stars Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) as Mary Mason, a broke medical student who changes her career after a traumatic experience, and puts her knowledge of physiology to use by doing extreme body modifications.
The film won five awards at Screamfest last year, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Over the years they’ve demonstrated determination, creative progression, and ambition, and I’m looking forward to what they will do next.
3. Hannah Berry – Comic Book Writer and Artist
Hannah Berry began drawing from a young age, inspired by comics like Calvin and Hobbs, and French bande dessinée. She completed a Degree in Illustration at the University of Brighton, and during that time began work on her first graphic novel, Britten and Brülightly.
Her noir detective story featuring ‘Private Researcher’ Fernández Britten was picked up by publisher Jonathan Cape, and hit the shelves in 2008. It was universally lauded, and was translated into many languages.
The French edition was chosen for the Official Selection of the prestigious Angoulême International Comics Festival in France in 2010. While not overtly a horror story, the dark, noir atmosphere is resonant with supernatural mystery tales.
She was the Booktrust Writer in Residence in 2012, and has been an instructor on the Arvon Foundation’s Graphic Novel Writing course several times.
Her latest graphic novel is Adamtine, an eerie story about a late night train journey that stalls and brings its passengers on an altogether unexpected journey. Its atmospheric art and complicated narrative prove that Hannah has the chops for slow-burn supernatural stories.
A free preview of Adamtine can be downloaded from her website.
4. Alice Lowe – Screenwriter and Actor
Alice Lowe attended Cambridge, and started her career co-devising and performing in small fringe shows. She appeared in Garth Marenghi’s Fright Knight in 2000 at the Edinburgh Festival. The show was nominated for the Perrier Award, and Alice won it the following year for her performance in the sequel, Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead. The show was then turned into a Channel 4 comedy, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. Alice has also appeared in such television shows as The Mighty Boosh, Little Britain, and The IT Crowd.
She went back to Edinburgh Festival in 2005 with her own Kate-Bush inspired prog-rock spoof, Moonjourney, co-wrote and starred in Channel 4’s Orcadia, and was part of E4’s sketch show Beehive.
In 2010 she and director Jacqueline Wright set up Jackal Films to challenge themselves to create a short film every month, which they did. She also created Alice’s Wunderland, a
comedy sketch show for BBC Radio 4.
Alice’s work focuses on comedy, but there are often dark veins of horror threaded throughout her material. A case in point is the film Sightseers, which was released in November 2012. She co-wrote it with Steve Oram, with some material by Amy Jump, and co-stars in the film with Oram. The film is a black comedy about a couple who go on holiday in a caravan and get up to a bit of murder along the way.
If you’re not familiar with these women’s work, I encourage you to seek it out. I should note that this is a personal pick: there are many other talented women horror creators out there.
- Maura McHugh is a writer living in Ireland. She’s written the comic books Róisín Dubh and Jennifer Wilde, and her first collection Twisted Fairy Tales is on sale in America now. She’s loved all things spooky and supernatural since she read her first fairy tale.
- More from Maura McHugh on BadRep: our interview with her about Róisín Dubh is in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2, and you can also check out her previous guest post, ‘Women In Horror: Five Recommended Writers’.