Join us as we celebrate WOMEN IN HORROR MONTH in this week’s FIELD OF STREAMS with the scariest and toughest women in horror
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When it comes to genres, few have earned the ire of feminists and film critics alike more than the realm of horror. To be fair, few genres (save for perhaps action and westerns) have treated their female characters as oftentimes nothing more than mere functions whose helmers were only too happy to cast aside quite like horror films. While the number of horror films who take pleasure in bumping off their women, in typically the most gruesome of ways, there are a significant handful of them which opt to keep them around. Going further, there are some who dare to actually put the woman at the center of their film and explore what makes her tick, operate and survive in the face of the dark side of humanity.
In this week’s Field of Streams, we celebrate Women in Horror Month by presenting five streaming horror titles featuring a collection of female horror heroines, all of whom are well-rounded, well-written, and endlessly entrancing in one way or another.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (Netflix)
The mid-late 90’s were good to the slasher genre, which until then had seemed all but dead following the Reagan-driven 80s. Wes Craven’s now-classic, endlessly self-referential Scream may be credited for ushering in the revival, but one mustn’t count out 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. Scream scribe took the bones of Lois Smith’s teen thriller novel and crafted a film seeped in genuine suspense and effective scares centering on a group of friends being stalked by a man they accidentally hit with their car and left for dead the year before. Jennifer Love Hewitt (riding high on the success of TV’s Party of Five) became the new scream queen thanks to her totally worthwhile turn as Julie, the most haunted of the group. Hewitt’s ability to take her character from mousy, to damaged, to ultimately powerful, is the epitome of a well-rounded scream queen performance and one of the key reasons I Know What You Did Last Summer works to this day.
HEREDITARY (Prime)
The horror film to see if you were a genre fan in the summer of 2018, Hereditary shocked many with it’s horrific tale of a family facing their supernatural demons following the death of it’s youngest member. Certainly the most haunted is Annie (Toni Collette), a woman rocked by the deaths of both her mother (who was responsible for her own nightmarish upbringing) and young daughter (Millie Shapiro). The double effects of both deaths plunges the already emotionally rocky Annie head first into a dark mental abyss where she must face the monsters living inside her. Collette is so magnetic and commanding as Annie, carrying Hereditary squarely on her electrifying performance that when the movie’s supernatural elements do show up, the ultimately play second fiddle to the horrifying woman at the movie’s center.
SISTERS (Kanopy)
Carrie is typically the film credited with putting director Brian De Palma on the map, but in actuality, it was the 1972 provocative horror/thriller Sisters which can truly claim the honor. When a Staten Island reporter Grace (Jennifer Salt) witness a beautiful French model Danielle (Margot Kidder) commit a murder in the apartment across the street, she alerts the police who don’t believe her, forcing her to prove what she saw was true. De Palma concocted the story of Sisters based on a real-life case of a pair of siamese twins who were separated and the maddening effects that resulted when they each tried to live separate lives. Many of the filmmaker’s future trademarks, including the use of split screen and his unmatched ability to blend psychological horror and pulsating suspense come into their own in Sisters. Yet it’s the director’s love of strong women which truly carries the film as De Palma’s two alpha females embody the different sides of kind of woman to be found in the early 1970s.
MISERY (VUDU)
Greatly credited with the breaking the Oscar barrier, Misery became the first horror film to earn its lead actress, Kathy Bates the gold statue for playing the horrifying nurse Annie Wilkes who finds and rescues famed author Paul Sheldon (James Caan) from a car accident in director Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. While there’s some genuine tension in Caan’s maddening turn as a man wondering if he’ll ever escape the clutches of his self-proclaimed “number one fan,” it’s no secret that the horror of Misery lies with Annie. Every ounce of terror, dread and fear lies in the character’s every move, and only intensifies with each kind gesture and subsequent revelation of her sinister past. Considered by King himself to be his most horrifying creation, Bates brings Annie to glorious life, playing her not as an over-the-top villain, but at as a woman who has long-since lost control of her sanity and overall grasp on reality.
ALICE, SWEET ALICE (Prime, Roku Channel, Tubi)
Mixing elements of Don’t Look Now, The Bad Seed, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, 1976’s Alice, Sweet Alice remains one of the great underrated kiddie slashers of all time. When 12-year-old Karen (Brooke Shields in her film debut) is found murdered in a church shortly before her first communion, suspicion immediately falls to her older sister Alice (Paula Sheppard), despite no one being able to prove her guilt while in the meantime, more bodies begin to pile up. There’s something of a schlocky feel to Alice, Sweet Alice, which is appropriate given the film’s somewhat underground nature, that makes it compelling as all get out. While the idea of following around a maniacal little girl as she slaughters people as she hides behind an eternally creepy mask is fun, it’s the way that the movie weaves its terror with the element of religion that helps ground Alice, Sweet Alice, ultimately making it far more terrifying than one originally thought possible.
There are countless services to explore and great things to watch on all of them. Which ones did we miss that you would suggest to us? And, as always, if you’ve got thoughts on titles we’re missing out on or new services to check out, leave a comment below or email us.
Till next week, stream on, stream away.
