Bloody Women: Women Directors of Horror is the first book-length exploration of female creators at the cutting edge of contemporary horror, turning out some of its most inspired and twisted offerings.

Bloody Women traces changing gender dynamics in the horror film industry to explore how women have played a crucial role in defining the genre of horror understood as a scholarly discipline, cultural institution, and site of pleasure. While acknowledging that women in the industry face ongoing challenges, this book focuses on their diverse contributions as creators, consumers, and critics of horror, showing how women have been essential in shaping the goals and methods of the genre. Aimed at both scholarly and general readers, the chapters bring together the expertise of filmmakers, festival programmers, and scholars to argue that women have effected a reimagining of horror. To this end, the volume considers a range of historical and theoretical issues relevant to gender and the genre of horror, broadly conceived. The collection explores, for example, female-directed horror films as a distinctive enterprise, one that is potentially marked by unique cinematic techniques and topical concerns. The book also moves into a more public domain, probing how the cultural experience of horror is transformed when the genre’s major festivals and conventions are developed and directed by women. Together, these essays offer a wide-ranging investigation into the stakes of women’s growing prominence in the horror industry. Most centrally, Bloody Women analyzes how the ethics, investments, and objectives of the genre shift when women deploy horror for their own enjoyment.

Introduction (Victoria McCollum and Aislinn Clarke)

1. Horror’s Founding Mothers: Women in Proto-cinema, Visual Avant-gardes and the Silent Era (Erica Tortolani)

2. Women’s Filmmaking and the Male-Centred Horror Film (Alexandra Heller-Nicholas)

3. Angela Bettis: Herstory in Horror (James Francis)

4. Stitches, Screams and Female Beauty: Canadian Women Horror Film (Shelby Shukaliak, Eve O’Dea and Ernest Mathijs)

SCREENPLAY - Trim by Mayumi Yoshida

5. ‘They’ve Got Something You Haven’t. A Cock’: Exploring the Gendered Experience of Women Directors of Horror in Britain (Amy Harris)

6. At Our Table: Conceptualising the Black Woman’s Horror Film Aesthetic (Ashlee Blackwell)

SCREENPLAY – Paralysis by R. Shanea Williams

7. Women in Horror Film Festivals: Representation, Dark Storytelling and an International Community of Filmmakers (Kate R. Robertson)

8. But Are You Really into Horror: Female-Centric Horror Film Festivals, Horror Curators and Industry Champions (Anna Bogutskaya)

9. Short Sharp Shocks: An Interview with Women Who Make Horror Shorts (Brian Hauser)

SCREENPLAY – Childer by Aislinn Clarke

10. His Canon, Herself: Teaching Horror as Feminist Cinema (Dan Vena, Iris Robinson, Patrick Woodstock)