Squeamish Bikini
  • Home
  • Squeamish Features
  • Squeamish Reviews
  • Squeamish News
  • Squeamish Contact
  • About Squeamish

Horror is for Heroines

31/10/2011

2 Comments

 
Picture
He's behind you...
She’s a scream! My Halloween horror film heroines 

Happy Halloween everybody! I hope you’ve had the chance to dress up this Halloween, it’s always fun to wear a Freddy Kruger Jumper, a Scream mask or even a William Shatner mask painted white. Yes Michael Myers galore but not one person dressed up as the girl who outsmarts him. How many Laurie Strodes do you see? None. The Halloween (1978) character played by ‘Scream Queen’ Jamie Lee Curtis is known as the leading lady of this genre but I want to introduce you to some other horror heroines. Ok, they aren’t the greatest fancy dress options but you can watch them take on the forces of evil instead!

Diane Freeling - Poltergeist (1982)

Suburban mother of three Diane Freeling, has a husband in the property business, a half-finished pool in the garden and a friggin’ poltergeist in the house! By the end of the film she also has a glamorous pair of grey streaks in the side of her brown hair indicating that it’s stressful living in the most haunted house in America.

It starts off all fun and games with kitchen chairs moving on their own but before you know it she’s got child-abducting spirits to contend with. That’s when this mother gets a little upset… then just really, really mad. It is due to her maternal instincts, which verge on the supernatural in this film, that she manages claw her and her cute kiddies out of a home riddled with supernatural squatters. My favourite horror scene of all time involves her and a whole pile of mud. This is a fact.

Suzy Bannion - Suspiria (1977)

Suzy Bannion may be slight, pale, prone to fainting and have a tendency to whisper but she could kick the ass of fellow American ballet dancer Nina Sayers, yeah Natalie Portman I mean you. Let’s get it straight - this is no soft-core lesbian lame ass caricature filled ‘fuck-the-plot-it’s-trippy’ballet horror film. Yes, I know the girls are bratty but they are living and dying in the boarding school from hell.

On a dark and stormy night a soggy Suzy arrives at the German dance school and you really couldn’t meet a bigger wet blanket. She can’t get on, she lets the other girls be mean to her, she is ill ALL the time. Come on Suzy stop being so lame, the place is weird, find out what’s going on! Well after a few murders, a lot of maggots and a feeling she may not live to see the sunrise, our wispy waif decides it’s do or die time and she bloody well does! Do that is.

Sally Hardesty - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

If they’re good horror films should make you scream. If they are great they make you sit there in dumbfounded terror, jaw dropped and eyes wide open behind your fingers. I can hear her screaming now. She opens her mouth and she starts and she doesn’t stop. That’s what happens when a man is chasing you wearing a mask made out of human flesh manically waving a chainsaw; the whizzing chain inches away from the ends of your long blonde hair.

Watch as she flees, she’s fuelled by adrenalin and fear, you can’t get killed if you don’t get caught Sally!  The incessant chase, the buzz of the saw and her animal-led-to-slaughter-cries around the dinner table make her my enduring Horror Heroine. She freaked me out so much I suppressed the memory of her until I was half way through writing this list!

Helen Lyle - Candyman (1992)  

Helen Lyle is the most accomplished Horror Heroine. She is a woman who does it all. Helen is an academic with an Urban Legend thesis to write and she isn’t going to let a scary crime ridden estate, her sleazy lecturer husband or a dead ex boyfriend from a past life get in her way! She wants to interview people and talk about murders and ghost stories and go into dark rooms with a camera, alone. Good idea? We’ll see…

She was really focused on research until the mythical character with a hook for a hand and bees in his dead sticky chest started to pop up in car parks and the like. It’s hard to stay focused when you’re getting harassed by Candyman or let down by your husband but Helen will not be a victim of her scary, gory or marriagey circumstances. No, Helen takes a good look in the mirror and says a motivational/ghost calling mantra and then gives these men and myself nightmares forever more.


Squeamish Nicola
2 Comments
Squeamish Kate link
31/10/2011 02:37:27 am

I am glad you trawled through all these films and not me, I can't take horror! But now I feel I will finally be allowed to join in the conversation, sort of, after reading this!

Reply
Squeamish Nicola
31/10/2011 09:18:44 am

No trawling necessary! I have them permanently imprinted on my mind! Though I did miss out Julia for Hellraiser - adulteress, murderess and stepmother from hell. She's a great character!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All
    Books
    Booze
    Cinematic
    Dress Up
    Educating Sue
    Educating Sue
    Friday 5
    Friday 5
    Geekery
    Gender Agender
    Gender Agender
    Glitter And Twisted
    Glitter And Twisted
    History Repeating
    History Repeating
    How To
    Just A Thought
    Just A Thought
    Let's Get Political
    Let's Get Political
    Music
    Nom Nom Nom
    Nostalgia
    Tellybox
    Why You Should Love

    RSS Feed


Squeamish Bikini

About
Contact us
Write for us

Newsletter

Picture
     Copyright © 2013