The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis

In almost all critical writings on the horror film, woman is conceptualized only as victim. In The Monstrous-Feminine, Barbara Creed challenges the mythical patriarchal view that woman terrifies because she is castrated, by arguing that woman primarily terrifies because of a fear that she might castrate. With close reference to a number of classic horror films including Alien, The Brood, The Hunger, Carrie, The Exorcist, Sisters, I Spit on Your Grave and Psycho, she presents a sustained analysis of the seven faces of the monstrous-feminine from a feminist and psychoanalytic perspective, discussing woman as monster in relation to woman as archaic mother, monstrous womb, vampire, witch, possessed body, monstrous mother and castrator. Her argument disrupts Freudian and Lacanian theories of sexual difference, as well as existing theories of spectatorship and fetishism in relation to the male and female gaze in the cinema, to provide a challenging and provocative re-reading of classical and contemporary film and theoretical texts.