Analysis of gender stereotypes in horror movies

In a standard horror movie, there are two generic stereotypes of a female persona. There is either the one end of the extreme, being the extremely slutty, girly girl. This type is the type that usually is killed during the course of the film, almost as if to say if you are a slut, you will not survive. Then, there is the other extreme, being the less feminine, more masculine approach to females. This type is the type who usually survive, possibly out of chance of being more intelligent than the other, sluttier class of girls.




















A good example of this is seen in Halloween (1978), wherein Laurie Strode is not as feminine as the other babysitters in the film, who are all very feminine and outgoing. These girls are the ones who eventually get killed off by Michael Myers. Meanwhile, Laurie is more sensible, as she doesn’t go out and have sex with guys, instead opting to babysit for Timmy, the child next door from her. Laurie does survive Michael’s bloody rampage, but only just makes thanks to an intervention from Dr Loomis. If it was not for Loomis turning up, Michael could have easily killed Laurie, seeing as how he had her in his hands.































One interesting exception to this rule comes from the last decade, from the film Hostel (2005). In this film, it is not women at the grasp of disaster, but young adults. The two females are actually the ones who entice the boys into the factory/torture house. In this way, they act sort of as pawns to the clients, as they bring in prey to the factory, however they are not underneath any sort of price to pay if they don’t do it: they merely do it for money.