Can Women Be Serial Killers in Horror?

by Jennifer G.
(Richmond, IL)

While taking a screenwriting class in college, we were assigned the task of writing a short film. Having already been a huge horror fan, I wrote a short screenplay in which the protagonist, a female serial killer, would lure her victims - plumbers, the mailman, neighbors -into the basement and ax them.

I handed it in and didn’t receive a grade for it, but a message from the teacher written in red ink- “Women can’t be serial killers!!!” Four years later, the movie Monster was out in theaters to great reviews, it even won an Oscar.

Whether Monster can be called a horror film is up for debate. Based on a true story, it tells the tale of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute turned serial killer in the late eighties, early nineties. The film is labeled under biography and drama according to film classifications. It is not described as a horror film but rather a tragedy of circumstance, abuse, and consequences.

Monster may have been one of the first popular movies to portray a female serial killer, but it is certainly not a testament to the history of the female serial killer in America. We’ve all heard of Lizzie Borden and her infamous act, (the Lizzie Borden house in Massachusetts is now actually a lovely little bed and breakfast where one can stay for the night or two....) but she is just one of the
many reported female serial killers in America. The first recorded female serial killer of the twentieth century was named Belle Gunness a.k.a. Lady Bluebeard who, on her sprawling farm in Indiana, systematically killed her spouses, lovers, friends, and children she had adopted through the state. Since then, Belle has been categorized as a “black widow,” a woman who develops personal relationships with her victims before murdering them. The list goes on, poisoning being the most popular murder method among female serial killers and shooting coming in at a close second.

What about the female serial killer in film? Does she exist? Or, are we just not quite ready for that brand of horror? Take for instance the film, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte starring Bette Davis. It is never really said whether she killed her lover or not, but we as an audience all know what happened - blood on her hands and dress after a spat with her lover? Good thing her family was rich. And after that murder, Charlotte becomes a rich spinster recluse. Can you imagine what the film would’ve been like if she had just kept going?

Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte as well as another famous film called Basic Instinct are labeled under thriller, or mystery thriller, nowhere near the gory implications of horror. And they’re not that gory. After all, we never really see Sharon Stone enact her vengeance against unwitting men. The murders just kind of happen. In the film Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer, the viewer never really sees Henry committing the act of murdering someone but a couple of times. With the rest of the murders, the audience is left to wonder. This movie, by the way, is labeled under horror.

There is one very popular horror film with a female serial killer. Remember Jason from Friday the 13th? He wasn’t the original knife and ax wielding murderer. It was good old Mom, taking revenge against the camp counselors whose predecessors let Jason drown in the lake while they were busy with other things. Good thing Mom was replaced with Jason. After all, he is much scarier than his crazy screeching mother. She just got kind of annoying after awhile. And without Jason, there would’ve been no
Freddy vs. Jason. And I’ll take that movie over a female serial killer any day.

**Editor’s note: Haute Tension comes to mind as another horror movie with a female serial killer. It is interesting to note, however, that this is not communicated until the very end as a dramatic twist very much as Pamela Voorhees was revealed to be the killer in Friday the 13th. The same type of thing happened in Urban Legend. Are we just not ready for female serial killers in our horror? What do you think?