4 Women-Centered Horror Movies That’ll Make You Say ‘Good For Her’

I love horror. I especially love horror that makes me say, “good for her”. So naturally, I am always seeking out horror movies that feature a strong woman as the lead and I tend to gravitate towards horror movies that tell the truly haunting stories of actually being a woman.

There’s something to be said for a camp slasher but at the root of those films, women are suppressed for being sexual, too chatty, or just viewed as a bargaining piece for survival. If you’re tired of horror movies that exploit women and you’re looking for ones that will horrify you but also make you slow clap, then this list is for you. Here are 4 women-centered horror movies you may not have heard of yet.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014)

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is known as an “Iranian Vampire Western” and it is not at all your typical horror movie. The film is shot in black and white and has very little dialogue at all, but it is still incredibly romantic and terrifying at the same time. In the film, our protagonist is a chador-clad, skateboard riding vampire who preys on abusive men in an Iranian “Sin City”. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night serves to provide a peek at how typical becomes atypical in a gender politics sense, considering she is walking home alone at night but instead of being the one who is preyed on by gender-violent men, she is preying on the men who would prey on her.

The Girl in the film is our protagonist but teeters on the line of antagonist as she is doing terrible things and committing crimes, but her reasoning for doing bad things is to find justice and flip patriarchal views on its side. This film is also intersectional because it does sway into not just gender politics, but religious politics and cultural because of where it takes place. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is a must-see for women-centered horror and it is available to rent or buy on Amazon Video.

Swallow (2019)

The horrors of womanhood have always been explored on screen, it’s just that typically horror movies are mirrors, so we only see what we are seeking or what we need to see. So one person’s feminist horror dream is another’s “What the hell did I just watch?” Swallow has been both of those things for many people.

This film is about a young housewife who feels the constant pressure from her husband, family, and friends to be prim and proper 24/7. She feels she cant be anything other than perfect and pleasant or she is failing as a woman. When she gets pregnant, she loses control and tries to find that sense of control again through pica, an eating disorder categorized by eating inedible objects. It’s pica that gives her the opportunity to fight back and rebel against everyone else having a say over her own body. Others viewed it as a mental disorder, but for the housewife, it was the only say she had in what her body does. Swallow is available to rent or buy on Amazon Video. 

Raw (2016)

Girlhood to adulthood can be incredibly violent, even if you’re not the main character in a horror movie. There are so many expectations and changes that we go through and it’s nearly impossible to navigate and come out unscathed. Raw takes a look at that violent change and makes it into a film that is actually violent, messy, and paints a picture of how hard it is to fit in.

Raw is about a young vegetarian who is forced to eat raw meat as part of a hazing ritual in her veterinary school. After consuming the raw meat, she begins to have increasingly strange appetites, like for flesh. She feels her body change and her once virgin thoughts an body become enamored with the thought of sex and violence. She is changing and all of the strange things that she does cannot be hidden, which is a good reminder that typically young girls are made to be perfect, prim and proper, and not display any “weird” habits. In this film, she literally cannot control her “weird” habits and she starts to blossom into an entirely different woman. There is so much happening in this movie, but it is not lost on me that all of the stereotypes and judgements placed on women are themes within this film. Raw is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.

We Are What We Are (2013)

We Are What We Are explores family tradition and a restrictive patriarchy and how scary that can be. In the film, The Parker family loses the matriarch, which causes the two daughters to step up, take care of the family, and follow their father’s strict rules around family tradition and religion. His views include eating human flesh, and he argues that it is God’s will that he and his family have to consume human flesh in order to be right with the almighty God.

After the daughters are forced to take over the killing in order to feed their family, they realize it’s not right and doesn’t feel as their father described. Now it’s up to the two daughters to leave the cultish hellscape that their patriarch has enmeshed them in. We Are What We Are is the story of women coming together to remove themselves from the snares of the sinister patriarchy. We Are What We Are is streaming on Tubi.