In recent years, a new wave of female horror directors has taken the genre by storm. From The Invitation's Karyn Kusama to Candyman's Nia DaCosta to The Love Witch's Anna Biller, these women are putting the industry to task for decades of problematic portrayals in horror.
As it goes with all other cinematic ventures, horror is historically male-dominated. However, women directors were contributing vital features to the genre long before this much-needed reckoning, even though they rarely received as much praise as their male counterparts. These female-helmed classics, whether they were mainstream hits or cult flicks, do point toward another enduring issue in Hollywood: the lack of racial representation, especially for Black women.
Pet Sematary (1989)
One of the seminal Stephen King adaptations, Pet Sematary was helmed by Mary Lambert. This well-made horror movie about a cursed pet burial ground that changes one family's life irrevocably ended up being a box office success.
Lambert, who started with music videos, went on to direct 1992's Pet Sematary Two. She's also known for her work on the Tales From the Crypt TV series and for directing Urban Legends: Bloody Mary.
Near Dark (1987)
Fans of horror films may not know the theatrically successful cult classic Near Dark was directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow. This stylized neo-Western vampire flick stars the likes of Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen.
Paxton and Henriksen play members of a nomadic blood-sucking tribe who roam America in search of human-sized meals. Bigelow, of course, went on to helm films like Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker, and Detroit.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)
While Joss Whedon famously penned the script for film that inspired the popular Buffy TV series, the movie was actually directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui. Kristy Swanson plays the high school vamp killer Buffy Summers in the film, who juggles tests, supernatural evils, and romance.
Kuzui, who discovered Whedon's screenplay and helped him develop it into a viable film, also served as executive producer on the TV show. She is also involved with the forthcoming Buffy the Vampire Slayer revival.
Blood Diner (1987)
Jackie Kong is a campy horror-comedy director virtually no one knows about, but perhaps she would be a common name among film buffs if she were a man. Kong released one cult film after another in the 1980s, but Blood Diner is her standout feature.
In the movie, two murderous brothers open up a restaurant within whose walls they torture and slaughter women. Kong's other genre fare includes the creature feature The Being and the cop comedy Night Patrol.
Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
Despite its misogynistic slasher movie trappings, Slumber Party Massacre is literally as feminist as horror gets. Not only was this horror satire about a group of high school girls taunted by a dry-yielding murdered directed by a woman named Amy Holden Jones, but its screenplay was written by LGBTQ+ mystery novelist Rita Mae Brown.
Slumber Party Massacre's perfect combo of farce and bloodshed made it an instant classic, and it launched a franchise. Jones never returned to direct any subsequent titles, but she did helm three additional feature films in the '90s.
The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
The Hitch-Hiker is considered the first film noir ever directed by a woman. Who helmed this dark, gritty feature? None other than Hollywood Golden Age actor Ida Lupino, whose groundbreaking career rarely gets the attention it deserves.
Lupino established herself as a starlet before transitioning into filmmaking herself, even refusing behind-the-scene credits if it meant having an opportunity to learn about the craft. The Hitch-Hiker is a tense thriller based on the life of spree killer Billy Cook, one testifying to Lupino's inherent talent for cinematic storytelling.
Blood Bath (1966)
Stephanie Rothman collaborated with fellow director Jack Hill in the '60s and '70s on the exploitation flick Blood Bath, the consummate avant-garde Beatnik movie. In Blood Bath, a strange painter who transforms into a vampire-like monster at night comes to believe his deceased lover has been reincarnated in the body of a ballerina.
Rothman went on to direct, write, or produce nearly a dozen other films, including 1971's subversive The Velvet Vampire, which centers around a married couple who become part of a bizarre love triangle with a seductive female vampire.
Humanoids From The Deep (1980)
The cult classic Humanoids From the Deep doesn't hold back from depicting gore, violence, and B-movie extremity. A seaside California town is besieged by horrific ocean monsters that want to mate with women and tear men apart in the film, which has developed quite the reputation for carnage.
This grungy gross-out feature produced by Roger Corman was originally and solely directed by a woman after male directors turned the job down: Barbara Peeters. And Humanoids is considered a controversial movie as Peeters has since distanced herself from the movie because Corman went behind her back and spliced in more salacious and misogynistic material; he hired a male director to film that material. Peeters and the actors had no idea until they saw the movie later. Later, Peeters worked alongside the likes of Stephanie Rothman on other exploitation films, eventually transitioning into TV with shows like Remington Steele and Falcon Crest.
Eve's Bayoue (1997)
Eve's Bayou signaled the greatness to come from actor Jurnee Smollett, who is known famous for her work on HBO Lovecraft Country. This 1997 Southern horror movie also affirms the skills of its director: Kasi Lemmons.
Lemmons began her career acting in films like Vampire's Kiss, Silence of the Lambs, and Candyman before she became a filmmaker. Eve's Bayou, which also stars Samuel L. Jackson, is set in the humid, voodoo-filled Louisiana swamps circa 1962; it tells the story of a Black family redefined by secrets, lies, and magic.
American Psycho (2000)
Christian Bale's performance as serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho is one of the most deranged in all of moviemaking history. This adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's infamous novel about an '80s Wall Street broker moonlighting as a murderer was brilliantly directed by Mary Harron.
While American Psycho contains some uncomfortable scenes that include violence against women, Harron does a good job of balancing the brutality out by injecting plenty of social commentary into the film. Bateman represents the white male American dream taken to its most severe extremes, and Harron never loses focus on this.