On the doorstep of its new edition Movie festival fantastic Sitges (starts on Thursday), critics and experts take part in the election vote top 10 movies female-led horror. A first look at the entire list reveals the following: Many films have been released in the last twenty years, and almost no films were released before 1980. Among the top 10, the oldest is from 1987 (and its author is Mary Lambert, will be in Sitges these days). This shows the power of women’s presence in a genre where female directors have been excluded for decades. Since 2021, the Sitges festival has been introducing Woman in Fan, a program of scholarships and special events aimed at bringing visibility to women working in the fantasy genre. This ranking prepared by votes Quim Casas, Desirée de Fez, Laura Fernández, Juan Manuel Freire, Julián García, Elena Hevia, Nando Salvà and Rafael Tapounetresponds to the same purpose.
This was the voting system
Each critic compiled a list. 10 movies in order of preference. And from each list, the first place was given 10 points, the second place 9 points, the third place 8 points, and so on until the 10th place received one point. The final list was prepared with the sum of the scores received from each film.
10.’Prevenge’ (Alice Lowe, 2016), with 15 points
A seven-months-pregnant woman turns into a serial killer according to the orders of the baby she carries inside her. Beneath its absurd exterior is also the plot of Alice Lowe’s debut behind the camera (who also wrote the script and plays the protagonist). forms the basis of a terrible and bloody comedy cuts mercilessly on all topics related to pregnancy and motherhood.
Full of social criticism and peppered with typically British black humour, it’s a tale of prenatal revenge that a man couldn’t have signed up for.
9.’Jennifer’s body’ (Karyn Kusama, 2009), 16 points
Most critics did not know how to see beyond their own views. horror comedy surface A teenager with a beautiful cheerleader who was turned (literally) into a man-eater by an evil force.
But the film, directed by Kusama with Diablo Cody’s masterful screenplay, is full of visual exploration and accurate in its sharp narrative. critical notes That seeing it as simple, silly fun (like the indie band willing to sacrifice a virgin to achieve success) seems a sign of myopia or laziness.
8.’American Psycho’ (Mary Harron, 2000), with 17 points
How a woman tasked with bringing Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial ‘bestselling’ book to the cinema could become a Wall Street ‘broker’ so obsessed with her own image? as in the use of excessive violence He brought a new vision to the story that allowed the protagonist’s narcissism, misogyny, and mediocrity to be exposed without ever falling into glorification or misunderstanding.
Harron deftly combines black comedy and traditional portraiture. social satire and horror pto write a devastating critique of a society fascinated by appearance and ostentation.
7.’Living Cemetery’ (Mary Lambert, 1989), with 21 points
While adapting Stephen King is a risky endeavor that exposes you to the wrath of the Maine author’s fans no matter what (even Kubrick wasn’t spared), Mary Lambert dared to make one of these daring moves: the scariest novels emerged with the author’s and reasonable triumph.
He was aided in this endeavor by his intimate knowledge of King’s work, a remarkable ability to recreate the bleak and decadent atmosphere surrounding the entire story, and a good eye for choosing his cast (Fred Gwynne!) and his songs. “The Ramones. The film’s success encouraged Lambert to direct an even wilder second installment.
6. ‘The Invitation’ (Karyn Kusama, 2015), with 26 points
The reunion of old friends, reunited after a long-ago personal tragedy, leads to a feast of fear and paranoia. In front of some players in grace (John Carroll Lynch’s composition is chilling), Kusama cleverly tackles the ingredients of a very dark thriller that simmers before the audience’s growing uneasiness and explodes in a final twist that expands the domestic madness we’ve just witnessed into an entire society sick with narcissism.
Won the best award Film in Sitges-2015.
5. ‘A girl comes home alone at night’ (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014), with 32 points
A tale of equal parts ‘love fou’ and feminist advocacy, the “first Iranian vampire spaghetti western” – which is how the film was advertised – was filmed in 2013. California and is much closer in aesthetics and intent to Jim Jarmusch’s films Than Sergio Leone’s.
In a ghost town seemingly out of nowhere, a troubled man is intercepted by a sheet-wearing vampire (hypnotic Sheila Vand) with a passion for skateboarding and electro-pop. James Dean, an Iranian whose father was a heroin addict a dying drug dealer who is misogynistic and abusive. There will be blood (very contrasting black and white, yes).
4.’Babadook’ (Jennifer Kent, 2014), with 38 points
Applauded by William Friedkin himself, Jennifer Kent’s debut film offers a clever take on the trope of the monster lurking inside. By making a mother’s unresolved traumas into the closet Marked by his father’s death, the son turns into a malevolent entity that turns their lives into a nightmare.
The Australian filmmaker dares to deactivate the tension with masterful staging that is extremely effective in creating tension in confined spaces. idealization of ancestors what cinema does to present motherhood as a source of neurosis and terror.
3. ‘Raw’ (Julia Ducournau, 2016), with 47 points
In essence, Ducournau’s first long-form book is about a young woman leaving the nest for the first time. The limits of your new freedom to abandon virtue and embrace one’s most primitive instincts. The girl’s name is Justine, in case any further clues were needed about her sadyan nature.
In this case, the virtue that the hero puts aside is strict vegetarianism and directing one’s instincts is anthropophagyThis transforms the disturbing psychological drama of a university environment into a cannibal genocide.
2. ‘There’s trouble every day’ (Claire Denis, 2001), with 49 points
Sex, cannibalism and ‘mad doctors’. The film by Claire Denis, who was considered one of the pillars of the movement later called ‘new French extremism’, attracts attention. Name of a song by Frank Zappa suggesting a visceral exploration of the horror (metaphorically but also literally) that lurks behind uncontrollable impulses.
Vincent Gallo and Béatrice Dalle play two beings plagued by a disease that condemns them to eat their fellow human beings. Parisian director revives the spiral Icy, sensual, dark and (self-)destructive with a brutally explicit outlook.
1. ‘Night Walkers’ (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987), with 60 points
Boy meets girl and girl introduces him to her family. dysfunctional adjective It falls a little short.
In her second feature film as a director (her first as a solo director), Bigelow infuses a vampire plot into a Western atmosphere with great style. A contemporary and ultimately romantic filmViolent, funny, poetic and sexy, it’s generous with highly charismatic characters (special mention to those played by Lance Henriksen and the over-the-top Bill Paxton) and blessed with spectacular special effects and a catchy score from Tangerine Dream.