Scream With Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (1968-1980)
by Eleanor Johnson
Huge thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for sending me an
advanced copy of Eleanor Johnson’s excellent and timely new book Scream With Me: Horror Films and the Rise of American Feminism (1968-1980). I was so
excited to receive a copy for review because I love horror movies and examining
how they reflect and critique issues in society. Furthermore, to learn that Dr.
Johnson was going to analyze how our post-Dobbs world reflects the horrors of
women in classic horror films like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The
Stepford Wives, Alien, The Omen, and The Shining was intriguing to
me. This book did not let me down either. In fact, Dr. Johnson’s analysis of
these films and contextualizing them within the fight for women’s rights and
equality helps to identify the ways in which we are gradually (or maybe not so
gradually) regressing in the fight for women’s rights. If anything, Dr. Johnson
provides a unique and timely examination of these films that feels fresh and
necessary. It allowed me to reexamine these films that were a staple of my
earliest experiences with horror and pointed to new directions in horror films
with some analysis of more recent films.
Johnson provides some context for the book in her
introduction where she explains that she was teaching Rosemary’s Baby in
2022, around the time of the Dobbs decision. Her lecture led to further
questions about horror films in the 1970s, asking whether Rosemary’s Baby
was “the only horror film so clearly tied to the battle for women’s
reproductive rights in the 1960s or 1970s?” She then identified six films that shared
“a gut-twisting awareness of women’s vulnerability to physical, reproductive,
and psychological torture in their own homes,” which Johnson identifies
as “Domestic Horror”, a kind of sub-genre that typically restricts its action
to a confined place, has a male antagonist, inflicts horror on the female protagonist,
with specific emphasis on her children, reproduction, or sex, and includes an
element of physical violence. What I found particularly fascinating about
Johnson’s analysis was her emphasis on connecting these films to elements of
social and/or legal issues related to women’s rights in America at the time of
their filming. Each film that she analyzes has a connection to issues like Roe
vs. Wade, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA- which was fascinating to learn
more about), and the various laws that eventually restricted physical and sexual
violence against spouses. In the past, husbands were allowed to beat their
wives and children, and rape by a husband was not recognized as a crime. Johnson
provides the historical background of these legal and social developments to further
her argument that these films either explicitly or implicitly addressed these
various issues related to women’s rights. While I appreciated her analysis of
the films, often taking a descriptive and analytical look at the film’s key
action, I felt like I learned more from her ability to connect the historical
context of the films to these social and legal issues. The latter half of each
of these chapters on the films examined the historical context. For example,
the first chapter focusing on Rosemary’s Baby identifies how the support
for reproductive rights was shifting at that time, especially in New York,
where newspapers like the New York Times ran articles that promoted the
idea that women should have more “control over whether to carry a pregnancy to
term.” Although Johnson indicates that this film helped to provide more of a
discussion about reproductive rights and women’s choices in their health, she
also noted that there was a growing sentiment about advocating for more choices
for women that resulted from grassroots campaigns, protests, and support from
medical organizations. What I found particularly interesting about this analysis
was how Johnson shifts the focus from the kind of campy horror of Satanism to
the coercive control that Guy and the Castavets exert on Rosemary. It’s been a while
since I’ve seen this film, but I remember thinking that the film wasn’t that
scary. However, in thinking about the drugging scene and the gaslighting that
Rosemary experiences, as well as the restrictions from seeing her friends and
her doctor, it becomes clear that this is a different kind of horror film—one that
Johnson rightly categorizes as a kind of domestic horror, where wives are subject
to the control of their husbands and they lose autonomy and decision-making
about their bodies and health. It’s not something that the 12 year-old me would
have thought too much about when I initially encountered this film, but Johnson’s
analysis and historical research provides a compelling and timely reading of
this film.
I also appreciated her reading of The Exorcist, one
of my favorite films of all time. Johnson reads this film as a domestic abuse
film, and although some recent books have elaborated on the physical abuse that
stars Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn experienced, I hadn’t thought about the
abuse that both female characters experienced. Some analyses of the film
explain that this is a film about changing norms in society, and Johnson
examines that element of The Exorcist, but also notes that Chris and
Regan are punished because Chris is an independent woman who challenges the
traditional roles of mother and wife as a single working professional. I’ve always
loved the Catholic angle of the film, and because I attended Catholic school, I
always thought that exorcisms and demons were the fun part of the religion that
was left out of our theology class. Regardless, I can see how Johnson’s
analysis works in that The Exorcist is both a feminist film and an
anti-feminist film since we witness the extreme abuse that Chris and Regan
experience. As Johnson notes, it’s men and the traditions of the Catholic
church, the same church that excludes women from leadership roles, that can
only save Regan from the demons that torture her when medicine and psychiatry
fail to find any kind of physical or mental issues with her. The battle of good
and evil always resonated with me, and I always appreciated Father Karras’s conflicts,
doubts and sacrifices. However, Johnson’s analysis is incredibly interesting in
framing the film more about Chris’s punishment for defying traditional roles
for women. Johnson’s analysis of Chris’s meeting with Father Karras, describing
her dress and actions as that of an abused woman, helped to highlight the kind
of domestic horror that she faced in this film. In a later chapter, Johnson calls
out the director William Friedkin for the danger and pain he inflicted on the female
stars of the films (along with calling out other directors like Roman Polanski
and Stanley Kubrick). As Johnson notes, Burstyn experienced a severe back injury
and the screams we hear on the film are real. Blair, who was 11 or 12 at the
time of filming, also experienced lasting spinal injuries because of the harnesses
used in the film. One other aspect of Friedkin’s production was his initial lack
of acknowledgement of Merecedes McCambridge, who provided the voice of the
demon Pazuzu, and Eileen Dietz, who served as Linda Blair’s stunt double for
many of the scenes in the film. While I had read about the omission of
McCambridge, Nat Segaloff’s great book The Exorcist Legacy provides some
additional background about the lawsuit that McCambridge initiated that
eventually led to her compensation and credit for the film. What was more
surprising (and abusive) was that McCambridge was encouraged to chain smoke and
consume raw eggs to achieve the demonic sounding voice that is so terrifying in
the film. What I found even more troubling was that it seemed like Friedkin
encouraged McCambridge, an alcoholic, to continue drinking to achieve the
gravelly sounding voice despite achieving sobriety prior to the film.
Similarly, Eileen Dietz was not initially credited with some of the stunts in
the film. Mark Kermode in his BFI Film Classics book about The Exorcist
notes that Friedkin wanted to make it seem like Blair was acting in every scene
and also led to Dietz not being recognized as a credited performer in the film,
although Friedkin and Warner Brothers seemingly minimized her contributions by
measuring them to be under 30 seconds of film time. Regardless, I think these
were other instances of Friedkin’s limitations of women’s contributions to his
films.
I won’t get into too many of the other reviews, but I
thought that the chapter on The Omen was fascinating in presenting the
idea of benign patriarchy. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen The Omen,
but I didn’t realize some of the elements of the story and how horrible Robert
Thorn was to his wife. As Johnson notes, this film offers a “subtle but trenchant”
examination of domestic horror. Likewise, her chapter on Alien and the
reproductive violence in that film was interesting to take. I remember begging
my parents to let me watch Alien when I was like 5 or 6, and it’s
probably a good idea that I didn’t watch it then. I first watched Aliens,
which is more of an action sci-fi movie with a strong female protagonist.
Johnson notes how powerful Ripley is not only for her survival skills, but also
her knowledge. She represents a change in female protagonists in the book.
Nevertheless, Johnson identifies some of the ways in which embryos have more
rights than hosts, and by impregnating men in the film, helps to show some of
the horrors of forced births and reproductive control. I also appreciated her
analysis of the ERA and how it connected to this film. It’s still somewhat
surprising to learn that something like the ERA, which would codify women’s
equal rights, is controversial and never was ratified despite initial indication
that it was well supported. As Johnson explores, some of the concerns regarding
women in combat may have contributed to limiting support for the amendment.
Johnson contrasts these questions with the character of Ripley, noting how some
battles are not always won with strength and might. I really appreciated this
chapter, especially as I’m watching the new series Alien: Earth that
deals with questions regarding technology, humanity, and corporate control. While
not explicitly feminist, the show critique the kind of patriarchal control in
tech, where a tech mogul’s designs on creating cyborg children may suggest that
reproduction will become manufactured with little need for humans. If anything,
the show has raised issues around body autonomy that Johnson identifies as a
staple of these domestic horror films. I also really appreciated Johnson’s
chapter on The Shining, another film I encountered probably too early in
my horror watching, but have always loved for its eerie design and iconic
shots. Rather than presenting the film as a supernatural story or psychic horror,
Johnson examines The Shining from a domestic horror standpoint,
examining the film primarily through Wendy’s experiences and terror. It’s
through this analysis that we see how Jack displays typical abuser attributes
and how his behaviors once in the Outlook Hotel further present him as an
abusive husband who wants to torture and humiliate his wife and child. Furthermore,
Jack’s encounter with Grady, the previous caretaker who also murdered his own
family, presents the idea that this kind of family violence is systemic and
something that is passed down. We also somewhat see this in King’s sequel to The
Shining, Doctor Sleep, where a grown Dan Torrance comes to grips
with his own addictions after confronting a neglected child. Although Johnson notes
that Doctor Sleep, the book and the movie, don’t have the same level of
domestic horror that The Shining exhibits, I think that Dan Torrance in Doctor
Sleep has tried to escape his dad’s influence and break the cycle of abuse.
Regardless, Johnson’s analysis of The Shining, noting the kind of abuse
that Shelly Duval experienced at the hands of both Kubrick and critics,
presents an important examination of the film and provides a new context for
understanding how normalized violence towards spouses was at the time.
The last two chapters examine two different elements of domestic
horror. One chapter, as I mentioned, is dedicated to recognizing that sometimes
horrible people create great art. The other chapter notes some more recent
horror films that take a feminist approach to domestic horror. I was so excited
to read this chapter since it examines two more recent films that really
intrigued me: The First Omen and Creep. I haven’t read too much
about The First Omen, but I was blown away by this film. Johnson’s analysis
helped me better understand the film, especially since I didn’t rewatch The Omen
before watching this film. Johnson also analyzes Immaculate, another
religious horror film about forced births in a post-Dobbs era. I was really
surprised to find Creep in Chapter 7. I haven’t seen Creep 2, but
after reading this book, it is on my “to watch” list. Johnson presents Creep
as a kind of domestic horror by examining Aaron’s victimization by Josef.
Johnson notes similarities between Creep and other films, but also
acknowledges that had Aaron been a woman, we would react differently to the
decisions to meet a stranger for money with a promise to film with discretion.
Furthermore, the decision to show Aaron’s perspective on filming leads to a
unique take on the experience as Josef gradually violates typical boundaries
with his brazen and bizarre behavior. Creep definitely unsettled me,
largely because of Duplass’s weird performance, but also because of Aaron’s
continual acceptance of Josef’s grooming. Seeing this as the kind of domestic
horror that Johnson examines was interesting and provided a new perspective on
the film.
Scream With Me is an amazing book for any horror fan.
I can see this book being used for a course on films or as a way to apply
feminist theory to examine art, whether it’s film or more traditional texts
like books. Johnson provides a way to examine horror films as a kind of mirror
to society, to critique the lack of progress in women’s rights. This is not
only a great read, but it is an important and timely book that I highly
recommend.
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