Scan barcode
A review by octavia_cade
Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing by Isabel Cristina Pinedo
informative
slow-paced
3.5
I like that this book puts the focus on female audiences of horror films: what's in it for them, basically, as if the thought of enjoying blood and screams and slasher films is somehow unfeminine. Given that I'm part of that audience type myself, it's interesting to be analysed in this way! And it's safe to say that feminist criticism of some horror films does have valid points. It's pretty well known by now that when comparing male and female deaths in horror films, for instance, the latter tend to be longer and more explicit and more sexualised.
Pinedo, however, argues that women enjoy horror films like these because of the subversive lens of that horror. Slasher films may emphasise women's deaths, for instance, but the phenomenon of the Final Girl prioritises women's rage and vengeance as an explicit survival tool, allowing for a cathartic expression of emotions that are frequently less welcome in daily life. It's all very interesting and well-argued and I do feel somewhat understood, which is nice. The final chapter is a little bit disconnected, though - it's a very readable account of race in horror films, but the focus on the audience drops off, and there's very little acknowledgement of intersectionality going on there. Race is treated as separate from feminism, as if the intersection between the two doesn't manifest in a number of complex ways, so it would have been nice to see a little more done with that, I think.
Pinedo, however, argues that women enjoy horror films like these because of the subversive lens of that horror. Slasher films may emphasise women's deaths, for instance, but the phenomenon of the Final Girl prioritises women's rage and vengeance as an explicit survival tool, allowing for a cathartic expression of emotions that are frequently less welcome in daily life. It's all very interesting and well-argued and I do feel somewhat understood, which is nice. The final chapter is a little bit disconnected, though - it's a very readable account of race in horror films, but the focus on the audience drops off, and there's very little acknowledgement of intersectionality going on there. Race is treated as separate from feminism, as if the intersection between the two doesn't manifest in a number of complex ways, so it would have been nice to see a little more done with that, I think.