No More Chainsaws: Feminist Criticism and the New Wave of Women's Horror Cinema

“Welcome to the Golden Age of Women-Directed Horror.” Over the last fifteen years, there has been a sustained global influx of women artists working in mainstream and independent horror cinemas earning notable public and industry acclaim. As a result, now, for the first time in horror history, there is also a concentrated corpus of films that explicitly address topics of identity, sexuality, trauma, and monstrosity from women’s perspectives. No More Chainsaws offers an in-depth analysis of some of the earliest and underrated releases within this New Wave of women’s horror cinema: Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight (2008), Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body (2009), Jennifer and Sylvia Soska’s American Mary (2012), and Kimberly Peirce’s Carrie (2013). No More Chainsaws articulates the ways in which these contemporary films attempt to liberate horror from an overdetermining gendered lexicon of violence and terror.