Introduction Virginia’s Unruly Daughters and Carrie’s Crimson Sisters

Abstract

Virginia Woolf’s Orlando is the entrance point to questions of gender difference and creativity and introduces the theme of the horror genre in the hand of female directors. The book is situated theoretically as an update of Barbara Creed’s monstrous femininity and Carol Clover’s Men, Women and Chainsaws. It argues that the growing number of women appropriating the language of the horror genre, give expression to deep feelings of related to extreme physical experiences such as (gendered and racial) violence and abuse, bodily transformations and pregnancy, as well as socio-political relations. Rather than “going for the scare” women directors tens to address their inner demons and claim agency to resist different forms of trauma and injustice.