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These ferocious females don't get the attention they deserved in their horror movies.
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00:00When it comes to female horror villains, it's always the same icons that come up in discussion.
00:05Annie Wilkes from Misery, Samara Morgan from The Ring, Pamela Voorhees from Friday the 13th,
00:11and even the Xenomorph Queen from Aliens.
00:13There have been plenty of fantastic female antagonists from across horror history,
00:18but some are not nearly praised as frequently as they should be.
00:22Some of these are monsters, but there's definitely more to them than snarling teeth and insatiable bloodlust.
00:28So let's take a look at them.
00:30I'm Adam, this is WhatCultureHorror, and here are 10 most underrated female horror movie monsters in history.
00:3610. Carmela, The Vampire Lovers
00:39A full 25 years before Dracula came out and made vampire fiction what it is today,
00:44there was Carmela, a story about a female vampire who pursues female victims.
00:49In 1970, Carmela finally got the big screen treatment in The Vampire Lovers.
00:54The lead character, played by Ingrid Pitt, is the daughter of a countess who also goes by the name
00:59Marcella, and pursues several women, including the niece of a local baron.
01:04As she operates under the veil of ignorance afforded to women at the time, the townsfolk
01:08slowly realize that there is a monster in their midst, and resolve to destroy it once and for all.
01:14As a film, The Vampire Lovers isn't the best offering from Hammer, even at this late stage,
01:19but Carmela herself is a wonderful villain who breaks all the social norms of the time.
01:24The queer dynamics of the film make it fascinating to watch back all these years later,
01:29while Carmela's campy mannerisms wouldn't look out of place in a modern cult classic.
01:339. Alucada, Alucada
01:36Alucada, played by Tina Romero in the 1977 Mexican film of the same name, is a young girl who was
01:43raised by a group of nuns following the death of her mother. One day, a new girl, Justine,
01:48arrives at the convent, and Alucada takes an immediate shine to her. The two do everything
01:53together. They braid each other's hair, they gossip about boys, they perform satanic blood
01:58rituals. Wait, what was that last one? While exploring an old crypt near the nunnery, Alucada
02:04and Justine end up possessed by a powerful demon, which convinces them to shun their catholic
02:09ways and worship the devil instead. The nuns obviously don't take kindly to this attitude,
02:15so Alucada does what any good satanist would and destroys the convent in brutal fashion.
02:21Though the film is not as popular as it should be, it does have its famous fans. Guillermo del
02:27Toro has spoken about his love for it, and there are traces of this picture all across his own
02:31body of work. Number 8, The Pale Lady, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Based on three
02:37collections of short stories originally published by Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories to Tell in the
02:42Dark from 2019 follows a group of teenagers as their lives are turned upside down when they
02:48discover an enchanted book. Written by a suspected witch, the book mysteriously begins to display
02:53new stories, based on the darkest fears of the unsuspecting teens. One character, Chuck,
02:58ends up as the main character of one of the new tales, and unfortunately for him, it does not end
03:04with the words happily ever after. Poor Chuck finds himself running around a creepy hotel,
03:08where he comes face to face with a creature from his own nightmares. This is the Pale Lady,
03:14a horribly bloated and disfigured creature that has the vague outline of a human, but has been
03:19warped by some malevolent force. The Lady wastes no time in absorbing Chuck into her gelatinous
03:25folds, killing the lad in gruesome fashion. Sadly, that's it for this visually striking monster,
03:31as the Lady is never seen again. That's the problem with these anthology-type films sometimes,
03:37there's never enough time for the monsters that truly shine.
03:40Number 7, Sarah Walker, Starry Eyes. Starry Eyes from 2014 is a story about the most terrifying
03:47monster of all, fame. The main character slash victim of the tale is Sarah Walker, a young woman whose
03:53dreams of becoming an actor bring her into the orbit of Astreus Productions, a very important
03:58company in the world of movies. Sarah is so desperate to become a big star that she basically
04:03agrees to do anything the producers say. Sounds like a pretty straightforward story about Hollywood,
04:08right? It would be if Astreus Productions wasn't actually a front for a satanic cult.
04:14After falling under their spell, Sarah goes through a horrifying transformation. Her hair starts
04:19to fall out, she vomits maggots, and her face becomes twisted and deformed, reflecting the
04:25growing evil inside her. This all culminates when she kills Uren, her former friend and rival,
04:31before going on a mass murder spree and ultimately being reborn as a beautiful starlet. This character
04:37is so effective because she is simultaneously a victim and a villain, the latest in a long line
04:42of people who have sold their soul for riches and glory. Now I want to ask you, who is your
04:47favourite female horror movie character that you think goes right under the radar who does
04:52not get talked about enough? Make sure you let me know down in the comments and while you're
04:56there give us a like and a subscribe and all that good stuff.
04:59Number 6. Dren Splice
05:01Now technically, the focal point of 2009's Splice only half qualifies for this list, as she changes
05:07gender towards the end of the film, but the movie is way too good to be ignored. Scientists Clive
05:13and Elsa aim to etch their names in history by developing a revolutionary human-animal hybrid,
05:19despite the scientific community calling a big no-no on this highly unethical practice.
05:24The result of their illicit experiment is Dren, a creature that develops at a rapid pace physically,
05:30but a regular human pace mentally. As she grows older, Dren begins to display all sorts of neat
05:36innovations, like gills and a long tail with a stinger on the end. All of this is fine until
05:41she enters her aggressive teenage years. Dren is very much the modern-day Frankenstein's
05:46creature, a so-called monster whose only real crime has been created by people who had no
05:51idea what they were doing. Dren also leads to some truly heartbreaking scenes after her creators
05:57realize she needs to die.
05:59Number 5. Louise Spring
06:01Love is a tricky thing. Even when you think you've met the girl of your dreams,
06:06something can come along and throw a gigantic spanner in the works. For the main character
06:10in 2014 Spring, that spanner is that his beloved is a 2,000-year-old shapeshifting mutant.
06:16A young American man who moves out to Italy after the death of his mother, Evan falls hard for
06:21Louise, a flirty local. As the two grow closer, Louise is forced to reveal that she is actually
06:27an immortal who has to get herself pregnant every 20 years in order to stay that way. She
06:32also can't fall in love, otherwise her immortality will cease and she will die.
06:37Spring is more of a romance story than a horror, but there's no denying that the scenes where
06:41Louise reveals her true form are freaky as anything. In reality, she is a horrifying creature resembling
06:48an octopus, who is capable of killing if she transforms unwillingly. And after all this,
06:53and Evan is still interested in her. What a guy.
06:564. Jane Doe The Autopsy of Jane Doe
07:00The title character from 2016's The Autopsy of Jane Doe is quite remarkable in the sense that,
07:06despite playing an integral part in the plot, she is technically dead for the entire runtime.
07:11Father and son Tommy and Austin work for a local morgue, and are brought the body of a recently
07:15deceased woman. Upon studying the corpse, the duo are baffled when they can't find an obvious cause
07:21of death. That's when things start to get creepy. Tommy and Austin become trapped in the coroner's
07:26office as they start to hallucinate, hearing sounds and seeing visions of people in the hallway.
07:32After battling the apparitions, they discover that Jane was a witch killed during the Salem trials,
07:37and that her body is the one making all these strange things happen.
07:40Jane is incredibly powerful, despite the fact that she doesn't move a muscle. She just lies there on
07:46the slab, but through her abilities, she is in complete control, and there's nothing her unwitting
07:52victims can do about it.
07:543. Nancy Downes The Craft
07:57If you're looking for a movie about teenage witches, then you won't find many better than 1996's The
08:03Craft, which is still adored by its own Covenant fans to this very day. New kid in town Sarah Bailey
08:09finds solace in the wasteland that is high school by befriending a group of girls. Like Sarah,
08:14they too have been outcast by their own micro-society, and take comfort in the fact that they are all
08:19powerful witches. Part supernatural horror, part high school drama, The Craft is a really fun watch
08:25if you're in the mood for something not too serious. The best part of it by a country mile
08:29is the legendary character Nancy Downes. Nancy, who is part of the witch group, steals the show
08:35every time she's on screen. She's wickedly cruel, but also extremely sympathetic, having lived a very
08:42tough life. Still, she goes way too far in enacting her revenge, and it's up to the other girls
08:48to stop her.
08:492. The Girl A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
08:53Directed by Iranian-American Anna Lily Amapur, and with dialogue entirely in Persian, A Girl
08:58Walks Home Alone At Night from 2014 carries the tagline, the first Iranian vampire western.
09:04Now how can you hear that and not want to see it? The titular girl is played by Sheila Vand,
09:09as the name of the film suggests, she spends her nights walking the streets of a dingy
09:13Iranian city. She is far from vulnerable though, as the girl is actually a vampire who delights
09:19in drinking the blood of lost souls. That is, until she meets Arash. The girl is taken
09:24with the young man, and the two spend a lot of time together. All seems to be going well,
09:29but a small bump in the road appears when the girl kills Arash's father. Yeah, well that'll
09:34kinda do it. Even though she is clearly dangerous, the girl represents something that Arash has
09:39never experienced in his life before, power. This film explores that idea, plus many more
09:46themes including class, crime, and gender, all whilst presenting a badass monster who deserves
09:51to be considered a modern horror classic.
09:541. Irina Duprovna, Cat People While the rest of the planet was a little preoccupied
09:59with the Second World War, American company RKO Pictures was carrying on with business
10:04as usual. The year after they introduced the world to Citizen Kane, RKO put out another
10:10movie, a low budget horror flick called Cat People. It failed to grab headlines at the time
10:15of its release, but many years later, it's now considered by some as something of a hidden
10:20gem.
10:21Cat People is all about Irina Duprovna, a Serbian woman living in America. On the surface, she seems
10:26like an ordinary lady, but she harbours a dark secret. When she becomes aroused, she turns
10:31into a gigantic, bloodthirsty panther. Her boyfriend still agrees to marry her, despite
10:37this reddest of red flags. There's a lot to discuss with Cat People, such as how society
10:42views female sexuality, but at the same time, a woman who could transform into a murderous
10:47animal is still really cool, even decades after the film's release. Though more people know
10:53about Irina these days, she still isn't nearly as famous as she should be.
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