Weaponized Domesticity: The Final Girl Archetype as Red Riding Hood in Contemporary Horror

Fairy tales and their adaptations transgress established social, cultural and temporal boundaries. This paper examines Matthew Bright’s Freeway (1996), an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood that deliberately mirrors this transgression by setting the film within the generic type of horror cinema. In choosing this mode, Bright partly restores the fairy tale to its original purpose, once existing as a folktale full of high melodrama, but goes further, criticising the text of ‘known pattern’ and overhauling it to a story in which an innocent female under attack restores her own equilibrium: in effect, deploying the ‘final girl’ trope that is common in slasher movies.
 Freeway uses its adaptive status to radically reinterpret the source text, fomenting its oppositional assault through a genre most suited to subversion. Through textual analysis, the paper examines how Bright harnesses the potential of the cinematographic medium through a double interaction, one that not only allows a coded opening of the internal, intertextual space of the adaptation, but also an antagonistic encounter rooted in the context of horror cinema.

Red Riding Hood* Lee Burns (bio) Behind the darkest folk tales lie attempts to interpret fear. Although the tales take place in domestic settings, the events in the stories dramatize fears which are universal. One folk tale which has endured is Red Riding Hood. The fears projected into the tale are: fear of the invasion (natural or supernatural) of the home, fear of becoming subject to the destructive will or power of another, and the fear of deception. That this tale should be an echo of older fears involving natural forces (which have been incorporated into myths) should not be surprising. Fear of the changeability and violence in human nature that appears in folk tales has its counterpart in myth in the fear of natural forces and their changeability and violence. In Red Riding Hood, the evil, mesmerizing darkness of the Wolf echoes the image of the darkness of night and death. The character of Red Riding Hood is the counterpart of day, light, and innocent gaiety. Some folklorists claim that the tale echoes a myth of sunrise and sunset. Henry Bett cites the red cloak as evidence: The Letts have a story which tells how the daughter of the sun hung her red cloak on an oak tree. At the other end of the world, the Australians of Encounter Bay say that the sun is a woman and has a lover among the dead who has given her a red kangaroo skin in which she appears at her rising. Bett then explains the wolf as "personification of night." He cites the recurrence of the wolf in Norse mythology as a destroyer of light.1 In the Index of Fairy Tales Myths, and Legends, there is a similar claim for the myth of Helge, who, to escape his enemies, disguised himself as a wolf and who turned out to be a God of night and darkness.2 Although it seems farfetched to think that so simple a tale as Red Riding Hood should have come from such dynamic legends, the particular vividness and enduring qualities of the red hood and the figure of the wolf do have their roots in traditional symbols which strengthen this supposition. The color red, and its association with blood and passion, would prefigure the violence to come. It is interesting that the substitution of color (for instance, gold) should make a difference. In Little Golden Hood, there are none of the ominous overtones of Red Riding Hood. The golden hood is not only divine, linked to golden flowers and the sun, but it [End Page 30] serves as protection for the little girl. Faith in human good sense is exhibited: Grandmother kills the wolf, there is a lesson learned, and a happy ending.3 The red hood incorporates qualities of life, light, and sexual energy.4 The use of the hood and its association with death adds to the ominous quality of the tale.5 The figure of the wolf arouses terror, not only because of his savage wildness, but because of traditional connotations of darkness and evil. In the Dictionary of Symbols, he is cited as being the "symbol of evil," the "monster" who lived in the depths of the earth and who would "break out of this prison . . . devour the son."6 Medieval Christian thinking marks him as a symbol of the devil, the whore, a beast who massacres "anybody who passes by with a fury of greediness." He also has the eyes of the Devil and is capable of mesmerizing his victims, if he chooses.7 The combination of evil, sexual aggression, and gluttonous violence, then, is historically connected with the wolf. It is surely his nature in Red Riding Hood. His association with darkness and destruction links him, and by extension the tale, to the ancient myths. The fear of sexual power characterizes all versions of the tale. It represents an irresistable force, a force in the service of greed and death. In the French tales this sexuality is more explicit: the little girl is lured into the bed. The rhythmic, intimate repetition of questions leading to the moment of climax (or anti-climax) is extremely sexual. The mesmerizing qualities of...

This article examines three of Dario Argento’s supernatural horror films (Suspiria, Phenomena, and Dark Glasses) and their use of fairy tale imagery and narratives, which distinguishes them from murder-mystery-oriented giallo films. In them, Argento locates his characters, rather than in urban environments, in rural spaces (forests, fields, mountains) where the supernatural elements of their stories blossom. Suspiria represents a primarily aesthetic exploration of parallels between fairy tales and contemporary horror, while Phenomena uses these two modes to examine the conflict between the rational and irrational, the natural and the supernatural. Dark Glasses initially appears to be one of his more traditional gialli, but it abandons these tropes with a simplified plot evoking the story of “Little Red Riding Hood”; this shift is accomplished by moving the action of the film out of Rome and into the dark forests of the countryside. Dark Glasses, I argue, therefore represents a self-conscious move to unite in a single film the two major strands of Argento’s filmography and to expose some fundamental elements of his general cinematic approach—namely, the unique capacity of stylized aesthetics and irrational elements to convey the experience of very real, human terror and evil.

This paper introduces and examines the ‘Killer’ Father and the ‘Final’ Mother in Tarsem Singh’s The Cell (2001). They are descendants of Carol J. Clover’s ‘Killer’ and ‘Final Girl’ respectively. The Killer Father is a bad father figure who tortures or even kills his family. The Final Mother is a ‘muscle mother’, who kills the Killer Father in order to save her child from his fringes. This study uses the psychoanalytical concept of ‘womb-envy’ as a critical tool to illustrate the unconscious motives of the Killer Father. The employment of womb-envy shows that the Killer Father’s behaviour displays unconscious envy of the female reproductive organs, and the capacity to give birth and nurture. In the end, this paper argues that the presence of the Killer Father and the Final Mother in the contemporary horror cinema is indicative of the dilemmas that preoccupy modern parenthood and the agency of the nuclear family.

Jordan Peele’s horror film Get Out (2017) has been generally acclaimed for its unflinching critique of American racism, made even more notable by the East Coast, liberal-elite setting of the film. While the film commendably organizes its mainstream horror narrative around an African American male protagonist, the film’s depiction of femininity has proven controversial. This essay explores the gender politics of the film’s depiction of women, especially but not exclusively its White female characters. Drawing on perspectives from psychoanalytic theory, intersectionality, and feminist horror studies, the essay considers the film’s reworking of Carol Clover’s figure of the “Final Girl” who alone survives the horror movie bloodbath. The function of Peele’s Final Girl is less clearly positive, given that this figure is the film’s ultimate villain. The essay explores intersections between the film and psychoanalytic attitudes toward female caregivers who fail to conform to gendered standards, theorizing that betrayal emerges as a significantly gendered concept. Get Out unusually depicts maternal loss as a central aspect of its male protagonist’s psychology while also foregrounding maternal and other forms of female betrayal.

This chapter explores the legacy of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Without doubt, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is one of the most enduring of films of the horror genre, having attained a highly respected status from both fan and academic audiences. Its power to frighten and shock is not, in any way, diminished by its increasing age, nor is any of its visceral or brutal imagery dated in comparison to contemporary horror cinema. Chain Saw has many enduring legacies, including the crew's experience of its notorious production, the financial debacle following its release, and its subsequent censorship and, in some cases, outright banning. While these all have their place in the growing mythos of Chain Saw, the film's sustained impact upon the horror genre is perhaps best typified in the sustained plight of Sally Hardesty, for in her experiences a new character type was potentially born — the ‘Final Girl’.

This article examines the various ways in which representations of children and their relationships with the canine (the dog or the wolf) are portrayed in contemporary horror film and fiction. The discussion suggests how these contemporary representations are influenced by former narratives located in myth and fairy tale. Important issues concerning gender are debated, with the first part of the article interrogating representations of female children and the second part of the article interrogating representations of male children. The discussion includes close readings of several key texts, including Little Red Riding Hood, The Lost Boys, The Omen and Cujo. These readings suggest how such narratives are often symptomatic of deep-seated, and often gendered, cultural anxieties that manifest clear moral warnings. Alternatively, representations of children and the canine can be more ambiguous. While some representations seem to translate into a liberal humanist hope, or desire for, the existence of an altruistic or divine entity, a goodness that is inherent to the taming of an aberrant supernatural force, other representations might be symptomatic of the horror that is threatened by the potential unleashing of an untamable human or inhuman, natural or supernatural, madness or disease that is endemic to modern culture and society.

So far this study has confined itself solely to films, yet the television series Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is considered also, chiefly because it unites many of the themes discussed regarding female identity and power in contemporary horror. Like the other texts evaluated it reprises Carrie’s theme of misfit outsiders, utilising the prom and graduation as key rites of passage in its heroine’s progression towards adulthood. It also updates the Final Girl’s negotiation of sexuality in the slasher, as well as the maternal role such figures have undertaken. In melding horror elements with the conventions of the teen angst drama the show can additionally be compared with The Craft and Ginger Snaps, similarly equating adolescence with supernatural transformation, while also placing females up against one another in another variation of ‘The Kind and Unkind Girls’. Indeed, although Buffy: The Vampire Slayer embraces the supernatural as an empowering force, it reiterates the same warnings about the potential for corruption, particularly regarding the dangers of female rage, and sets out to test its hero accordingly.

The “monstrous man-boy” is an uncanny white male villain in the horror genre who, despite his adult appearance and age, acts childishly and violently toward others. His monstrosity is reminiscent of the white male immaturity that has defined the politics of the Trump presidency. Utilizing feminist critical age and psychoanalytic revisionist theory in combination with critical media communication studies, this essay examines the monstrous man-boy in the film The Boy (2016) and the Apocalypse season of American Horror Story (2018). Within these narratives, white women are often framed as mother figures who are blamed for having nurtured the man-boy, but who are also granted the opportunity to redeem themselves by defeating him. However, people of color who enable the man-boy are denied any chance at redemption and are fatally punished. Thus, even when these texts critique and challenge the monstrousness of white patriarchal immaturity, whiteness itself remains problematically uncontested.

Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema By Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. Continuum, 2012 248 pp./$27.95 (sb) Horror After 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of Terror Edited by Aviva Briefel and Sam J. Miller University of Texas Press. 2011 280 pp./$55.00 (hb) There is perhaps no of filmmaking so passionately championed by its adherents or reviled by its detraetors as horror. Derided by some as a base body genre designed to pander to our crudest emotions, over the last decade the horror has tortured, slithered, and slashed its way in new directions while achieving a previously unseen level of mainstream suceess. Kevin J Wetmore. Jr., in his book Post 9/11 Horror in A merica (mema. and the authors featured in the collection Horror After 9/11: World of Fear, Cinema of Terror, conternd that horror has been invigorated since 9/11 while also becoming more apocalyptic, disturbing, and darket than ever before. In the introduction to Horror After 9/11. editors argue that post-9/11 the horror has surged as a rare protected space where the psychological traumas of pour times--terrorism, torture, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fears wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tears of global pandemics, and the neoliberal exploitation of people and resources can be explored in allegorical or subsumed forms (3). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There is no doubt that in the past decade the conventions of horror have shined. The film-surviving final girl typified by the character of Laurie Strode in John Carpenter's Halloween 1978 or later by Sidney Prescott in Wes Craven's horror-satire. Sereant (1996) is gone from today's screen. More often than not, so too is the possibility that will he Fully or even partially defeated by the end oldie film. Wetmore argues that after 9/11, nihilism. despair, random violence awl death. began to assume lar greater prominence in horror cinema (3). Morcover, in contrast to the images of first responders and terrorist-fighting airline passengers that have dominated America's national narrative of 9/11, films such as The Mist (2007, directed by Frank Darabont) and Clocerfield (2008, directed by Matt Reeves) depict a world where heroic human qualities cannot and will not save the day or defeat the evil (3). Tracking the iconography Of recent horror, wetmore contends that the depiction of planes falling from the sky (Brad Anderson's 2010 Vanishing on 7th Street), falling bodies (M.Night Shyamalan's 2008 The Happening and Colin Strause's 2010 Skyline), and malevolent clouds or debris fields (The Mist) are appropriations of images of 9/11 by filmmakers, thereby allowing viewers to re-experience[9/11] under safer conditions or with a different ending. (24). In a similar fashion, he argues. the torture porn of Saw (2004, directed by James Wan) and Hoslel. 2005, directed by Eli Roth: illustrates an on-screen reflection of the real-world abuse of detainees in Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition.and the torture Of terror suspects. In Post-9/11 Horror in American Cinema, Wetmore has delivered a readable and accessible introduction to contemporary horror cinema. …

In 2016, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America, to great surprise. His election has been connected to the emergence of authoritarianism as a political force in America, as political scholars have argued Trump’s campaign success lay in how his rhetoric is authoritarian in nature, and how it activates an authoritarian tendency in a sizeable portion of the voter base in response to social and demographic changes within the country. This article argues that contemporary horror cinema reflects and responds to the rise of American authoritarianism. Building on the work of scholars of authoritarianism, this article outlines a number of characteristics of authoritarian horror films. Specifically, it analyses the case study of Jigsaw to argue that two understandings are possible, linked to the coding of both the authoritarianism associated with the villain and the social threats they react to as troubling. It then draws on a number of further examples (Unfriended, Don’t Hang Up and the Purge films) to suggest that the emergence of this tendency within horror cinema is reflective of an increasingly polarized population and that, although the films explicitly condemn authoritarianism through their villain characters, they simultaneously cater to both halves of this divide by also depicting the world in which these authoritarians rise as horrific.

The meaning of human rights has always been susceptible to multiple, and sometimes conflicting, interpretations. Yet after several decades of efforts to develop an emerging, if dispersed and overlapping, normative consensus at the regional and UN treaty-system level, as well as within domestic constitutional and legislative settings, an array of efforts at concerted legal change in the human rights field has recently appeared in different parts of the world, on the basis of a supposedly reformed characterization of human rights, including in Putin’s Russia, Erdogan’s Turkey, Modi’s India, Bolsanaro’s Brazil, and the United States under the former Trump Administration, alongside developments in Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana. We describe these arguments and moves as appropriations—and indeed as misappropriations—when they use human rights language in the service of ends which are exclusionary, repressive, or anti-pluralist in character, highly retrogressive or reversing of previous commitments, and evasive of external monitoring or accountability. We argue that by invoking the language, tools, and framework of human rights to exclude or repress particular groups and individuals, while consolidating authority and avoiding accountability, they misappropriate a human rights system which—despite extensive contestation and critique—has been developed over a long period around certain core values including equal human dignity, inclusion, and accountability. The essays in this Symposium track a range of these actors and the strategies they are using to reshape the human rights field, examining recent moves towards transnational coordination of nationalist, populist, right-wing, and authoritarian movements. The analyses from various jurisdictions around the world focus on attempts to remake and—we argue—reverse a range of progressive achievements of the human rights system around gender, religion, property, culture, and equality.

Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election appeared to mark a significant setback for the advancement of female participation in US politics. However, one of the most striking features of Trump’s election is the degree to which it has inspired an upsurge in female-led political protests. From high-profile events such as the January 2017 Women’s March, to the record numbers of female candidates in the 2018 midterm elections, women across the country are choosing to fight back. Parallels to these protests can be found in a recent cycle of horror films that show women fighting back against violent and sadistic men. With their narratives of female survival and resilience, commercial and critical hits such as 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), Hush (2016) and Don’t Breathe (2016), tap into a growing sense of anger at the patriarchal structures that dominate US society. This chapter explores the relationship between this cycle of films and recent political shifts. Specifically, it considers the role that contemporary horror cinema has to play in representing and mobilising resistance to the anti-woman agenda of Trump.

White Skin and the Black Mask™

The 2024 U.S. presidential election and the second administration of Donald Trump have instilled unprecedented uncertainty into international politics, with profound implications for transatlantic relations and global alliance structures (Wiedekind and Bller 2025; Ciolan and Moyer 2025).Under Trump, American commitment to the Liberal International Order (LIO) has all but completely given way to material primacy and indifferent transactionalism as guiding paradigms in U.S. foreign policy.Some scholars have sought to explain this shift by highlighting the 45th and 47th president's worldview, comprising of populist nationalist traits (Lfflmann 2024).Others have underscored the power dynamics at the international level, in particular the hegemonic decline of the U.S. in view of China's rise, which reduces the hegemon's willingness to contribute increasingly scarce resources to uphold the international order (Heinkelmann-Wild et al. 2021).Both strands of explanations, rooted either in first (individualistic) or third (systemic) image analyses of IR, offer important insights into understanding U.S. foreign policy in the age of Trump.At the same time, we argue that a key piece of the puzzle to explain this foundational shift is the domestic setting of U.S. foreign policy, actively enabling Trump to implement his "America First" agenda (Biegon and Hamdaoui 2024).While the contestation of traditional foreign policy principles and norms has been in the making over the course of the last two decades (Kupchan and Trubowitz 2010;