Western culture has an unfortunate tendency to over-represent male evil while under-representing its female equivalent, and being a horror fan i notice this a lot in said genre.
The best example I can think of is that despite 18-33% of America’s serial killers being women, no iconic female serial killer has emerged in the genre. Males we’ve got, whether reality based ones like Hannibal Lecter and Leather-face, or fantasy based ones like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, Pinhead etc.
The one exception to this man-hating Western habit of sweeping female darkness under the rug seems to be, curiously enough, the French. Apparently many French film makers are aware that “La Difference” isn’t quite as rose colored as the feminists would like the world to believe, and they aren’t shy about letting us know it.
From the adulterous wife in the drama “Unne Femme Francaise” to the cabal of liars, adulterers and murderers in the musical comedy “8 Women”, contemporary French cinema showcases a refreshing amount of unpleasant women, and the horror genre is no exception.
From “High Tension” to “Martyrs”, the French GynoBeast gets to see far more daylight than her Anglo sisters, and the Crème De La Crème (sorry) of all French “Evil Woman” movies is without a doubt Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo’s unforgettable debut feature “Inside”.
This blood-splattered, gut-strewn horrorfest stars Beatrice Dalle (of Betty Blue) as a mysterious creature referred to only as “The Woman”, a GynoBeast who is mad as a weasel, scary as hell, and who makes The Terminator look like the the Easter Bunny. The Gallic psycho-woman decides that she wants another woman’s unborn child and as we all know there is only one way to get that, and by the time “The Woman” carries out the DIY C-section she’s slaughtered over half a dozen people and left the house looking like it’s been decorated by Jeffrey Dahmer.
The plot is simple – evil woman is in the house trying to get to pregnant woman, other characters drop in and are soon swimming in blood. But plot is not what “Inside” is about. “Inside” is about high-impact horror, it’s about finding yourself trapped inside a phone booth with everything that is dark and deadly in women and realizing that nothing short of a rocket launcher is going to stop her from splattering your innards all over the stairs.
If you want an antidote to the usual “Evil Male” movies check out this rare garlicky treat, but only if you have the stomach of a cast iron elephant – you have been warned.
Trailer here