Sam Hasse
It is officially spooky season, and to commemorate, I had the pleasure of interviewing acclaimed author and zinester Emma Alice Johnson on her latest release, Ghouls Rule: A Celebration of Female Movie Monsters, in which she analyzes popular female monsters in horror films and highlights some of her lesser-known favorites.
Johnson is an avid horror-film watcher year-round. “The creators and fans are so passionate. This is absolutely an unscientific statement, but I'd bet there's more low-budget and DIY horror than any other genre, because horror creators are committed to telling their stories, regardless of their budgets, which I find inspiring,” she explains. “Also, it's just always been my genre. I grew up with Scooby-Doo and watching spooky movies with my dad. So at this point in my life, it's my comfort genre I guess!”
In Ghouls Rule: A Celebration of Female Movie Monsters, Johnson argues that there is a lack of female monsters in horror films, and highlights how many of the female monster characters that do exist lack monstrous traits, because many of them still adhere to beauty standards. She explains, “I think filmmakers, particularly male filmmakers, are reluctant to show women as anything other than pretty, and actresses are expected to be pretty even in roles where doing so doesn't make sense.”
Johnson thinks that’s a little boring. “In Ghouls Rule, my focus is on celebrating the more monstrous femmes of filmdom…I don't want pretty vampires, and I definitely don't want serial killers. The real world has plenty of those types of monsters. I want monsters that are scary. I want monsters that are otherworldly,” she states.
She also criticizes how women creators are often expected to make their creative works highbrow, which can eliminate a certain notion of fun. “I feel like women filmmakers and actresses are often held to a higher standard in that regard than their male counterparts. It became very clear in all the interviews about The Substance a few years ago. Every interview with star Demi Moore and director Coralie Fargeat asked really intense questions about the meaning of this movie which is mostly just a gloppy ooze-fest. Nobody asks those kind of questions of Lloyd Kaufman about The Toxic Avenger,” she stated. “Women should be allowed to make icky, scary, fun movies without having to justify it with some intellectual theme.”
“We should be seen in every type of role that men are seen in, good, bad and ugly. Not only for the sake of diversity, but because it’s fun!”
Johnson believes that representation matters, even if it’s “bad” representation. “We should be seen in every type of role that men are seen in, good, bad and ugly,” she explains. “Not only for the sake of diversity, but because it's fun!”
Celebrate the spooky season with a copy of Ghouls Rule: A Celebration of Female Movie Monsters. You can also check out Emma Alice Johnson’s website, which contains her other works, which include books, short stories, and zines in the genres of horror, sci-fi, bizarro fiction, nature writing, and film and comic book criticism.