Is there such a thing as an A+++? If so, these movies make the grade.
By: Rachel Shatto
One of the very best things about the horror genre is how inclusive it is toward female characters. Frequently, the last man standing when the credits roll is a woman. While that’s fantastic, and we never get tired of seeing our blood-soaked heroines standing tall over their dispatched foes, she is all-too-often the token lady in the film—which is where the Bechdel Test comes in. This seemingly simple metric is another important way to think about female representation in horror.
The Bechdel Test was created by Alison Bechdel who, in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For, listed the three-part criteria in her strip called “The Rule.” Here are the rules: To pass the test, a film has to have at least two women in it, they to have talk to each other, and that conversation has to about something besides a man.
Sounds easy, right? You may be shocked by how many of our favorite films actually fail this test. Fortunately, there are a many that ace it, and here are 10 of them (which are all pretty fantastic) you can stream on Netflix right now…
1. We Are What We Are (2013)
“Following a family tragedy, two teenage sisters are forced by their domineering father to keep their cannibalistic clan’s macabre traditions alive.”
(Watch on Netflix)
2. Housebound (2014)
“A troubled young woman is convicted of petty crimes and placed under house arrest in the home of her strange family and a bunch of evil spirits.”
(Watch on Netflix)
3. Haunter (2013)
“Putting a new spin on spooky, the haunted soul in this film—15-year-old Lisa—is long dead, and the ghost she senses is a flesh-and-blood teen.”
(Watch on Netflix)
4. Kristy (2014)
“Opting to stay on campus over the Thanksgiving holiday, coed Justine and a handful of friends find their break violently disrupted by a sadistic gang.”
(Watch on Netflix)
5. The Ward (2010)
“In this chilling thriller from director John Carpenter, a young woman is sent to a mental institution with a past as dark and haunted as her own.”
(Watch on Netflix)
6. The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
“For her Ph.D. thesis, Mia decides to film a woman’s Alzheimer’s battle, but when symptoms turn strange, the family suspects something more sinister.”
(Watch on Netflix)
7. Starry Eyes (2014)
“Aspiring actress Sarah Walker lands a leading role in a movie. As production gets underway, she finds that the price of stardom may be her very soul.”
(Watch on Netflix)
8. The Awakening (2011)
“A haunted boarding school calls on Florence Cathcart, who disproves hoaxes for a living. But the strange place leads Cathcart to question rationality.”
(Watch on Netflix)
9. American Mary (2012)
“A medical student who’s piling up debt jumps at the chance when she’s offered a lucrative opportunity to perform extreme body-modification surgeries.”
(Watch on Netflix)
10. Byzantium (2012)
“On the run for a gruesome crime, two women take refuge in a seaside town, where their shocking secret lies waiting to be discovered.”
(Watch on Netflix)
