Barbara Creed. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge,1993.
In this book the author challenges the patriarchal (woman-as-a-victim) view by arguing that the prototype of all definitions of the monstrous is the female reproductive body. Against Freudian theories, which claim that women are terrifying because they are castrated, she claims that women terrify because they might castrate. From a feminist and psychoanalitical perspective Barbara Creed discusses seven faces of the Monstrous Feminine (woman-as-a-monster) 1. the archaic mother, 2. the monstrous womb, 3. the vampyre, 4. the witch, 5. the possessed body, 6. the monstrous mother and 7. the castrator or female castratice. The declared intention of the book is to explore the representaion of woman in the horror film and to argue that woman is represented as monstrous in a significant number of horror films. * Women monstrous in relation to her mothering and reproductive function. * Women's monstrousness linked to sexual desire.
Creed draws on Kristeva's concept of "abject" - the place where meaning collapses (p.9)-. The horro film is an illustration of the work of abjection (p.10). Kristeva sees the mother-child relationship as marked by conflict: the child struggles to break free but the mother is reluctant to release it. The mother's body becomes abject to the child. A function of Religion is to purify the abject. Horror film is a confrontation with the abject ( a form of modern defilment rite, reconciliation with the mother's body). Abjection both repels and attracts.
