Good For Her: A Timeline of Women Monsters In Film
Women monsters of film do not get enough attention. That is why we are going to start building a timeline of monster women to watch.
When I heard about Behind the Monsters I was one of the many people that wondered where the women monster films are. We all love our usual suspects, but as we watch this series the gender disparity is hard to ignore. I took it upon myself to start working on a timeline of women monsters in film.
I found a lot of outdated tropes and realized that more movies fit the bill than I suspected. While the numbers still are not great, it is nice to have a longer marathon than I previously thought I would. For the sake of this list, I tried to leave out vampires, witches, and exorcisms because those are the few areas women do appear often. I also only include the first film of a series that includes a monster played by a woman. However, quite a few are parts of a franchise or have remakes.
Lota, Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Played by Kathleen Burke
Logline: A mad doctor conducts ghastly genetic experiments on a remote island in the South Seas, much to the fear and disgust of the shipwrecked sailor who finds himself trapped there.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley/The Monster’s Mate, Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Played by Elsa Lanchester
Logline: Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein, goaded by an even madder scientist, builds his monster a mate.
Kitty Carroll, The Invisible Woman (1940)
Played by Virginia Bruce
Logline: An attractive model with an ulterior motive volunteers as the guinea pig for an invisibility machine.
Also Read: “Unnatural Hunger: Female Desire and Cannibalism in Horror”
Irena Dubrovna Reed, Cat People (1942)
Played by Simone Simon
Logline: An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland’s fables if they are intimate together.
Paula Dupree / The Ape Woman, Captive Wild Woman (1943)
Played by Acquanetta
Logline: An insane scientist doing experimentation in glandular research becomes obsessed with transforming a female gorilla into a human…even though it costs human life.
Phyllis Allenby, She-Wolf Of London (1946)
Played by June Lockhart
Logline: A young heiress finds evidence suggesting that at night she acts under the influence of a family curse and has begun committing ghastly murders in a nearby park.
Nyah, Devil Girl from Mars (1954)
Played by Patricia Laffan
Logline: An uptight, leather-clad female alien, armed with a ray gun and accompanied by a menacing robot, comes to Earth to collect Earth’s men as breeding stock.
Andrea, The She-Creature (1956)
Played by Marla English
Logline: A mysterious hypnotist reverts his beautiful assistant back into the form of a prehistoric sea monster that she was in a past life.
The She-Monster, The Astounding She-Monster (1957)
Played by Shirley Kilpatrick
Logline: A gang of crooks has kidnapped a rich heiress come up against a beautiful, but lethal alien who has crash-landed her spaceship on Earth.
Marilyn Blanchard, Voodoo Woman (1957)
Played by Marla English
Logline: Deep in the jungles a mad scientist is using the natives’ voodoo for his experiments to create an indestructible being to serve his will. When a party of gold seekers stumbles upon his village, the scientist realizes that Marilyn the expedition’s evil leader is the perfect subject for his work.
Nancy Fowler Archer, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
Played by Allison Hayes
Logline: When an abused socialite grows to giant size because of an alien encounter and an aborted murder attempt, she goes after her cheating husband with revenge on her mind.
Also Read: ‘The Manor’ Review: Axelle Carolyn’s Latest Film Smartly Tackles the Universal Fear of Aging
Janice Starlin, The Wasp Woman (1959)
Played by Susan Cabot
Logline: The head of a major cosmetics company experiments on herself with a youth formula made from royal jelly extracted from wasps, but the formula’s side effects have deadly consequences.
June Talbot, The Leech Woman (1960)
Played by Coleen Gray
Logline: An endocrinologist in a dysfunctional marriage with an aging, alcoholic wife journeys to Africa seeking a drug that will restore youth.
The Gorgon, The Gorgon (1964)
Played by Prudence Hyman
Logline: In the early twentieth century, a Gorgon takes human form and terrorizes a small European village by turning its citizens to stone.
Anna Franklyn, The Reptile (1966)
Played by Jacqueline Pearce
Logline: In a Cornish village, various locals die from mysterious snake bites, but the coroner rules the deaths as heart attacks until a family of newcomers starts an investigation.
Lena Aruza, Night of the Cobra Woman (1972)
Played by Marlene Clark
Logline: After being bitten by a cobra in the Philippines, Lena can turn herself into a snake and she stops aging. The curse comes with a price. The priestess Lena must consume cobra venom and vital young men to stay young.
Daniella Neseri, Werewolf Woman (1976)
Played by Annik Borel
Logline: A woman has dreams that she is a werewolf so she goes out and finds men. She proceeds to have sex with them and then rip their throats out with her teeth. She eventually falls in love but then she is raped and her lover is murdered so she goes out for revenge.
Dorothy Yates, Frightmare (1978)
Played by Sheila Keith
Logline: After escaping a death sentence for her hideous crimes, a seemingly rehabilitated woman settles in an isolated farmhouse with her husband, only to ache, once more, for blood, and a crash course in surgery. Is, indeed, her old self back?
Marsha Quist, The Howling (1981)
Played by Elisabeth Brooks
Logline: After a bizarre and near-deadly encounter with a serial killer, a television newswoman is sent to a remote mountain resort whose residents may not be what they seem.
Also Read: 10 Films Featuring Black Final Femmes That You Need Watch
Stirba, Howling II: … Your Sister Is a Werewolf (1985)
Played by Sybil Danning
Logline: A man discovers that his sister was a werewolf, and helps an investigator track down a gang of monsters through the United States and eastern Europe.
Temptress, Def by Temptation (1990)
Played by Cynthia Bond
Logline: An evil succubus is preying on libidinous black men in New York City, and all that stands in her way is a minister-in-training, an aspiring actor, and a cop who specializes in cases involving the supernatural.
Also Read: “Women Scorned: 10 Slashers You Can Stream Right Now With Female Killers“
Gloria / The Bride, Bride of Re-Animator (1990)
Played by Kathleen Kinmont
Logline: Doctors Herbert West and Dan Cain discover the secret to creating human life and proceed to create a perfect woman from dead tissue.
Mary Brady, Sleepwalkers (1992)
Played by Alice Krige
Logline: A mother-and-son team of strange supernatural creatures moves to a small town to seek out a young virgin to feed on.
Sil, Species (1995)
Played by Natasha Henstridge
Logline: A group of scientists try to track down and trap a killer alien seductress before she successfully mates with a human.
Serafine, An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)
Played by Julie Delpy
Logline: An American man unwittingly gets involved with French werewolves who have developed a serum allowing them to transform at will.
Tiffany, Bride of Chucky (1998)
Played by Jennifer Tilly
Logline: Chucky, the doll possessed by a serial killer, discovers the perfect mate to kill and revive into the body of another doll.
The Ghost, Ringu (1998)
Played by Rie Ino’o
Logline: A reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed videotape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.
Marybeth Louise Hutchinson, The Faculty (1998)
Played by Laura Harris
Logline: When Casey Connor, Herrington High School’s newspaper photographer, witnesses the murder of a nurse and sees her alive again, he decides to investigate the bizarre happenings.
Ginger, Ginger Snaps (2000)
Played by Katharine Isabelle
Logline: Two death-obsessed sisters, outcasts in their suburban neighborhood, must deal with the tragic consequences when one of them is bitten by a deadly werewolf.
Also Read: Heidi Honeycutt Dishes on Etheria, Women in Horror, and More!
Megan, Dog Soldiers (2002)
Played by Emma Cleasby
Logline: A routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scotland wilderness.
Sonja, Skinwalkers (2006)
Played by Natassia Malthe
Logline: A 12-year-old boy and his mother become the targets of two warring werewolf packs, each with different intentions and motives.
Laurie, Trick ‘r Treat (2007)
Played by Anna Paquin
Logline: Five interwoven stories that occur on Halloween.
Mrs. Ganush, Drag Me To Hell (2009)
Played by Lorna Raver
Logline: A loan officer who evicts an old woman from her home finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse. Desperate, she turns to a seer to try and save her soul, while evil forces work to push her to a breaking point.
The Demon, Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Played by Megan Fox
Logline: A newly possessed high school cheerleader turns into a succubus who specializes in killing her male classmates. Can her best friend put an end to the horror?
Mutter, Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Played by Susanne Wuest
Logline: Twin boys move to a new house with their mother after she has face changing cosmetic surgery, but under the bandages is someone the boys don’t recognize.
Red, Us (2019)
Played by Lupita Nyong’o
Logline: A family’s serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them.
Cecily Moore, Werewolves Within (2021)
Played by Milana Vayntrub
Logline: Feature adaptation of the video game where werewolves attack a small town.
This list is ongoing, so feel free to drop me a line with more women monsters that should be included. Especially international films because there are not nearly enough on this list. Drop me a line at @misssharai.
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