House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films By Kier-La Janisse FAB Press ISBN: 9781903254691 It all started with Possession. Zulawski's film, formally speaking, is perfection - its deep blue hues, its labyrinthine locations, the hypnotic cinematography of Bruno Nuytten. But that's not what drew me to return to it again and again. There was something terrible in that film, a desperation I recognized in myself, in my inability to communicate effectively, and the frustration that would lead to despair, anger and hysteria.My relationship with this film caused me to look at what kinds of warnings - or in some cases reinforcements - I was getting out of other films in which disturbed or neurotic women figured greatly. Over the past ten years I started keeping a log of these films, accompanied by rambling, incoherent notes and occasionally wet pages. I have drawers full of these scribblings; they're spilling out of manila envelopes in my closet, and they're all pieces of a puzzle that I have to figure out how to put together. But my starting point was a question, and that question presented itself easily: I wanted to know why I was crazy - and what happens when you feed crazy with more crazy.As with most female horror fans, people love to ask me what it is I get out of horror. I give them the stock answers: catharsis, empowerment, escapism and so on. Less easy to explain is the fact that I gravitate toward films that devastate and unravel me completely - a good horror film will more often make me cry than make me shudder. I remember someone describing their first time seeing Paulus Manker's The Moor's Head as so devastating they had to lie on the sidewalk when they exited the theatre. Now, that's what I look for in a film.Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but I decided to focus on women because this is what I know. And again, I decided to focus on horror and exploitation films because this is what I know. Everything in my early existence - the Creature Feature double bills of old Hammer and AIP films, the Alice Cooper records and stage shows, Scooby-Doo, The Devil and Daniel Mouse and The Hardy Boys Mysteries - shaped me for this particular future. I was chauffeured into this dark terrain by my parents, but I stayed there because of something in myself. And that 'something' was decidedly female.Unlike her comparatively-lauded male counterpart - 'the eccentric' - the female neurotic lives a shamed existence. But the shame itself is a trap - one that is fiercely protected by men and women alike. Excerpted from House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films by Kier-La Janisse All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher. Excerpted from House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films by Kier-La Janisse All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
