Crazy women in horror 💃🏻, Sally Hardesty screams through the ages 😱, 'The Shade' spooks 👺, & more!

Horror is littered with unhinged performances by women. From Marilyn Burns in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to Wendy Robie in The People Under the Stairs, women have been delivering some of the most iconic and absolutely batshit turns for decades. Their performances are guaranteed to haunt you just as much as the monsters. Whether the woman is the villain or the protagonist pushed beyond their breaking point, women take no prisoners with agonizingly relentless showings that flip the stomach and elicit goosebumps along the spine.

I had just watched What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (more on that bonkers film later) when I was toying with a theme for this week. I knew immediately it had to be Crazy Women - women who defy expectations and offer up award-worthy performances in more ways than one. There's no shortage of picks for the newsletter; our work was cut out for us. More than anything, I had to pull in the reins and keep myself from writing an entire thesis paper on women in horror. There's just an endless supply of women killing it (quite literally), but we managed to corral some of the cream of the crop.

Who are your favorite Crazy Women in horror?

Yours Cruelly,
Bee

Issue 017’s Letterboxd list can be found here

Scream Queen Royalty: Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Sally Hardesty’s screams echo through the annals of horror history. Everyone’s attempted to achieve the same level of visceral, throat-scratching intensity, and only Samara Weaving has come close (that’s an idea for another essay). As The Texas Chain Saw Massacre turns 50 this year, there’s no better time to kneel upon the Sally Hardesty altar of glorious, unadulterated lunacy than right now.

Sally’s the very definition of a mad woman – exhibiting all the characteristics that make her one of horror’s greatest women. Her arc from fun-loving and spirited into unhinged and loose-screwed marks the 1974 character as a real trendsetter for much of horror’s depiction of the crazed woman archetype through the decades since. Marilyn Burns colors her character with a deep richness. While we get very little backstory in the script, it becomes far more about Burns’ ability to document the maddening descent into the blackest recesses of the human mind. Her psychology shatters into pieces as the story devolves from a sprightly cross-country trip into a nightmarish wonderland.

In her encounter with the cannibalistic family, The Sawyers, Sally transforms from your typical carefree youth into a berserk screaming machine. She transcends the film itself – becoming something far greater and more powerful than even writer/director Tobe Hooper could have anticipated. We see glimpses into her bubbly temperament during the group’s trek through rural Texas, peppered with sun-scorched fields and bristled woodlands. Even though she lacks compassion for her cousin Franklin (Paul A. Partain) – her one glaring character flaw – Sally exhibits the quintessence of your standard 20-something who just so happens to have immense lungpower.

The slump into the slimy Texas underbelly, packed with graverobbing and human flesh eaters, is a calculated and tragic relinquishment of humanity. Sally and her friends witness their lives being sucked dry, as one by one they fall prey to The Sawyers in increasingly grisly ways. After Franklin’s unfortunate slaughter, Sally unleashes her primal instincts. She runs (and runs some more), weaving into and out of the crackling, spooky woods. She also screams (and screams some more). Her vocal cords claw and tear into the sweltering night air. From the moment she unwittingly trusts a gas station proprietor (i.e. Drayton Sawyer, played to perfection by Jim Siedow) to the moment she’s tied up to the kitchen table for the film’s iconic dinner scene, Sally demonstrates honest human imperfections that further shade her character.

Bound to a kitchen chair made of human bones, Sally begs the family, comprised of a demure Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and a grandpa as old as dirt (John Dugan), for freedom. But they taunt her, tossing jeers and shrieks back in her face. Close-up shots of Sally’s strained and red-stained eyes make the sequence even more terrifying, as though the viewer experiences the same ungodly torment she does. Her caterwauls fill the space and seep out of the cracked wallpaper and crumbling floorboards – transmitting off the screen and into your living room.

When Grandpa attempts and fails to bludgeon Sally over the head with a mallet, our fear-fueled Final Girl breaks free and jumps out the nearby window (for the second time). Leave it to Sally to do whatever it takes to survive. Tripping along from a leg injury, she eventually makes her way to the main road, where she comes across a blue pickup truck. Leatherface, hot on her trail, nearly saws in her half. But as fate would have it, the truck driver puts the pedal to the metal and zooms off onto the horizon. As the sun crests low in the sky, Sally begins to laugh-cry in the bed of the truck. Her face is smeared with blood; her eyes widen with pained severity; and Leatherface’s silhouette grows smaller in the distance.

When we discuss definitive Scream Queens, we sometimes take Sally Hardesty for granted. She’s such an imposing presence in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, that we forget how incredible her performance is and how it set in motion 50 years of blood-curdling screams. From Jamie Lee Curtis to Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera, the status of many of the genre’s big-lunged staples owe a tremendous debt to a little ole film made for less than $140,000.

Sally Hardesty was and is the gold standard when it comes to defining the Scream Queen. It’s not only about being the sole survivor or simply starring in a scary movie. It’s the ability to cut through the blood, guts, and gore and deliver a performance that hollows out human existence – capturing the very nature of survival and animalistic rage. Without ripping through the story with heart-rending fear, there just wouldn't exist a film so groundbreaking that we're still talking about it decades later.

Marilyn Burns, we thank you for your service.

The Substance gets messy on July 1, 2025 as it gets its official Blu-ray release via Mubi.

Spider One’s next feature, Little Bites, nibbles away on us on October 4th.

SWEETPEA lands on Starz on October 10th. The Dexter-like series stars Anna Purnell as a killer. Watch the trailer here.

The 100 Horror Movies in 92 Days Challenge is back! The event runs from August 1st through October 31st, allowing participants to watch (at least) 100 horror films during this time (and all must be a first-time watch!). Read the guidelines here.

The Dead Northern Horror Film Festival runs from September 27th-29th in the world’s most haunted city (York, England). Come for three full days of horror films, events, parties, food and drink, and more! Learn more at deadnorthern.co.uk. (Tickets)

This November, the Soho Horror Film Festival returns for its 7th anniversary, bringing fearless film lovers their next favorite scary movie, year on year. From November 22nd-24th, the festival will head underground to the Whirled Cinema, Brixton for a 3 day in-person extravaganza. Then, in their continued efforts to remain as inclusive and accessible as possible, the festival will maintain its vanguard of online accessible screenings, running from the November 28th - December 1st with a unique program of films and events to both the in-person and virtual festivals. More info at sohohorrorfest.com.