Red’s Retaliation: The Untethering of the Subterranean Revolutionary – Fiction’s Fearless Females

  By Kalie Zamierowski of Just Dread-full            

Dear readers, gather around the campfire—okay, or the computer screen—as I regale you with a story.  Throughout time, we’ve been entertained with tales of heroes—the Mighty Achilles, Sir Gawain, Beowulf…Spider-Man, Superman, Ant-Man, Xena the Warrior Princess…and the list goes on.  I’m here today, however, to discuss a different hero—a single woman who, at a young age, was relegated to a cold, imprisoning underground lair not by any evil villain, but by her own image, staring back at her in a funhouse mirror.  For years, the subterranean woman lived among her subterranean people, a group of have-nots who were tethered to those in the world above, who “lived the lives” of those above ground, albeit without all the artifacts and accoutrements associated with living.  Angry at her fate, this young woman grew up and devised a plan, inspired by the image on a t-shirt, that could be executed with a mere lighter and a few pairs of scissors.  The woman planned not just to take over a city, a state, or a nation, but, with the help of the others who lived with her underground, to take over the world, to re-populate the world above ground with her enslaved, tethered people.  She did not want fame, power, or fortune—merely justice and the warm light of the sun, for herself and those she lived among.  Thus, with nothing but cunning brilliance, a few dull sheers, an eccentric family, and some kickass dance moves, a young woman and her family entered the “ordinary world,” intent on inhabiting it by dominating it.

Ellie and Sandie from Last Night in Soho – Fiction’s Fearless Females

By Kalie Zamierowski of Just Dread-full

Every year a group of bloggers and I write about fearless fictional women to celebrate International Women’s Day. Each of these bloggers will be featured on my blog this year. The blog-a-thon started with Michael of My Comic Relief and, after my post, will go on to feature Nancy and Kathleen of Graphic Novelty² and Jeff of The Imperial Talker. Here’s my contribution to the Blog-a-thon this year!

Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho opens in the warm home of a quaint British town, a home where main character Eloise basks in her vintage-inspired bedroom listening to music from the 60s. The opening scene is so reminiscent of life sixty years ago, in fact, that we may suspect that we are in 1961, not 2021, and because of Wright’s ability to establish a scene we may also feel like we’re temporarily inhabiting a much more idyllic time period than our own. Certainly, that is what Eloise/Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie) imagines, the main character who we meet in the film’s beginning. Ellie has just been accepted to fashion school, and we get the impression, based on her excitement, that a glittering life in Great Britain’s fashion hub looks just as perfect, just as idyllic, as the 1960s do in her eyes. But sometimes attractive surface appearances mask a more insidious lurking reality—a fact which may be true of Soho in general, and is definitely true of Soho in the 60s, a reality that Ellie will soon find out.

Norma Bates – Fiction’s Fearless Females

By Kalie Zamierowski of Just Dread-full

One thing worth noting about the horror genre is that it produces images that resist quick mental erasure.  From the statuesque model who turns into a decrepit, decaying old woman in the infamous shower scene of The Shining to the bloody womb hanging limply outside the skin of Nola Carveth in The Brood, horror does nothing if not supply us with grotesque images of often monstrous women.  Psycho’s Norma Bates, then, is no exception.  In Hitchcock’s original film, Psycho, we see Norma not as a mommy so much as a stereotypical mummy; all that is left of her is a skeletal, eyeless frame and some tousled hair pulled back in a bun. We hear her character, and therefore understand her character, only through Marion Crane’s ears as the delusional Norman voices her from afar in the antiquated Victorian house on the hill outside Bates Motel.  But Norma is a famous mummy, and a famous mommy, to be sure, one who lingers in the mind of the viewer long after the theater lights go on, and one who has lingered in the cultural imagination now for sixty-one years and counting.  Significantly, Norma Bates didn’t get to speak for herself until 2013, when the hit TV show Bates Motel rescued and re-invented her character through Vera Farmiga’s portrayal of her as Norman’s mildly cooky but vivacious and loving mom.  As a woman who navigates an excruciating past, a corrupt, drug-infested city, and a psychotic son with surprising sangfroid, Norma Bates in Bates Motel is who I choose to feature this year for the annual Fiction’s Fearless Females blogathon. 

Sarah Connor – Fiction’s Fearless Females

By Nancy of Graphic Novelty²

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Kathleen and I have joined up with some other amazing bloggers to celebrate for a second year in a row! A group of six of us are each picking a fictional fearless female to feature, and includes Michael of My Comic Relief, Kalie of Just Dread-full, Jeff of The Imperial Talker, and Rob of My Side of the Laundry Room. So far we have had posts celebrating Doctor Who, Batgirl, Dani from Midsommar and Queen Amidala- and this year I choose Sarah Connor from the Terminator franchise. For clarity’s sake, I will be only writing about Linda Hamilton’s original version of Sarah in The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Terminator: Dark Fate. While other actresses have played Sarah, to me Linda Hamilton defines the character.

Dani from Midsommar – Fiction’s Fearless Females

By Kalie of Just Dread-full

Warning: Because of the film I’ve decided to talk about, the following subject matter will be unavoidably uncomfortable and dismal. Second Warning: If you’ve not yet seen Midsommar and you want to see it, well, first of all, get to it 🙂 (it’s free on Amazon Prime), and second, you may encounter some spoilers. Okay, you’ve been warned, onward:

Surviving Horror When You’re Scared of EVERYTHING

I am a HUGE baby when it comes to scary movies.  However, I have also been dating an avid horror enthusiast for two years now.  How do I survive all the horror movies I watch now?  How have I come to even – gasp! – enjoy and appreciate the genre myself?  Well that story, my friends, is in this new guest post I wrote for Kalie over at Just Dread-Full.  I had a lot of fun writing it and I’d be super excited if you clicked over and checked it out too!

Oh, The Horror (Light) of the Clone Wars

It’s been too long since I’ve written something about Star Wars!  However, while I was enjoying an excessive or amazing (you be the judge) day-long binge-watching marathon of Star Wars: The Clone Wars the other day, a new idea for a post came to mind.  I decided to write about how the show was cleverly paying homage to classic horror films!  So if hearing me talk about some great episodes of The Clone Wars AND how they are full of brilliant allusions to the horror genre sounds like fun to you (and I so hope it does!) then feel free to click here and check it out for yourself.