House of psychotic women – An autobiographical topography of female neurosis in Horror and Exploitation films

House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical exploration of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films. Anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and examination of female madness, both onscreen and off.

God, this woman can write, with a voice and intellect that’s so new. The truth in the most deadly unique way I’ve ever read.
– Ralph Bakshi, director of Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Fire and Ice, etc.

Fascinating, engaging and lucidly written: an extraordinary blend of deeply researched academic analysis and revealing memoir.
– Iain Banks, author of The Wasp Factory

Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but few things are more transfixing than a woman losing her mind onscreen. Horror as a genre provides the most welcoming platform for these histrionics: crippling paranoia, desperate loneliness, masochistic death-wishes, dangerous obsessiveness, apocalyptic hysteria. Unlike her male counterpart – ‘the eccentric’ – the female neurotic lives a shamed existence, making these films those rare places where her destructive emotions get to play.

Named after the U.S.-retitling of Carlos Aured’s Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN is an examination of these characters through a daringly personal autobiographical lens.

This sharply-designed book with a 32-page full-colour section is packed with rare stills, posters, pressbooks and artwork that combine with family photos and artifacts to form a titillating sensory overload, with a filmography that traverses the acclaimed and the obscure in equal measure. Films covered include The Entity, The Corruption of Chris Miller, Singapore Sling, 3 Women, Toys Are Not for Children, Repulsion, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, The Haunting of Julia, Secret Ceremony, Cutting Moments, Out of the Blue, Mademoiselle, The Piano Teacher, Possession, Antichrist and hundreds more!

CONTENTS

Introduction:
Have You Got a Magnificent Problem?

Part 1: Wound-Gatherers
The Entity; Paranormal Activity

Part 2: Broken Dolls
The Corruption of Chris Miller; The Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll; Singapore Sling; Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly; The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!; Martyrs; Images; 3 Women; Sisters

Part 3: All Safe and Dead
The Glass Ceiling; All the Colors of the Dark; Gently Before She Dies; Anima Persa; Let’s Scare Jessica to Death; The Reincarnation of Peter Proud; The Haunting of Julia

Part 4: Secret Ceremonies
Ms.45; Four Flies on Grey Velvet; Autopsy; The Perfume of the Lady in Black; Toys Are Not for Children; Secret Ceremony; The Witch Who Came from the Sea; Daddy; The Geography of Fear; The Ladies Club; A Gun for Jennifer; Defenceless

Part 5: Afterschool Special
Trance; May; The Collector; Out of the Blue; Don’t Deliver Us from Evil; Alucarda; Cutting Moments; In My Skin

Part 6: The Strange Passenger
Marnie; Born Innocent; Christiane F.; Streetwise; A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin; Footprints; Nabi: The Butterfly; La nuit des traquées; Love Me Deadly; Nekromantik

Part 7: You’ve Always Loved Violence
The Whip and the Body; The Frightened Woman; The Isle; Bad Guy; The Blood Spattered Bride; Rebecca

Part 8: Heal Me with Hatred
Symptoms; Prey; Cat People; The Devils; The Killer Nun; Mademoiselle; The Piano Teacher

Part 9: Piercing Reality
The Other Side of the Underneath; The Brood; Possession; Szamanka; Man, Woman and Beast; Antichrist

Part 10: You Carry a Coffin Today
Venus Drowning; Mermaid in a Manhole

Epilogue: The Monster at the End of this Book

360 pages, heavily illustrated in colour and black and white