Most Innovative Women in Horror: Elisabeth Fies's List

Women in Horror Month is wrapping up as February draws to a close, but the short month is hardly enough recognition. There are innovative filmmakers of the feminine order pushing boundaries in the horror genre and legends of their time that deserve recognition. Filmmaker and co-founder of BleedFest, Elisabeth Fies schooled me on 10 of the most innovative women in horror.

#10. Karen Walton is the award winning Canadian screenwriter of the cult hit, "Ginger Snaps." If David Cronenberg got a sex-change, with all the feminist sensibility to boot, then had a moonlit conversation with Joss Whedon about werewolves, "Ginger Snaps" might be the result. Walton gave director John Fawcett a script that completely re-interpreted the werewolf genre. We can only hope that Walton will continue the recognition and get the green lights to wow fans even more.

# 9. Elisabeth Fies . Ok, so I slipped this one in without Elisabeth knowing, as I've been highly impressed by the acclaim and press she's gotten for her film "The Commune." Not only has she busted through genre with a boundary-morphing first film, Fies also co-runs BleedFest, which is becoming an essential dais for women filmmakers in horror. Few filmmakers rake in acclaim for a debut film like Fies did and that, matched with her advocacy for women filmmakers is a deadly combination for women to watch.

# 8. Doris Wishman past away in 2002, but in her 42 years directing, writing and producing films she is unmatched. If Roger Corman is King of the B Movies, then Wishman is the Queen B. Her cult status as a director was only recently realized and long overdue. Wishman innovated B movies and genre films by mashing up horror, sexploitation, comedy and a touch of sci-fi here and there. She challenged the male dominated exploitation films with movies that could not be denied.

# 7. Bette Davis was a legendary American actress whose movies certainly sound like horror films with "Hell's House," "Of Human Bondage" or "Another Man's Poison"; none of which were Horror movies. Though, Davis's contributions to Horror came in later films like Robert Aldrich's, "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" and "Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte." More importantly, Bette Davis was a trailblazer who set the bar for actresses, both in style and professionalism. Not only was Bette Davis an Oscar winner, but the first woman president of the Academy and the first female recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

# 6. Mary Harron is another Canadian screenwriter/director who has only released 4 major features, but her films have become a triumvirate of feminist cinema. Harron is best known for her film "American Psycho," based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel and has since become a landmark of sophisticated horror. In many ways the character of Patrick Bateman embodied the misogynistic physical and emotional violence women suffer, which Harron also touched on in her documentaries "I Shot Andy Warhol" and "The Notorious Bettie Page." The latter documentary gave testament to that poster-girl of independent women, the iconic Bettie Page.

# 5. Debra Hill fought an uphill battle for recognition in Hollywood in more than two decades of filmmaking. She was well known for her collaboration with horror legend John Carpenter, but also produced a number of highly acclaimed films in the 80s and 90s. Hill made tremendous contributions to Horror as a screenwriter on films like "The Fog" and the "Halloween" film series. Hill died in 2005, but not before leveling the playing field for women in Hollywood and beyond.

# 4. Maya Deren was perhaps one of the most important women in independent cinema of the 20th century. Deren was a polymath, an artistic tour de force in her lifetime as a filmmaker, theorist, editor, writer, director, actress, dancer, poet, choreographer and photographer. Sadly, her body of innovative work is largely unknown outside of academic and feminist circles. Her films were avant-garde masterpieces and works such as "Meshes of the Afternoon," can be said to be horror-esque. Deren didn't just push boundaries; she completely erased them and created a cinematic world with visionary surrealism.

# 3. Anne Rice is the best known women horror author, second only to a legend like Mary Shelley. Her works in horror, erotica and even spirituality have touched millions of lives. Her "Vampire Chronicles" took the Vampire myth beyond Nosferatu or Dracula, works that became the cultural force inspiring the current frenzy over vampires ("True Blood", "Twilight"). Rice is the most subtle of the innovators listed here, as her works are so incredibly successful that her feminist values have a cloaked presence, perhaps most evident in her erotic works.

# 2. Alice Guy-Blaché is largely credited with being the first women filmmaker in cinema history. Though, this wasn't a chance occurrence where she just happened to be the first woman behind the camera. In the infantile years of film history, Alice Guy was head of production at a French studio and was said to oversee well over 700 films. She had this massive outpouring of cinematic innovation, especially in terms of building a narrative style for filmmaking, for about 10 years at the turn of the century. In France at the time, filmmaking was taking shape in the hands of the Lumiere Brothers and Georges Méliès, but by sheer output and innovation, Alice Guy is dramatically underappreciated in history books. She is the matriarch of women in cinema.

#1. Mary Shelley is a name synonymous with horror, but she is also a daughter of classical feminism; literally. Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, who died just days after Shelley's birth. Though, Shelley carried on her mother's legacy in the written word, but in the unlikely form of the masterpiece "Frankenstein." This novel needs no introduction as to its impact on horror, but Shelley's inherited feminist vision was fully interpreted with the novel's revival in feminist criticism of the 1970s. With Shelley, it's not difficult to fathom that there is something profound in celebrating Women in Horror Month. The author carried a torch of feminism realized centuries after its birth in, arguably, the most important horror novel of all time.

Check back here, or subscribe on my profile page as I'll be publishing more Horror lists with Elisabeth Fies, like The Top Female Killers of Classic Horror, Top 10 Heroines of Mainstream Horror and more.