Abstract
This article examines the films of Jen and Sylvia Soska – in particular American Mary (2012), See No Evil 2 (2014) and Rabid (2019) – in order to consider how their unapologetically gory, effects driven horror films challenge dominant narratives around women in horror and genre legitimacy. Through a consistent emphasis on the body as spectacle, prosthetic gore and female rage, the Soskas carve out a space within the genre that resists the aesthetic and narrative expectations so often placed upon women in horror and their work.
While critical attention has rightly celebrated the wave of women-led horror films released post 2010 – including The Babadook (Kent, 2014) – it is notable that praise tends to be bestowed upon those films whose treatments of trauma, madness, or monstrosity lean more heavily towards the metaphorical rather than the corporeal. The Soska sisters, by contrast, occupy a different – and arguably deliberately marginal – space both stylistically and industrially.
As opposed to the subtle and suggestive tendencies argued to be characteristic of ‘elevated’ horror – and, by extension the kinds of horror most often granted cultural legitimacy – the Soskas have repeatedly aligned themselves with the aesthetics of splatter and exploitation cinema. Drawing from traditions that celebrate excess and grotesque materiality, they create films that centre female protagonists who violently and graphically reclaim their agency in response to both institutional and intimate forms of masculine aggression and control.
This article will explore the recurring motif of the commodified body within the Soska’s work, in particular the casting of actors such as Danielle Harris and Katherine Isabelle – both cult genre figures – and WWE wrestlers like Kane and CM Punk. These are bodies and performers already marked by prior forms of visibility and subcultural fame, and these associations are deliberately utilised and recontextualised in the body-centred aesthetic of the Soska’s work. Relatedly, this article considers the ways in which the Soska sisters, through various interviews, appearances, and cameos, have presented their own bodies and identities to position themselves as creators who claim authorship on their own terms, reflecting the themes of self-authorship and transformation to be found in their films.
Ultimately, this article argues that the Soska sister’s work represents an underacknowledged strain of female-led horror that is rooted in DIY aesthetics and a refusal to sanitise the grotesque. Ultimately, I will argue that to overlook the Soska sisters is to miss a vital strand of post-2010 horror – one that insists on the body as a site of spectacle, transformation, and revenge.
While critical attention has rightly celebrated the wave of women-led horror films released post 2010 – including The Babadook (Kent, 2014) – it is notable that praise tends to be bestowed upon those films whose treatments of trauma, madness, or monstrosity lean more heavily towards the metaphorical rather than the corporeal. The Soska sisters, by contrast, occupy a different – and arguably deliberately marginal – space both stylistically and industrially.
As opposed to the subtle and suggestive tendencies argued to be characteristic of ‘elevated’ horror – and, by extension the kinds of horror most often granted cultural legitimacy – the Soskas have repeatedly aligned themselves with the aesthetics of splatter and exploitation cinema. Drawing from traditions that celebrate excess and grotesque materiality, they create films that centre female protagonists who violently and graphically reclaim their agency in response to both institutional and intimate forms of masculine aggression and control.
This article will explore the recurring motif of the commodified body within the Soska’s work, in particular the casting of actors such as Danielle Harris and Katherine Isabelle – both cult genre figures – and WWE wrestlers like Kane and CM Punk. These are bodies and performers already marked by prior forms of visibility and subcultural fame, and these associations are deliberately utilised and recontextualised in the body-centred aesthetic of the Soska’s work. Relatedly, this article considers the ways in which the Soska sisters, through various interviews, appearances, and cameos, have presented their own bodies and identities to position themselves as creators who claim authorship on their own terms, reflecting the themes of self-authorship and transformation to be found in their films.
Ultimately, this article argues that the Soska sister’s work represents an underacknowledged strain of female-led horror that is rooted in DIY aesthetics and a refusal to sanitise the grotesque. Ultimately, I will argue that to overlook the Soska sisters is to miss a vital strand of post-2010 horror – one that insists on the body as a site of spectacle, transformation, and revenge.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Horror Studies |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 2026 |
Keywords
- Women in Horror
- female directors
- Horror
- Professional Wrestling