For centuries, horror has done one thing to women: put them on display — either to be desired, or to be destroyed. They are never allowed to survive untouched.
From Chudails to Pontianaks, the story is always the same — women wronged in life who return, not as victims, but as revenge herself. They are cursed, they are horrific — but above all, they are warnings. Because horror doesn’t just punish them — it makes them punishment itself.
Look closer, and you’ll see — before they became ghosts, they were women in pain. Stree (2018) steals men at night because men once took from her. Bulbbul (2020) rises on twisted feet, a silent witness to sexual abuse. Pari (2018) carries the weight of a cursed bloodline, while Bhool Bhulaiyaa’s (2007) Manjulika was silenced — until she came back screaming (and dancing). These films do not just tell ghost stories. They turn female pain into something men must fear.
Horror clings to the image of the suffering woman; her pain makes her dangerous; her rage makes her inhuman. She is a mother, a daughter, a lover, a sister. But where are the vengeful male ghosts? Why is it always women who haunt?
The Psychology of the Haunting Woman
The suffering woman in horror is not just a character — she is an institution. Her rage is rarely framed as righteous, only gruesome. And yet, the men in these films, the ones who created the ghosts through their violence, are never forced into the same roles. Horror rarely turns their pain into something spiritual, but always supernatural. Instead, it fears women’s rage because a suffering man is just a tragedy, but a suffering woman is a threat.
In horror, a woman’s grief cannot be contained. Horror films, like society, do not know what to do with a woman who has nothing left to lose. Unlike real women, ghosts cannot be controlled, coerced, or condemned into silence. They do not bow, they do not break, and that is what makes them terrifying. She does not obey the ‘rules’ of victimhood — she rewrites them as a spirit.
But horror doesn’t only frame her as terrifying, it needs her to be terrifying. A woman who refuses to ‘let go’ is a woman who cannot be controlled. Her vengeance is horrifying because it is proof that harm does not disappear just because men choose to forget it. Unlike the tragic male hero, whose suffering fuels his redemption, a woman’s grief turns her monstrous. She is grieving too much, too long, too loudly. And in a world where male dominance depends on female submission, what could be more terrifying than a woman who refuses to forget?
This obsession with the ‘vengeful woman’ reflects a deeper cultural fear: that women who refuse silence must be punished. In horror movies, a woman who holds onto her pain becomes a demon. But even outside the cinema, isn’t that how society sees her too? The systematic fear of the ‘bitter ex,’ the ‘hysterical widow,’ the ‘unhinged woman’ are all labels for women who do not forgive, or forget. Ghosts like Mohini are scary, not only because they return, but because they demand to be heard. Meanwhile, a grieving man’s pain is seen as noble, even necessary. A woman’s pain is something ‘unnatural’. It is something that must be exorcised.
These stories were first whispered in societies that punished women for stepping out of line. Take Nale Ba, the urban legend that inspired Stree (2018)— a tale of a revenge spirit who knocks on doors at night, luring men outside to their doom. The only way to escape her wrath was writing ‘Nale Ba’ (‘Come tomorrow’) on the door, postponing her return forever. Even in folklore, men do not reckon with women’s anger, they only find ways to delay it.
Or take the Bengal legends that shaped Bulbbul — the stories of women transformed into Yakshis, their feet turned backward as punishment for defying men. Then there’s Pari (2018), which taps into the real-life case of Ritu from Madanpur, Delhi, blending it with the legend of the Ifrit, an Islamic demon. The film also draws from the lore of Aulad Chakra, a sinister Bangladeshi cult that worships Ifrit, believing in the forced birthing of demonic children. In Pari, as in these myths, the female body itself is a battleground: cursed, violated, and treated as something ‘gone wrong’. These weren’t just ghost stories, they were tools of control.
Horror didn’t invent the demonic woman; it inherited her. Then, it profits from their monstrosity.
Modern Horror: Breaking the Cycle or Repackaging It?
First, society preys on women. Then, it turns them into crazy monsters. Then, it makes horror movies about them to scare the rest of society into keeping them suppressed. And that fear sells.
Beyond the aforementioned films, South Asian horror continues to cling to the suffering woman. The Raaz franchise thrives on women being possessed, tormented, and exorcised. Tumbbad (2018), while not a ghost story, still traps women in cycles of generational trauma, their power tied only to secrecy and sacrifice. Raat (1992) and Mahal (1949) both center female spirits, yet their fates are ultimately decided by the men around them. No matter the decade, horror finds new ways to tell the same old story. These films don’t dismantle the trope; they just give it a new coat of paint.
This isn’t limited to South Asian horror — Hollywood does it too. The Conjuring universe (Annabelle, The Nun) is built on the suffering of women turned into cursed entities. The Ring and The Grudge center on female ghosts whose rage is unstoppable, but only after they have endured immense pain. Carrie (1976) gives us a teenage girl pushed to the edge, her supernatural power triggered only after relentless humiliation and abuse. Even in Western horror, a woman’s power is rarely just power, it is always a consequence of her suffering.
But why is this the story horror genre keeps re-telling?
Because it always has.
From Bollywood to Hollywood, from ancient myths to billion-dollar franchises, horror has never simply told stories about women. It has silenced them, and turned their pain into ‘ShowBiz’.
Lilith was the first woman who refused to obey a man, and for that, she was erased. In Jewish mythology, Lilith was Adam’s first wife, created as his equal. When she refused to be subservient, she was cast out of Eden and rewritten as a demon, a child-killing seductress. She was no longer a woman, she was a warning. Centuries later, the witches of Salem met a similar fate. They were not monsters, they were victims. In 1692, women in Salem were burned at the stake, drowned, and hanged because they were too independent, too outspoken, too different. They were accused of supernatural crimes they never committed. And yet, horror has resurrected the witch archetype as a villain again and again, erasing the fact that the real horror was the violent injustices they faced.
The narrative continues, and so do the profits. Audiences continue paying to watch. Horror not only tells of the pain women endure but sells it. A 2017 analysis found that female-led horror films grossed $2.2 trillion, compared to $1.3 trillion for male-led films. Meanwhile, a study by the Creative Artists Agency and Shift7 confirmed that between 2014 and 2017, films with female leads consistently outperformed male-led films at the global box office, debunking the assumption that male protagonists drive higher profits. The horror industry thrives on fear, but it profits off women. Look at the posters, the trailers, the wide-eyed screams frozen on screen. Women’s fear isn’t just at the heart of horror, it’s what keeps the genre alive.
Social psychological research has found that women in danger elicit greater empathy and emotional engagement than men, making them more compelling subjects for audience investment. Filmmakers know this. Whether it’s fear, discomfort, or voyeuristic fascination, people will pay to watch women suffer.
This is why the industry continues the patriarchal narratives that permeate the misogynistic fear of ‘angry’ women. Horror exploits women’s suffering because it is profitable, but it disposes of male suffering because it is forgettable. ‘The Disposable Male Trope’ ensures that men in horror die fast, brutal, and meaningless deaths. In slasher films, men are often killed off quickly and with little weight, while female deaths are drawn-out, hyper-visualised, and designed to elicit a reaction. Men are bodies. Women are tragedies. Horror makes men disposable and makes women a spectacle. One is forgotten, the other is fetishised. In a world where men are raised to be warriors and women to be emotional investments, horror reflects that same bias. The continuation of the cycle is by an intention design. The genre clings to the suffering woman because reinventing her would mean pulling out the tropes that make horror profitable. A woman who is angry but not broken, powerful but not punished, does not fit neatly into the horror formula.
Horror resists change because a new narrative about women is unorthodox. It surfaces the very anxieties that the genre has relied on for centuries—anxieties rooted in controlling women, in keeping their rage paced, and their voices muted. If horror stops punishing women, it might have to confront the truth: the real monster was never her—it was the world that made her one.
Will you watch the new narrative? Will it sell?
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Defining the Entities:
- Chudail: In South Asian folklore, Chudails are the restless spirits of women who suffered unjust deaths. They often appear as beautiful women to lure men, only to reveal their monstrous form and drain their life force as revenge.
- Yakshi: A notorious spirit in Kerala folklore, Yakshi seduces men before luring them to palm trees, where she drinks their blood. She is believed to be the ghost of a woman who met a violent death, embodying fears of female desire and vengeance.
- Pontianak: In Indonesian and Malaysian folklore, the Pontianak is the vengeful spirit of a woman who died during childbirth. She disguises herself as a beautiful woman to attract male victims, only to reveal her terrifying form before attacking.
- Mohini: A ghost from South Indian folklore, Mohini is said to haunt old wells, coconut trees, and forests. She exudes a deadly fragrance and preys on unsuspecting victims, forever seeking what she lost in life—love.
