FINAL GIRL explores the slasher flicks of the '70s and '80s...and all the other horror movies I feel like talking about, too. This is life on the EDGE, so beware yon spoilers!

Aug 7, 2009

awesome movie poster friday - the HAG HORROR edition!

The other night I watched Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte and since then I've had hag horror on the brain. I'll admit, using the name "hag horror" (or its sister term, "hagsploitation") is ageist, sexist, and many other 'ist's that leave me feeling like a bad feminist. And yet...I think it's funny. Oh, what a moral dilemma!

What can I say? Give me Bette Davis wearing pancake makeup and screeching like a right wackadoo and I'm all over it.



















9 comments:

Magigreen said...

Man Agnes Moorehead is sooo awsome in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte

Stacie Ponder said...

I agree! As I was watching, I kept thinking how much fun it must have been for her to put on that awesome wig and chew the scenery like crazy.

Anonymous said...

Where is Curtains?!

The hag mask, etc.

Stacie Ponder said...

Yeah, I can see how Curtains might be a descendant, to a degree, of these films. The "hag" in "hag horror", though, refers more to the actresses involved than the killers themselves- these movies feature venerable, well-respected women who, upon growing older, were suddenly cast in these exploitative horror films. Really, it's a horrible term, but as I said, it makes me laugh!

William Kretschmer said...

Wow, I love those posters, will need to save them all:-)

Rhubarb said...

This genre soneeds reviving. Who want's to watch yet another zombie film when you could watch Olympia Dukakis and Angela Lansbury in a knock-down drag-out fight to the death. If only there agent's would return my calls.

Bill Walsh said...

Hag is sexist? What about geezer or codger? Them too? I have to find sex-neutral terms for mocking the old? Man. Off to the dictionary.

In the meantime, here are your Unsolicited Poster Translations:

The Belgian Strait-Jacketposter is probably the best: The Clipperess of Heads. I know Clipperess isn't a word and sure, it's sexist, I guess, but the French indicates her sex in the grammar, so blame them. The Dutch (Flemish, whatever—work that out among yourselves, clog-boys) at bottom says, The Decapitator. So, awesome, right?

The chocolatiers continue the good stuff with Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte with both titles meaning Lullaby for a Murder Victim.

The Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Aunt Alice translations are all pretty literal.

So there you go.

Walter L. Hollmann said...

Man, I wish Who Slew Auntie Roo was as good as the poster and the title. Alas, it's a little dull.

Holy crap do I want to see Maggie Smith and Judi Dench in a hag horror flick. That should be their final film together. Like, just before retirement, they play former beauty queens implicated in a forty-year-old murder, and the film climaxes with a duel. AN AXE DUEL.

Anonymous said...

I want to see that movie, Walter.

I like how young Aunt Alice is on te cover...considering in the film she is a year or two older.