Of Mothers and Witches: Performative Spaces of Femininity in Post-Horror Works – Antichrist, The Witch, Hagazussa, Sharp Objects

Resumen

The article will center on three films commonly included in – or considered to have somewhat anticipated and inspired – the recent post-horror cycle: Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2008), Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) and Lukas Feigelfeld’s Hagazussa (2017). Jean-Marc Vallée’s series Sharp Objects (2018), a TV series that has less explicitly been associated with the cycle or the horror genre as a whole, will be brought forth in the last section. The commentary on gender binding these female-led works together appears to articulate feminine representations in spatial terms: the first part of this essay will therefore strive to delineate these spaces – literal, psychic and narrative – that are imposed on the female figures of the films and of which the masculine agent is the self-appointed architect. As they address the historical containment of their female characters into the figure of the witch – transposed, in Antichrist’s case, in a contemporary setting –, these three works moreover depict an excessive adherence to this specific space of representation that reads, in light of feminist theories such as Judith Butler’s conception of gender as performance or Luce Irigaray’s views on hysteria, as a paradoxical act of resistance. In the final section, it will become apparent that Sharp Objects, in its reappropriation of spatial dynamics and folkloric elements outlined in Antichrist, The Witch and Hagazussa, brings the witch back home. The series’ portrayal of a poisonous feminine bloodline points out the oppressive patriarchal structures imposed on – and then perpetuated by – women and questions its ongoing consequences.