It's that time of the month, ladies! I'm talking cramps, bloating, mood swings! I'm talking a typhoon of hormones and phantom baby rage let loose upon your uterus, with your own personal crime scene to admire every time you go to the bathroom! That's right, it's your period, and it's happy to see ya!
Despite the week-long maelstrom they bring with them, periods really are an amazing phenomenon. It's our uniquely feminine connection to the earth, the will of the tides, the waning of the moon. Even in such an unpleasant state, I can't help but get a sense of my feminine energy being recharged, this pain representing a sort of rebirth. My time of the month is when I feel most female, and that in itself is a beautiful thing.
All that being said, it still really fucking sucks. For me, the first day is always the worst. It's like a vampire is literally draining me dry from my most vulnerable place, taking all my energy with it. All I'm good for that horrible first day is curling up with a heating pad and watching some movies. And since I tend to watch stuff that fits my mood, this monthly celebration of womanhood deserves female-driven films dripping with blood. Here are some of my recommendations for your next camp out in the Red Tent.
CARRIE
The pinnacle of all period movies, Stephen King's Carrie as imagined by Brian de Palma is an absolute classic. But that's not the one I'm talking about. I love it to pieces, but it also makes me cry, and given my delicate state, I'm especially vulnerable to such emotional outbursts. So how do I enjoy the ultimate menstrual movie without weeping? Simply pop in the 2002 made-for-television remake and get ready to have some fun! This movie jazzes up Carrie's powers with bad CGI, beating the 2013 movie to the punch, and threw in a modern touch and a few jokes for extra flavor. The result still doesn't hold a candle to de Palma's masterpiece, but it's more like the Lifetime version of Carrie, cranking up the melodrama and tasking pretty good actors with terrible dialogue. Angela Bettis (May, The Woman) makes a fantastic Carrie, playing it as a true weirdo outcast, all wild hair and jittery meltdowns. Margaret White as portrayed by Patricia Clarkson (The Green Mile, Easy A) is somehow more chilling than ever, all soft soothing tones as she recites archaic verses before throwing a sudden cold slap to the face--plus the horrified way she says "Internet!" is truly priceless. Add appearances by horror alums Jodelle Ferland (Silent Hill) as a young Carrie and Katherine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps, American Mary) as one of the mean girls, and you've got yourself a fine addition to the long line of King adaptations that tried to be truer to the book and ended up forgotten by everyone but thinkpiece writers who grew up with cable.
GINGER SNAPS
Let's see how Katherine Isabelle likes it when she gets a period! Another great film where the plot is kicked off by someone's first blood, Ginger Snaps takes the idea of menstruation and blossoming womanhood and turns it rabid. I don't know anyone who enjoys getting their period, but I certainly didn't know anyone in school who never wanted one in the first place. It's a rite of passage, a sign of growing up, and something every girl wants to experience at some point. From Ginger and Bridget's point of view, becoming a woman and becoming a monster are one and the same. Neither of them intend to grow up, or at least go anywhere the other won't follow. When Ginger is bitten by a werewolf on the eve of her first period and has no choice but to become both, the true horror emerges from how much she likes it. She's suddenly more interested in boys than having suicide photoshoots with her sister. She relishes the power that comes with this body, but when it begins to turn on her, she is powerless to stop it. You could pick apart the parallels between lycanthropy and femininity all day, from a body charged by the moon to a hunger for sex that borders on bloodlust. Ginger Snaps pulls all the humor and tragedy of The Curse together into one sweet package.
TEETH
I think every girl has felt the storm brewing inside her once a month and wondered what her ladybits could be capable of if given the right tools to lash out. Teeth takes a legend as old as time and puts it in the modern day, hilariously bestowing vagina dentata upon a young abstinence advocate. This is another about the geyser of complications that comes with budding womanhood, most of it stemming from the chaos going on in your nethers. Teeth beautifully renders one of the more delicate horrors of being a teenage girl, especially growing up with a Christian identity. You aspire to purity and marriage while the motives of the mystery in your pants invades your every other thought, and should you choose to act on those desires, you face a multitude of risks even more severe than sinner's guilt. Dawn (Jess Weixler) has one of the most satisfying arcs I've seen in a horror film--starting out as a timid girl afraid of the potential of her own body, coming away at the end transformed into a liberated, powerful praying mantis of a woman with one hell of a secret weapon.
EXCISION
What woman hasn't discovered an especially gnarly glob of raspberry jam in her panties and taken a second to marvel at the repulsive wonders of the human body? A polar opposite to the protagonist of Teeth, Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) is fascinated by her own body, right down to the gory details. One of the unsung heroines of feminist horror, Pauline makes every effort to reject any hint of traditional femininity. She's enamored with blood, purposefully unkempt and gleefully crass, most of her antics in direct rebellion against her prim mother (Traci Lords). When she decides to lose her virginity, she marches right up to her chosen mate and bluntly declares her intentions. What she doesn't mention is that she's scheduled their hookup during the heaviest day of her flow. The tryst that follows is a highlight in a film that's stuffed with amazing moments, cutting between the blood-soaked passion pit in Pauline's head and the squelchy reality in a dingy motel room. The disgusting delights of this film only escalate from there. In an industry that's lousy with flawless hotties being hot for hotness' sake, it's so refreshing to have a female protagonist that is just a powerhouse of gross and flaunts it shamelessly. For once, the outcast girl is not the shrinking violet in need of some gentle soul to notice her, but instead a sexually-charged psychopath who dreams in giallo gore. Definitely the kind of girl I can get behind when I'm feeling a weird mix of profoundly unattractive, inexplicably horny and capable of terrible things.
JENNIFER'S BODY
Ever get to a point in your cycle where you just want to rip a man apart based on the simple truth that he doesn't have to deal with this shit? And does that thought lead to remembering all the other things men don't have to deal with, like catcalls and bra shopping and sneezing right after applying mascara and systematic oppression dating back to time immemorial and suddenly you find yourself staring daggers at your fiance and digging your fingernails into your thigh to keep from scratching his eyes out? Or is that just me? Anyway, Jennifer's Body is a great way to take that fantasy for a walk and have a few laughs along the way. Jennifer (Megan Fox) is the girl we all hated in high school, outrageously beautiful with her pick of any boy she lays her sultry blue eyes upon, her seductive ways hiding a fragile ego and girlish naivete. When a satanic ritual goes sour because she lies about being a virgin, Jennifer develops demonic powers and starts feeding on local boys, working her way toward the one thing she could never have: her best friend's boyfriend. Jennifer's Body has some interesting things to say about the more poisonous aspects of female friendship, despite a few kinks in the flow (I'm looking at you, girl on girl makeout scene that was only included for the misleading trailers and you know it), but like Ginger Snaps it speaks to the little ways girls can grow apart as they grow up, sometimes over something as petty as our own insecurities. At the end of the day, it's just so much fun to watch lovely Megan Fox unhinge her jaw and slurp up boy blood, and it's a lot healthier than taking out those jolts of misandry on the men in your life.
THE DESCENT
Six women go spelunking into an uncharted cave full of dead ends, tight tunnels, deep pools, and unknowable darkness. If you've studied your literary analysis, you'll recognize this as six characters in search of an exit from a giant vagina. (The sheer imagery of the blood swamp at the climax is enough to give any menstrual girl a nagging sense of deja vu.) Make those characters kick ass women--each with a well established personality and active purpose among the group as well as driving motivation based on interpersonal relationships with one another as well as survival--and you really can't get much more girl power than that. Throw some mole people into an already harrowing situation and we've got a wild ride ahead. This film is so intense and definitely the biggest downer of the list, but it's hard not to get jazzed up watching these women dangle over chasms by their bare hands and wriggle through tunnels with little more than a "woohoo!" once they get to the other side. It's not many horror movies that can claim to be more terrifying before the monsters show up, but The Descent understands that the true horrors come from what you bring with you down into the cave. (That's another vagina metaphor for you.)
DUMPLINGS
With all the age-reversal pills and potions on any given skin care aisle, it's enough to drive any woman insane searching for the ultimate product that would return everything she has lost between the lines on her face. It's hard to shake the feeling that maybe the answer lies in a more ancient, infinitely more barbaric solution. Effortlessly cool spinster Aunt Mei (Bai Ling) has a business selling homemade dumplings guaranteed to restore beauty and vitality to the women who eat them. The only catch is that the secret ingredient is a bit hard to come by...aborted fetuses don't just grow on trees. When one of her customers, Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung), craves a stronger product, Mei tells her the only solution is a rarer variety of meat--one that comes at an unspeakable cost. Dumplings examines the roles women are expected to fill--to be beautiful and to bear children--and wonders what happens when a woman chooses priority of one over the other, and what she would do to keep what she has worked so hard to claim. Feminine fears are in injected into every frame of the film, from the paranoid suspicion of a husband's infidelity, to the profound horror of realizing that you are the source of that strong fishy smell wafting through the room. Plus it's hard not to notice the delicious imagery of fetuses being re-purposed as filling for suggestively shaped pillows of dough. Whether you choose to watch the original short included in Three...Extremes (which I recommend) or the full-length film, this movie is a deliciously uncomfortable journey through the body when we see it as magic, a vessel charged by the power we feed to it.
So how ya doing, champ? Has the storm subsided, or does it still feel like goblins are chasing cave divers through your guts? Pop another Midol and take a hot bath, you beautiful menstrual monster, and never be ashamed of what you're going through. We may not be able to discuss Shark Week at the water cooler, but we can at least feel that female power and inherent understanding through the movies, the bloodier the better. Never forget the ancient power given to you, how it has frightened and fascinated men across the ages, and always remember that if you can withstand this torment from within, you can face anything waiting for you out there. Solidarity, my sisters! Let us not bleed alone!
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