With this section I found many instances where Häxan reverberated through the witch horror film of the seventies especially with regards to the engagements between gender, power, and culture. Nearly a dozen witch horror films were produced between 1970 and 1979. The two horror films found in this chapter, 1972’s Jack’s Wife directed by George Romero and 1977’s Suspiria by Dario Argento, were chosen specifically because of them being the most exemplary of the genre at the time. Jack’s Wife produced in the USA, is an excellent example of the American exploitation film, while Suspiria, produced in Italy and Germany, is the most influential giallo film ever produced – both directors are lauded cult directors. The giallo and exploitation genres are discussed in more detail throughout this chapter. What is important however to note, especially from a New Historic perspectives, is that both these genres are explicitly bound to the seventies. Elements of exploitation and giallo still exist in film today, but to a far lesser degree and not as a genre.
Both films problematize sociocultural aspects related to gender, power, and culture in interesting ways. Jack’s Wife considers the context of the suburban housewife in early seventies America where men were the breadwinners and women stayed at home and raised the children. The film introduces witchcraft into a suburban context and its effects on a bored and lonely woman who has is aimlessly drifting within the suburban context of the time.
Suspiria on the other hand is more concerned with cinematic techniques, like mise-en-scéne and the use of stark colours to depict feminine power and evil, but it is also used to separate the male and female worlds from one another, which is interesting. The film additionally problematizes the link between women, power, and the abject in such a way that it becomes difficult to describe these elements as misogynist or not. The colours and mise-en-scéne seem to make a spectacle of feminine power and oppression – which is what Scott Wilson alludes to when he suggests the role of the New Historicist which is to create financial and aesthetic capital by aestheticizing said spectacles.
In both films it is not just the socio-historic context that should be considered, but the historic context of the 1970s film industry itself. The films from this era were more influential to future filmmakers than those from the preceding decades, especially where content is concerned (Platz, 2012:528-531;
Weiner, 2010:41). Hollywood film studios were still very much dominated by men at the time and in mainstream films women were generally still only cast in supporting roles (Platz, 2012:528; Zeisler, 2008:68). However, due to changes in the film industry in the late 1960s and early 1970s independent film studios became prominent and they produced more diverse films (Platz, 2012:528).
Exploitation films were independent productions made on small budgets which often contained lurid and graphic depictions of crime, violence, abortions, drug culture, and sexual violence with some of the films presented as thinly veiled educational productions (Miller, 2010:75; Weiner, 2010:41). The
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exploitation film also contains sub-genres, like sexploitation (emphasis on sex and nudity like the Roger Cormen films of the era), blacksploitation, which exploited black culture and gangs, and mondo films that were ‘documentaries’ created to shock the audience with brutal images as in Faces of Death (1978) (Goodall, 2010:245-246; McKendry, 2010:60, 70, 71). Foxy Brown (1974) is an example of a blacksploitation film with a black female lead (Pam Grier), while Switchblade Sisters (1975) has a young white female lead (Joanne Nail). Both films have been described as the first films ever produced where women actively control the plot and events of the film (Platz, 2012:528). One also gets the impression that the controversial scenes were more a reaction to the novelty filmmakers experienced in their newly found freedom to portray illicit material. Undoubtedly this was also a new experience for audience members. The way women were portrayed in these types of films was therefore more to do with profits than with what was socially permissible. The youth of the 1960s and their rock and roll lifestyles did however pave the way for this to happen, as seen in the previous chapter.
A Wikipedia search cross-referenced with IMDB revealed that the 1970s produced over 400 horror films, with most falling in the exploitation/sexploitation, slasher/torture, possession, rape/revenge, or vampire genres all generated by independent film studios (Wikipedia, 2020; Platz, 2012:528; Weiner, 2010:41; Zeisler, 2008:69). As stated, roughly a dozen films starring witches were produced during the period of 1970 to 1979 with some falling under the sexploitation genre, like Virgin Witch (1970).
Sexploitation films featured numerous nude or sex scenes without it contributing to the narrative in any way, often in combination with violence or torture (McKendry, 2010:58; Platz, 2012:528-529).
Some of these productions were often directed and produced by women with female leads, like the Doris Wishman films starring Chesty Morgan (McKendry, 2010:58-61, 63; Platz, 2012:528-529).
These films, though empowering for some men and women in the industry, did at times paint women as violent, deranged, hysterical, and overtly sexual, especially when produced and directed by men.
Some have argued that this was due to the perceived threat of women gaining power after Second- wave feminism and the resultant fear-mongering ignorant media houses perpetuated (Platz, 2012:529;
Zeisler, 2008:60-61, 64). The male-dominant media latched on to and exploited the idea that women would leave their husbands to start careers and decline to do their chores around the house,
destabilizing the familial hierarchy (Zeisler, 2008:62-63).
The aforementioned IMDB search revealed that these independent horror movies mostly originated from two countries, namely the United States of America and Italy. Jack’s Wife and Suspiria are very different in plot, production, and their portrayals of the witch. Both films are historically important for different reasons and have maintained a cult following over the years, indication their relevance to new generations over the last four decades. On a surface level Jack’s Wife has a strong emphasis on sex and nudity, with the witch desiring nothing more but to quench her lust. Suspiria on the other
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hand is more violent and gruesome than any of the films discussed up to this point, with the witches revelling in death and destruction. Sex, nudity, violence, and gruesome deaths would become prominent in horror films during the 1970s, but even more so in the 1980s. The following sections discuss sex, nudity, violence, and death in the seventies film context and what it means for the witch horror film and how it links back to the tropes and conventions established in Häxan which in turn originated from tensions between the Dionysian and the Apollonian.
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