From the earliest days of horror and fantasy cinema in the 1930s, the prevailing portrayal of women as passive victims began to be challenged and subverted through the iconography of female monsters. By the 1950s, as moral guidelines and censorship relaxed across much of the world, directors grew increasingly compelled to explore unsettling themes and experiment with visual storytelling, due to social and cultural transformations.

‘Femgore’ – a term eventually landed upon by cinephiles and critics to describe a horror subgenre that foregrounds female-centred gore and monstrous femininity – is historically associated with low-budget films made by independent filmmakers or small studios, often with the freedom to experiment with narrative, themes, aesthetics and taboo subjects. Its foundations emerged in the early 1960s, amid shifting gender politics, the sexual revolution, and the rise of second-wave feminism. As society renegotiated new ideas on female power, autonomy and womanhood, cinema gradually followed.

One of the earliest proto-femgore examples is Vampyros Lesbos (1971), Jess Franco’s low-budget, experimental erotic horror tale. The protagonist is a lesbian vampire whose presence acts as a figure of rebellion and liberation, recasting the expected dynamic of cinematic roles, rejecting patriarchal power norms and reframing women’s desire as a source of independence rather than victimhood. Set between an erotic nightclub in Turkey and an enigmatic, isolated, private island, the film investigates themes of monstrous femininity, self-discovery and bodily autonomy.

The 1980s marked a crucial turning point. With the flourishing of feminist theory, lower censorship barriers and affordable home-video cameras, new voices – especially women’s – found fertile ground to participate in horror filmmaking and create transgressive work independently without studio gatekeeping.

Considered one of the first true, emblematic films of the early stages of modern femgore – a term that is still taking shape to this day – made by a female director, Jackie Kong’s Blood Diner (1987) was a groundbreaking entry in an entirely male-dominated field at the time. Her gender-aware approach embraces extreme gore – cannibalism, dismemberment and sacrificial organ removal – making a mockery of male violence against women and misogyny through entertaining, satirical cult comedy, and earning her a place as the pioneer of authentic female gore.

Uncanny Sally, inspired by analogue horror and feminist filmmaking, delves into a 1980s collection of alternative feminist-grotesque short films guaranteed to make your skin crawl. Platforming the work of underrepresented international female filmmakers including Cecelia Condit, Judith Barry, Dagmar Doubková and Alison Maclea, this programme explores female fantasy, sexuality and anxiety through a potent blend of humour, beauty and macabre discomfort. The five surreal, rarely screened feminist fairytales will be revived as part of the London Short Film Festival at Rio Cinema, Dalston, on January 28th 2026 at 6PM, followed by an 80s horror-themed quiz. The audience is invited to rediscover and re-examine uncanny stories with a distinctly feminist eye from a fresh, modern perspective in a feverish programme that brings sharply into focus the relevance of such historical voices to today’s society.