Men, Women, and Chain Saws Quotes

“[W]here Satan is, in the world of horror, female genitals are likely to be nearby. The word vulva itself is related to valve — gate or entry into the body — and so it regularly serves for all manner of spirits [...] in occult horror. When the seance in Don’t Look Now stalls, the blind medium turns suddenly to Laura: ‘Are your legs crossed?’ [...] Whatever else those crossed legs may mean, they also signify access blocked; only when she uncrosses them can the seance go forward.”
― Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film

“To applaud the Final Girl as a feminist development, as some reviews of Aliens have done with Ripley, is, in light of her figurative meaning, a particularly grotesque expression of wishful thinking.”
― Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film

“This is a field in which there is in some sense no original, no real or right text, but only variants; a world in which, therefore, the meaning of the individual example lies outside itself. The "art" of the
horror film, like the "art" of pornography, is to a very large extent the art of rendition or performance, and it is understood as such by the competent audience. A particular example may have original features, but its quality as a horror film lies in the way it delivers the cliché.”
― Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film