Are horror films inherently misogynistic?

[irocfan]

as per the title. I suppose you'd be on a safe bet saying that traditional horror films most definitely are but the newer ones?

[JagLover]

I suppose the issue becomes where does the urge to see women killed and mutilated come from? and as you have said many of the older ones played up the female victims, in their marketing as much as anything, to get people to watch them.

Later they then tried to counterbalance this by often having the one to survive being the "final girl" and introducing an element of female empowerment by this. This seems similar to all the "rape revenge" movies where the female spends the first half being abused and the second half transformed into Rambo.

I am not a particular fan of horror movies anyway unless they are clever (The Shining is a brilliant film), but analysing the need they fulfil in the human psyche is likely to take you to some dark places.