In almost all critical writings on the horror film, woman is conceptualised only as victim. In The Monstrous-Feminine Barbara Creed challenges this patriarchal by arguing that the prototype of all definitions of the monstrous is the female reproductive body. Women as castrator constitutes the most significant face of the monstrous-feminine in film and Creed challenges the mythical patriarchal view that women primarily terrifies because of a fear that she might castrate . With close reference to a number of classic horror films including Alien, The Brood, The Hunger, The Exorcist, Sisters, I Spit on Your Grave and Psycho she presents the first sustained analysis of the seven faces' of the monstrous-feminine from a feminist and psychoanalytic perspective, discussing woman as monster in relation to woman as archaic mother, monstrous womb, vampire, witch, possessed body, monstrous mother and castrator.
Her argument disrupts Freudian and Lacanian theories of sexual difference as well as existing theories of spectatorship and fetishism in relation to the male and female gaze in the cinema to provide a challenging and provocative re-reading of classical and contemporary film and theoretical texts.