This research paper concentrates on a review of one very particular aspect of cinema, being the way that the killing of beautiful women is often treated in cinema. Why are beautiful women being featured in this paper? Well, because they are more often than not in these scenes presented as sex objects, creating what I believe is a conscious decision to mix sex and violence in many of these instances. The evidence in this paper is overwhelming in reaching this conclusion. Sometimes, these beauties are killed by other women, who may be jealous of their sexual appeal, but more often by men, who for one reason or another find that their sexual appeal is not enough to spare them, and who may actually take pleasure, perhaps even a perverse sexual pleasure, in killing them. It could be a rape gone bad, but taking into account the wide range of storylines being reviewed in this paper, that is certainly not the only reason. Perhaps, the men find themselves in a kill or be killed situation. Notwithstanding the reason that these beautiful women are killed, their eroticism is not lost on the viewer, and many male, and even some female, viewers see their demise in sexual terms. This is borne out by the many websites that address these issues and actually applaud the creators of these scenes, one being a website known as www.femmefatalities.com.
The movie poster to the left depicts a clear example of how some movies mix sex and violence by telling tales of men murdering sexy women, such as the one depicted in the poster. It is also not just movies, but many other forms of media, that depict this mixture of sex and violence. Such scenes are described in novels, which later often become the subject of movies, such as Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories that have depicted many scenes of sex and violence, such as in Goldfinger when a scantily clad beauty is painted in gold in order to kill her while leaving a sexy corpse to be displayed like a model from a photoshoot.
In addition to mainstream books, the pulp magazines of the 1930’s depicted sexualized female death on a regular basis in many of its stories, such as Sam Spade and similar detective stories. Horror also was depicted in the pulps, and translated nicely to slasher movies where sexy babes would be murdered, usually after displaying their sexual charms.
A couple of examples of the covers of these pulps are set out to the left, but there are many, many more, often depicting beautiful women being tortured by Nazi’s, taking into account the times in which these magazines were published. In the fifties, these same stories and covers were transferred to the pre-comics code comic book publications.
To the left are a couple of famous, or infamous, examples of such publications, being from the title “Crime Suspenstories”. Another of these pulp magazines was entitled “Tales from the Crypt”. It is interesting to note that “Tales from the Crypt” eventually became a TV series, and an example of Demi Moore’s appearance in one of the episodes as a murder victim is included in this paper.
Often, the victims in the films depicted in this paper are virtually unknown actresses; however, when well known, beautiful actresses or models perform a death scene, there is an immediate interest, just because it is an opportunity to see especially beautiful women acting out such scenes. For example, there are several death scenes filmed by hot actress Denise Richards, who I love to watch any time, anywhere. Another of many examples is Playmate model Shannon Tweed, who performs a death scene in “Possessed by the Night” where she is shot repeatedly in her perfect set. Casting a famous sexy woman in a death scene just adds an extra special allure to the scene, even if it would not have evoked this response if performed by a less attractive actress or model.
Notwithstanding the presence of all of the above factors, there are movies such as many of the slasher films, including “Scream 4″, where there are numerous deaths of beautiful women, but they do not have the same appeal for various reasons. Often the scenes are too quick, too bloody, and the victim is usually fleeing and screaming, and the victim’s body is often tossed aside after having been slain. In “Scream 4″, there is one view of a disemboweled female corpse, which is in no way sexually stimulating, even though the actress was beautiful when living. So, although there are exceptions, the most sexually stimulating female deaths are not always in slasher movies.
Matt Helm was a series based loosely on the James Bond movies starring Dean Martin. To the left is a movie poster for the foreign version of “The Ambushers”. You can see that Senta Berger’s murder is of prominent position in advertising this movie. This method of advertising stretched into the VHS and DVD age, so that VHS and DVD sleeves often featured sexy female deaths on the sleeve covers.
An example is set out to the left from the movie, “Pieces”, in which a sexy female in minidress is lying dead with her limbs apparently stitched back onto her body. This conveys a message not just of death, but of sex mixed inextricably with death.
Another example is the video sleeve for the movie “The Barcelona Kill”, which depicts a scene from the movie where a woman is being stabbed in the chest. The mixture of sex and violence on video sleeves is quite common.
There are a multitude of female death scenes in movies; however, this paper will concentrate on those that involve particularly sexy women and are filmed with good lighting and a good view of the killing scene. A lot of cinematic killings are either too quick to appreciate or filmed in a darkened area where very little of the victim can be seen. Especially in the slasher genre, there are many gory scenes that do not allow for the appreciation of the woman’s beauty, or actually obscures it, or that are too violent to be considered a sexy kill. Chainsaw killings are an example that springs to mind. Most of these type of scenes are not included in this paper; although, some few exceptions are, because the gory aspect of the scene does not obliterate the sexy aspect of the scene.
As a side note, showing that this is indeed a sub-genre of film-making, since the 90’s there have been productions by small production companies that concentrate on such female death scenes. There are an almost countless number of these productions; however, we have included only one sample in this paper as an example of films produced solely to capture the subject matter of this paper. This example is an asphyxia film loosely based on James Bond’s “From Russia With Love” as filmed by U.K.S.G., which stands for U.K. Strangle Girls, a British film company that has been filming such videos since the 90’s (See image to the left from UKSG’s “From Russia With Love”).
This paper is broken down into categories of female demises, such as strangulations, shootings and stabbings, as set out in the Index to this paper. Shootings and stabbings are easily relatable to the phallic symbols of a knife, similar in shape to a penis, or a gun, firing like an ejaculation. Strangulation, on the other hand, is a very close and passionate embrace, but a deadly one.
The reviews contained herein are not full movie reviews, but are comments on one aspect of the film, the female death scene contained therein, and the basic storyline in which the killing scene takes place. The clips are limited to the death scenes themselves, but usually show a limited prequel to show the reasons for the killing. So, please treat this paper as a catalogue of classic female death scenes that have been employed by other writers and directors with varying success over the 100 or so years of film-making history.
This paper is not promoting violence to women, but is merely documenting the fact that sex and violence have been entwined in many types of media for about 100 years, and may have both contributed to sexual violence as well as becoming an integral part of our society’s media industry.
This catalogue of movie clips is ever-expanding since the methods used for decades are still being used today. For example, in 2023 the TV series “Based on a True Story: Season 1” featured several brutal murders of sexy women, both in the main plot as well as in realistic dream sequences throughout the series.
Hope you enjoy this trip into the world of slashers and serial killers!