Where myth meets menace, and beauty carries a blade
This week’s watchlist slips into the shadowed realm of feminine folklore – where fairytales aren’t gentle, and femininity isn’t passive.. These five films explore the eerie, the sensual and the surreal, each one steeped in mood, mystery and mythic tension. Whether it’s spectral revenge or ritualistic rebellion, these stories remind us: the feminine is often framed as fragile, but it’s rarely powerless.
Mood & Theme
- Femininity as mystique, resistance and ritual.
- Fairytales reframed through horror, surrealism and psychological depth.
- Visual storytelling through lace, blood, fog and silence.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
- Mood: Ethereal dread, Victorian repression.
- Why it belongs: A group of schoolgirl’s vanish into the Australian wilderness, and the mystery is never solved. The film drifts like a dream – where innocence dissolves into myth.
- Styling cues: White lace, sunlit haze, nature as enigma.
She wasn’t rescued, she rewrote the ending
The Witch (2015)
- Mood: Isolation, religious paranoia, feminine awakening.
- Why it belongs: A puritan family unravels in the woods, and a young girl finds power in the very thing she’s taught to fear. A slow-burn descent into liberation.
- Styling cues: Earth tones, candlelight, forest silhouettes.
Fairytales aren’t always gentle, sometimes they’re warnings
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
- Mood: Feminist horror, teen satire, seductive vengeance.
- Why it belongs: A possessed cheerleader becomes a succubus, flipping the male gaze into a blood-soaked reclamation. Camp meets carnage.
- Styling cues: Glossy lips, locker rooms, firelight and eyeliner.
Kuroneka (1968)
- Mood: Ghostly elegance, feudal revenge, poetic horror.
- Why it belongs: Two women return as feline spirits to avenge their deaths. Stylised, haunting and steeped in Japanese folklore.
- Styling cues: Flowing robes, moonlight, black-and-white chiaroscuro.
Femininity when framed in shadow becomes myth
Sleeping Beauty (2011)
- Mood: Erotic detachment, ritualised passivity, dreamlike dread.
- Why it belongs: A university student enters a surreal world of sleep and submission. Feminine vulnerability becomes a site of control, performance and quiet rebellion.
- Styling cues: Pale skin, sterile interiors, crimson sheets.
Beauty can bruise, power can whisper
These films don’t just re-imagine fairytales – they reclaim them. Through spectral storytelling, ritualistic framing and emotionally coded visuals, they explore femininity as something haunted, holy and wholly cinematic.
This week, let yourself lean into the eerie, the elegant and the emotionally charged.
Ronin Cinema 