Although there have been several notable exceptions (Halberstam 1995; Berenstein 1996; Pinedo 1997; Williams 2002; Cherry 2002), theoretical discourse centring on horror film tends to privilege the male gaze and, consequently, the male spectator. The pervasive assumption that women do not derive pleasure from horror films is confirmed in the popular press; despite the growing visibility of female horror fans, the narratives which circulate around them reproduce gender stereotypes, as can be observed in Michelle Orange's article for The New York Times:

Given this critical landscape, it is perhaps not surprising that horror films authored by women have received so little scholarly attention. If we take into account those directors who have made the most successful horror movies in film history, it may seem true that creativity within this particular genre is dominated almost exclusively by men. However, although historically there may have been few women directing horror films in Hollywood, there have been a considerable number of female screenwriters and other professionals working in this genre – for example, producer and screenwriter Debra Hill, known for Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978 and its sequel in 1981, directed by Rick Rosenthal) and The Fog (John Carpenter, 2005) – and who, not being considered authors of the films which they co-created, have gone unnoticed in horror film histories. In fact, as Alison Peirse has recently suggested in her call for contributions for a new edited collection Women Make Horror, there has been an invisible history of women working in the horror genre since the 1950s.