Since I was a little girl, I was always drawn to stories that stayed away from the mundane. While I consumed my fair share of historical dramas and fiction revolving around princesses, stories wrapped neatly in a pink bow, I also always had an affinity for the stories that leaned into a more gnarly side of storytelling. “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” (yes, the whole box set), any book from the “Goosebumps” series, and “The Graveyard Book” all remain fond memories in my childhood psyche. Little did I know, as a weird kid with mild anger issues, these books would turn into something so much more for me.
As I got older, horror became something I allowed myself to lean into, especially once I realized not only could women be the main tragic heroine of a horror story, but also the authors of truly strange and heartbreaking novels that included horror as an important piece of their story. Mary Shelley, Shirley Jackson, Octavia Butler, and more paved the way for women to tell their horrific and horrible stories, no matter how gruesome or unfortunately revealing of the human condition.
Recently, within different horror book discussion spaces, the term “Weird Girl Horror” has appeared. This trendy title isn’t necessarily new, but the prominence of “weird girl lit” feels deeply important in an era where the women we are told to look up to are actively shrinking, both physically and politically. We live in an age where not only tabloids distort the images of celebrities and cultural icons, but the celebrities themselves edit every photo they post to whatever social media platforms may be benefiting them the most in this current climate. I am even more impassioned to continue and encourage discussion around any book, especially those written by women/non-men who write about misbehaving and going against societal norms, or altogether coming undone.
Within the last five years, films like The Substance (2024), Pearl (2022), and The Ugly Stepsister (2025) have emphasized the performance of gender not only as painful and miserable but absolutely horrific. These dramatized and exaggerated versions of stories we have heard and seen before within our own lives, histories, and media cycles continue to showcase how deeply impactful the performance of gender is, even, and especially, today. In a world of John Wick action heroes, never-ending reboots, and a criminally low number of women in the director’s chair, it is more important than ever to appreciate and uplift stories about women unraveling, becoming their worst nightmares, and coming undone.
All too often, male writers and directors get away with their thinly veiled fetish as the plot of a horror film, or a specific shot on a hippie girls feet in their newest film, or producing films and television where the female/non/male characters do not speak about anything other than a man. It is exhausting. It is a performance in itself to pretend to discuss films that do not consider women with any real thought or consideration. This is not to say that all media created without women in mind or center stage is to be tossed aside – The Thing (1982) is one of the greatest films of all time – or that toxic or insensitive media cannot be used to inspire or create something new and beautiful, as is the case with Sleepaway Camp (1983) and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026).
Across genres, decades, and media formats, stories about weird or abnormal women have given a place for the weird girls (“girls” as in anyone who enjoys this genre of literature; gender is a construct), as I hope to do with this website and my niche interest. Follow along for more discussions, recommendations, and reviews, and make sure to stay weird.
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