12 Most Badass Women in Horror

Starring opposite a masked madman of epic proportions, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) is John Carpenter’s babysitter who launched a thousand sequels. She also proved one should never underestimate what a woman can do with a knitting needle.

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Hell hath no fury like a jilted woman who also happens to be stuck in a cave crawling with cannibalistic creatures. Armed with a pickaxe and a nothing-to-lose attitude, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) is one of Doomsday director Neil Marshall’s greatest creations.

Never judge a woman by her size; judge her by her booby traps. Skilled in the art of ambush, Erin (Sharni Vinson) is the female lead this mumblegore horror by Adam Wingard. She may look petite, but she’ll turn the contents of your skull into tartare if you cross her.

Though Cillian Murphy is technically the lead in Danny Boyle’s frenetic infection flick about a monkey-transmitted Rage virus turning the people of London into lightning-fast people eaters, Naomie Harris has a way of stealing the scene—and wielding a machete. Michonne from TWD, take note.

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Regan, played by Linda Blair, is the 12-year-old star of William Peter Blatty’s semi-true horror story. She spends the majority of the film under the influence of a demon named Pazuzu. While she technically serves as the film’s antagonist post-possession, we still love her. And we’re not sure what makes her more badass: her swivel head tricks, crab-walking talents, or projectile pea-soup vomit.

Lovely she is—especially when she’s fraternizing with a horned devil in Eduardo Sanchez’s first-person horror about a woman haunted by her past. A challenging role that finds newbie actress Gretchen Lodge nude for much of the reel, it’s one she absolutely slays.

You can’t have a list of badass females without including the baddest of them all: Lieutenant First Class Ellen Louise Ripley. This pulse-rifle-toting cosmonaut who can annihilate space invaders with a child strapped to her hip is one of horror’s toughest protagonists—regardless of gender. She may as well be the inspiration behind the saying Who’s your daddy?

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Nothing gets past this feisty diner waitress—not even the dangerous soldier claiming to be her deceased soldier brother’s buddy. Go ahead and encore Maika Monroe’s badassery with her follow-up strong-female role as Jay Height in It Follows.

Originally titled Day of the Woman, the 1978 original of I Spit on Your Grave stars Camille Keaton as a writer who gets raped by a mob of perverts in the woods of upstate New York, then gets her bloody, burning, dismembering revenge.

Her boyfriend tried. His mother tried. Her cousin tried. Even her own half-brother tried. But no one could take out the star of Wes Craven’s wildly successful franchise from the 1990s. Neve Campbell’s Sidney makes bloody stew out of a slew of killers, all of whom take cosplay a little too far.

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“They’re all going to laugh at you,” Margaret tells her outcast daughter played by Sissy Spacek. Fast-forward to Carrie’s telekinetic fit triggered by a blood-soaked prom-night prank, and Carrie gets revenge on her peers by trapping them in a burning gymnasium. Who’s laughing now?

A manipulative bachelor auditions pretty young things to star in what will be, in his humble opinion, their finest role yet—his wife. But he shouldn’t be surprised when the ex-ballerina he plucks from the crowd isn’t so keen on the arrangement, and instead takes to torturing him with needles and severing his limbs with a piano wire.