I first caught "The Woman" when it was on Netflix a few years ago. Needless to say it was....uh, interesting. Pretty gruesome torture, and really perverse subject matter. I've seen differing interpretations of the movie's message - some argue its one of the most degrading films ever, and others argue it's an ultra-feminist piece. I honestly don't know where it falls personally as I didn't look that far into it upon first viewing.

The debate over the movie really piqued my curiosity. Digging into the history of the movie and the book series (Dead River Series by Jack Ketchum), the author isn't particularly known for a feminist viewpoint, but movies always differ from the book in their context. There's a few things I discovered when poking around:

Lesbian Subtext - it's obvious in the film that the daughter "Peggy" is a conflicted and weird kid due to heavy sexual abuse. The movie teases, but doesn't outright confirm, that she and her teacher Genevieve have something going on. Genevieve makes a few comments about her ("sexy body") and there's a few moments in the film where they interact that make it seem like something's going on.

Apparently, it doesn't actually stop there. There's no scripted sex scene between them, but there is obvious and visual intimacy that is hampered by Peggy's emotional issues/abuse at home in the film which later prompts Genevieve to head to her home. The real interesting part comes from Peggy's Interaction with "The Woman".

So, expanded upon but not actually in the film, is the strange exploration/trust/intimacy Peggy develops with The Woman. We know she feels horrible for her and helps her at the end of the film, and that The Woman "adopts" Peggy into her pack. What we don't see is that Peggy apparently makes her own repeated trips into the barn after her father and her brother are finished with her each day to help clean her up and dress her wounds.

At some point during these night trips, Peggy bridges trust into intimacy. There is an item cut from the final script drafts that details Peggy gradually building the trust by undressing in front of The Woman in a showing of solidarity with her, and then at one point unbinding one of her hands to allow her to stretch and relax her arm. She grabs Peggy forcefully which terrifies her, but The Woman doesn't attack her. She grabs Peggy's hand and moves it down to her vagina and makes her masturbate her. She then reciprocates by masturbating Peggy (who had stripped down earlier) and touching her all over her body, doing it gently - a stark contrast to how she is treated by Peggy's father and brother. She allows Peggy to bind her free arm again. These encounters repeat and build the bond between Peggy and The Woman, while the encounters continue to gradually become more intimate.

Female Torture/Genital Mutilation

So yeah, there's that part...the one in which i'm referring to being Genevieve's grisly end to the dog girl. For those maybe not remembering, the dog girl at one point bites down on Genevieve's vagina and tears a chunk of it off before killing her, in what may have been one of the most disturbing things I've seen. This, coupled with the nipple and vaginal torture that The Woman endures throughout the film is pretty barbaric, and was one of the main trigger points for backlash against the film. Some also argue that the death of the wife who, while not fully complicit in The Woman's torture, is too aloof to care, was a bit too extreme.

Ultimately The Woman overpowers the family, takes Peggy into her pack and they flee into the forest. Because of the gruesome revenge that the Woman and Peggy get to inflict upon the Cleek family, it is suggested that rather than being sexist it's actually empowering feminism. Others just think its some really sick, demented horror stuff. Curious what others think.