Best Female Revenge Horror Films

Instead of focusing on the obvious classic revenge films like I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left and the like, I have compiled a more atypical list you that might not be films that would immediately come to mind across different genres of horror and generation of film.

Diabolique (Les Diabolique) (1996 & 1955) - was originally a 1955 French black and white psychological thriller film, later redone in America and titled Reflections of Murder by ABC in 1974.   In 1993, another TV movie remake was created and was entitled House of Secrets and starred Melissa Gilbert.

In 1996, the film was remade again as Diabolique, starring Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani in the leading female roles, with Chazz Palminteri as the husband and Kathy Bates as the detective. The 1967 film Games, starring James Caan and Katharine Ross, has a different basic situation, but similar twists at the end, and again features Simone Signoret as the corrupt woman of mystery.

The film takes place mostly in a Catholic boarding school run by a nasty, controlling, cheating a-hole, Michel (Guy in the 1996 version portrayed by Palminteri). The school, though, owned by Michel's wife, a weak and frail teacher, Christina.  Michel (Guy in the 1996 version) flaunts his relationship with Nicole Horner, a sexy, confident, and sassy teacher at the school.

You can get the 1996 film, Diabolique for $2 here!

Rather than being enemies, the two women are actually very close buddies who bond in their hatred for their shared husband/boyfriend. He is physically and emotionally abusive to both of them (depending on the movie whether its physical or psychological).

Unable to stand his abuse of herself and her more defenseless friend, Nicole decides to change things. Christina is not totally down at first, but finally decides Nicole is trustworthy and its a good idea.   Using a threatened divorce to get Michel to Nicole's apartment in a remote location hundreds of miles away, Christina sedates him with a substance poured into his wine.

The women drown him in a bathtub and dispose of his remains in the school's dirty swimming pool that nobody uses. When his body floats tot he top, they believe its just going to look like a natural drowning. The plan goes smoothly until the body fails to surface, his corpse is disappears when the pool is drained. Christina's paranoia increases to Nicole's irritation. Nicole starts to be troubled by the missing body.

After a showdown between the women, each threatening to expose the other, Nicole discovers Christina trying to flee school grounds. Christina, who actually used to be a nun, is on her way to confession when Nicole shows her a newspaper article about a body found in the Seine whose features resemble Michel.

Christina goes to the morgue to identify who she thinks is her husband's body, only to
discover it isn't. Christina meets the former police commissioner turned private investigator, who assures her that he will discover what happened to Michel.
 
What Lies Beneath - What Lies Beneath is a 2000 American supernatural horror film that stars Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as a well-off couple who experience a strange haunting that uncovers secrets about their past.

Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) is living in Vermont with her husband, renowned scientist Dr. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford).   Last year Claire was in a bad caraccident that robbed her of fragments of her memory. This and the fact that her daughter goes off the college, leaves Claire profoundly affected.

The Spencers recently relocated into a home that was formerly owned and occupied by Norman's father.  Their neighbor's wife mysteriously departs after a loud argument with her husband, which are frequent and Claire begins to think Mary, the neighbor is dead and is haunting her due to the strange phenomena that is going on in her home only when she is alone.

Dying to find out what is going on and needing understanding from Norman, Claire invites a friend to join her for a seance in her bathroom, where she seems to be able to communicate with ghost.

Darkness Falls - is a 2003 American horror film that take places in Darkness Falls, based on Fall River, Massachusetts. It begins with the legend of a widow, Matilda Dixon, who was adored by all the town's children. Matilda gave them gifts and gold coins when they lost a tooth, thus earning her the name "Tooth Fairy".

After a fire in her home she is left horribly disfigured and sensitive to light.  She is forced to wear a porcelain mask and only leave her home at night.  Although children adored Matilda, adults were suspicious of her.  One day two children went missing.  Matilda was blamed by the adults.  They hanged her, and removed her mask.  She swore vengeance.  Soon afterward, the children returned home unharmed. The townspeople quickly buried Matilda's body along with their secret.

The legend told by the town is that her spirit visits children on the night they lose their last milk tooth as they sleep.  If anybody should see her spirit, they are cursed and marked for death.  She kills you.  
 
Kyle Walsh loses his last baby tooth and realizes soon after that Matilda Dixon is not just a story when she pays him a visit.  Realizing that light is her weakness, he shines a flashlight into her face and hides with the light on in the bathroom. His mother, trying to convince him there's nothing in his room, is killed after seeing the Tooth Fairy. 

The next morning, as the police arrive, Kyle is taken to a mental hospital after it is thought that he killed his own mother.  Twelve years later, when he reaches adulthood and is thought to be "well", Caitlin Greene calls Kyle to ask for help with her little brother, Michael, who refuses to sleep in the dark. 

After a visit to the hospital to talk to Michael - with his bag of flashlights, Kyle soon realizes that Michael has had an encounter with the Tooth Fairy. Michael, like Kyle, now has a gripping fear of the dark, and is thought to have gone insane. Afraid
of the truth, Kyle at first denies any relation to his condition, and walks away from Caitlin, his childhood crush and best friend.  

Orca (1977) - stars Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, and Will Sampson.
Captain Nolan, an Irish Canadian who catches marine animals to pay off the mortgage, and his crew are looking for a great white shark for a local aquarium, but a scientist named Ken is being targeted by a shark. A killer whale comes and kills the shark, subsequently saving Ken.

 

This switches Nolan's target to the killer whale. While Nolan is on the journey with his crew, he tries to capture what he believes to be a male whale, but mistakenly harpoons a pregnant female. She tries to kill herself and is injured by the boat's propellers, but Nolan and his crew get the orca on board, where she subsequently miscarries. The crew hoses the dead fetus overboard as the male looks on screaming.

Later that night, seeking release of his near-dead mate, the male orca tries to sink the ship. One of Nolan's crew members, Novak, cuts the female off the ship, but the male leaps and drags him into the sea. The following day, the orca pushes his now dead mate onto shore.

Alan Swain berates Nolan on his actions after finding the dead whale. Nolan denies responsibility, but Swain and the villagers eventually find out his involvement. The villagers insist that he kill the whale, as its presence is causing the fish vital to the village's economy to migrate. The orca then terrorizes the village, first by sinking two fishing boats in broad daylight and then by breaking fuel lines at night, which causes a fire and subsequent explosion of the village's fuel reserves. 

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987) - is the second installment in the Prom Night saga. It introduced the killer ghost Mary Lou Maloney, who returned in 1990's Prom Night III: The Last Kiss, which I have not yet seen.

In 1957, seventeen year-old Mary Lou Maloney enters a church, confesses her sins to a priest, which include disobeying her parents, using the Lord's name in vain, and having had sinful relations with boys. The priest gives her her penance and she tells the priest that she loved every minute of it and scrawls her phone number in the confession booth in red lipstick along with a message: "For a good time call Mary Lou."

Later, at the 1957 prom at Hamilton High, Mary Lou attends with Billy Nordham, who gives her a ring with her initials on it. Shortly after receiving his ring, Mary Lou sends him off to get punch while she sneaks backstage with Buddy Cooper, where the two are found making out by Billy.

 

Storming off after Mary Lou claims she used him, Billy, while in the bathroom, overhears two boys preparing a stink bomb and, when the boys dump the bomb in the trash because a teacher is coming, Billy takes it. When Mary Lou is crowned prom queen, Billy, sneaks up on the stage and drops the bomb on Mary Lou before she is crowned. To the horror of Billy and everyone in attendance, the fuse of the bomb lights Mary Lou's dress on fire and she dies buring, but not before seeing that Billy killed her.

Thirty years later, Vicki Carpenter goes looking for a prom dress in the Hamilton High prop room after being denied a new dress by her harsh, religious mother. While searching, Vicki finds an old trunk containing Mary Lou's prom queen accessories (her cape, sash, ring and crown) and takes them, releasing Mary Lou's spirit.

After Vicki leaves Mary Lou's clothes in the art room after school, Vicki's friend Jess Browning finds them and, after wedging a jewel out of the crown, is attacked by an unseen force and hung from a light by Mary Lou's cape. Jess's death is deemed a suicide caused by her depression over her recent discovery that she was pregnant by a boy who dumped her.

Vicki starts acting strange as she is possessed by the spirit of Mary Lou.  Did I mention her date to the prom was now the high school principal, Vicki was dating his son, and that the boy Mary Lou was making out with at the prom is now a priest?