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Since the 1970s, the ‘slasher’ movie, with its violence towards women and the surviving ‘final girl’, has been a constant presence in the horror genre to the delight of some and the perplexed dismay of others. Traditional academic approaches to the genre have tended to make assumptions about who is watching these films and why. This article uses a Jungian-inflected approach to reconsider the potential meaning of the genre, suggesting that the violence in the films is less an exhortation to violence against women, but rather a representation of women's experience of patriarchy, with the ‘final girl’ as a figure of resistance. The article also considers the meaning of the more contemporary ‘final girl as perpetrator’ slasher films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the special issue on moving image-related topics including the films of Australian director Baz Luhrmann, slasher films genre, and Federico Fellini's work in relation to Jungian analysis of midlife and creativity.