Gore-geous!

Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, A24, and Universal Pictures

Is there a fiercer combination out there than a woman scorned and a blood-soaked gown? The prom (or Snowflake) queens, with their eyes burning and crazed grins staring down at their prey. Or how about the revenge-filled icons slinging guns and swinging axes? This Halloween season we will be looking into and sharing some of my favorite slaughter styles in horror films, complete with some old, some new, and some in-betweeners that are ready to show us a bloody good time.

Carrie White — Carrie (1976)

Directed by Brian De Palma

Oh, Carrie White. Bullied outcast, queen of the prom, and… telekinetic mass-murderer? This horror and fashion icon is considered to be the inspiration for many of the horror girlies– and their looks– that we know and love today.

When Stephen King first debuted Carrie White in his first published novel Carrie back in 1974, I highly doubt he was thinking about how iconic her prom dress would soon become.

The now-famous long sleeveless pink dress has become synonymous with Halloween costumes everywhere– but it’s not complete without the token accessory: one bucket of fresh pig’s blood.

While in the novel, Carrie’s dress is meant to be more “princess-like” with Juliet sleeves and red velvet fabric, Rosanna Norton– the costume designer that helmed Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) film– decided on a simple almost nightgown-like pale pink dress for Carrie (Sissy Spacek) to wear. The low neckline emphasizes Carrie’s rebellion against her overly religious mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie), who constantly reminds her that anything immodest is considered “sin.”

After getting her first period and being humiliated by her peers for it in a traumatizing and agonizing combo, Carrie soon finds that she’s unlocked a strange but powerful power inside herself: Telekinesis. This, as well as the blood, are very important parts of Carrie’s story, as they are mentioned several times throughout and used in ways to uplift her as well as demean her.

The color scheme, I think, was a great idea to change from red to a pale pink to help paint Carrie’s innocence and first steps into the world of femininity. It makes her look delicate–almost helpless– in a way that highlights how powerful she truly is on Prom Night. Plus, Norton did point out that her main reasoning for the color choice was to make sure that the blood would stand out on the dress– making Carrie’s blood-stained prom gown a staple piece in not just horror history, but film history forever.

Jennifer Check — Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Directed by Karyn Kusama

“Hell is a teenage girl.”

Like Carrie, Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body also deals with the highs and lows of growing up with supernatural powers– but instead of it being the school scapegoat, now it’s the mean queen bee. Yikes.

Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) and Anita “Needy” Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) are high school best friends that end up having to deal with a string of murders around their town when Jennifer suddenly goes from “high school evil” to “actually evil.” AKA becomes a literal man-eater.

The height of this comes up at their school prom, where Needy finds Jennifer trying to sink her teeth into her boyfriend, Chip (Johnny Simmons.)

Now, I’m sure Katia Stano had a lot of fun creating this late 2000s wardrobe, as there are a lot of amazing pieces (looking at you, Gap Kids Valentine’s Day hoodie) that were put together for Jennifer to wear. But my favorite has to be Jennifer’s prom dress, created by Jessica McClintock.

Like Carrie’s, it’s a simple long dress with light sleeves that’s meant to shed an innocent light on its model. But Jennifer Check is no Carrie White, and that’s something that Stano wanted to make sure of.

The white dress, made to paint her as a good girl, was altered with black lace on the skirt and midsection, and complemented with a black choker for Jennifer to wear to show the darkness that taints her. I love that Stano also added gloves to the look, as this makes her look almost like a vintage vampire, especially with the blood.

Grace Le Domas – Ready or Not (2019)

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

If there is something I love more than a bloody prom gown, it’s a bloody wedding gown. Which is why if Twilight was a horror movie, Bella’s blood-soaked wedding gown from Breaking Dawn Part 1 would definitely be on this list. Alas it is not, but Grace Le Domas’ wedding dress is nothing to scoff at either.

Grace (Samara Weaving) is very excited to start living her married life with her new husband Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien) until she meets his family. When they all come together for the family tradition of playing a board game to initiate the newest member of the Le Domas family, Grace picks the card for Hide and Seek, which carries a lot more weight than she realizes. A lot more deadly weight.

It was really funny for me to find out that designer Avery Plewes’ inspiration for Grace’s dress actually came from Kate Middleton’s wedding dress, because as soon as I saw it, that was the first thought that came to mind. The lace top of the dress is beautiful, and I thought the tulle skirt was actually an excellent match to complement the top. But then I found out that these were all specifically chosen by Plewes to serve a purpose for the turmoil that Grace goes through throughout the film.

Plewes picked lace due to how well it shows blood, as the request of Tyler Gillett, one of the directors of the film. She also wanted the skirt to be made of tulle because of how well it rips and the aesthetic that it gives off as it slowly becomes matted with dirt and blood. These materials do a great job at showing off Grace’s journey throughout the movie, as she ends up weaponizing the remains of her wedding dress for her showdown with her in-laws. What was meant to tie her to the Le Domas family forever and hurt her, she flips the script on and uses it to help her survive. Also c’mon. Yellow Chuck Taylors? Makes a great trademark for one of my favorite new final girls of the last couple years.

Pearl – Pearl (2022)

Directed by Ti West

One of the more popular horror movies of the past years, Pearl brings us a fresh look at some vintage styles from the war years of the 1900s.

Pearl (Mia Goth) lives on her family’s Texas homestead and dreams of leaving it forever. While her husband Howard (Alistair Sewell) is off fighting in the first World War, Pearl is stuck at home dealing with her strict mother Ruth (Tandi Wright) and the influenza pandemic. But when a chance comes around for Pearl to follow her dreams of becoming a dancer in a troupe, it leads her to see what awful, murderous things she’ll do to become a star.

Now, Pearl’s red dress that she wears for the climax and latter half of the film felt very “farm chic” and I could just imagine in another world she would make the perfect wife in a reimagining of the American Gothic painting.

The cinematography for the film itself is beautiful, and I’m glad they went with the Technicolor inspiration of having bright colors to make the landscapes pop. Costume designer Malgosia Turzanska dresses Pearl up in a blood-red dress and I’m glad she kept the light blue bows in her hair to add a nice clash of color and familiarity to Pearl’s audition look. The dress has a high neck and mid-length sleeves with ruffles on the front that also give a nice insight into Pearl’s– or more so Ruth’s– German ancestry.

While every girl on this list so far also has a weapon of choice that goes with their dress, I can’t help but say that I like and think that Pearl’s axe suits her the best. While a gun may look fitting in Samara Weaving’s hands, Pearl swinging that axe is almost perfectly natural. It looks like an accessory in her hand rather than a deadly weapon, which is saying a lot for her character. All we need now is just that classic pearly white Pearl smile.

Alexandra “Sandie” Collins – Last Night in Soho (2021)

Directed by Edgar Wright

Before everyone starts jumping on me and Edgar Wright, I do think this is a horror movie. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but there were a lot of horror aspects and the aura just screams horror to me more than any other genre.

In the present day, Eloise “Ellie” Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) starts having vivid dreams upon moving to London of a fashionable blonde singer named Alexandra “Sandie” Collins (Anya Taylor-Joy) in the Soho club scene of the 1960s. As these dreams become a constant recurrence, Ellie falls deeper into Sandie’s troubled history and discovers dark secrets of hers that threaten to harm her in her own time.

This being a film that deals greatly with fashion– Ellie is a fashion student who loves to take inspiration from the 60s and Sandie herself– designer Odile Dicks-Mireaux had her work cut out for her. But looking at her previous work in films like Brooklyn and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang made me believe that Sandie’s wardrobe was in excellent hands.

The first time that Ellie travels back in time, she sees Sandie heading into the Café de Paris, wearing a knee-length A-line peach dress with sparkling collar. The way that the dress moves with Sandie as she strolls into the club, and later when she dances, accentuates her character’s confidence in ways that make her stand out like the star she is. Along with the sparkling collar, it’s the cherry on top to show off Sandie’s fashion taste but also her want of fame and riches. The color is perfect as well, like Carrie’s prom dress, it’s flush with femininity and innocence– but it’s a false innocence that we later see Sandie use to lure in men that she imagines she can, but eventually cannot control.

Towards the end, when we see Sandie come back in a flashback covered in blood, it's eerie at how well she can pull it off. With the blood reflecting off the shiny collar and seeping into her perfectly-styled hair and the light-colored fabric, Sandie wears it like it's a part of the outfit, a jewelry piece that she would never want to take off. It brings me back to thinking about Carrie. If you placed them side by side, it would be like looking at the opposite ends of some of cinema’s most fashionable murderers.

Top 10 Horror Hits to Haunt Your Night