Skip to content
ontologydriven
Sign out

Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

hagsploitation en · NOUN

Etymology

From hag + -sploitation.

Meanings

  1. (uncountable) A subgenre of horror/thriller that features a formerly-glamorous older actress who plays an insane woman who terrorizes those around her.
    • All these aforementioned films confirm that the genre still has cinematic potential. Obviously, the emergence of this "new school" of hagsploitation does not collide with the underground popularity of the retro hag movies. 2014, Justyna Stępień, Redefining Kitsch and Camp in Literature and Culture, →ISBN, page 50:
    • Crawford’s replacement in Sweet Charlotte was 48-year-old Olivia de Havilland, who had already been terrorised by home invaders in the surprisingly vicious Lady in a Cage (1964), though her career low point was probably being stung to death by killer bees in The Swarm (1978) as disaster movies replaced hagsploitation as the last refuge of the fading Hollywood star. 2018 January 18, Anne Billson, “'Hagsploitation': horror's obsession with older women returns”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2021:
    • This expressive, challenging and ambiguous over-production of the affectively, abundantly feminine is a characteristic of hagsploitation, which overlaps the seemingly barren and excluded with outright excess. 2017, Erin Harrington, Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film: Gynaehorror, →ISBN:

Synonyms

Grande Dame Guignol