It's a shame - there's a huge discrepancy between amazing female cast members and a dearth of female horror icons. I feel like this is why we get so many memorable scenes of female face characters in houses - they almost always rock their roles. Poltergeist, Us, Stranger things... without the major attack sequences and memorable moments, the houses would definitely fall. Even my favorite moments of Texas Chainsaw were when Sally literally jumps out of the window in the final scene -- absolutely breathtaking. And that's even discounting the women behind the mask in so many houses. It's why, for example, it's much harder for me to come up with a male look-alike character that blew away my expectations than a female one.
I think most horror movies play on depictions of horror that draw on big gender stereotypes. Men are usually viewed as more physically imposing, more scary in a visual way. Horror movies about male antagonists usually draw on the horrors of men having too much physical power for their own good and abuse, like Michael Meyers and Jack Torrence. These movies usually play on the fact that men hold most of the cards in our society -- and it can be scary when one man has so much power. When women are portrayed as evil, they don't often physically overpower, they usually must rely on psychological power to be scary. More often than male characters, female characters are usually the victims first, like Regan (not her fault) or Kayako (a victim). I'm pretty sure even Chance had some problematic first incarnations as Jack's punching bag. In many cases, but not all, we need to see the growth of a female character to become scared of her. I really applaud Universal for doing things like Nightingales or the Victorian-style Ghost houses to meet the trope halfway. These houses give a piece of backstory to everyone entering, but allow the terror of the female characters do the rest. I think it's why so many of the Disney villains are so popular - Maleficent's scary in a masculine, overpowering way, while still getting it with that jawline. As we can see, she sells a buttload of merch, a buttload of merch to female guests that Uni would be wise to tap into in terms of female power. It's why Eleven and Elsa merch sells so well, IMHO, because these women literally have power.
My thought? It's way easier to do a live horror event based on male characters rather than female because (as society has trained us) we don't need to look for the reason in male characters as much as female. Guests are used to an evil male overlord character and can understand that better. Usually, when we see a female character at the event, it is framed as a subversion (It's CHANCE'S year now!), a detailed backstory (Bloody Mary can't just be an evil spirit -- she must be a good doctor turned evil), or a temptress (Lady Luck).
I feel that Universal could have done better with all three of these characters because we never see them showing off their power. Lady Luck has no physical manifestation of her power, they instead decided to turn her into, like, a weird werewolf? They should have gone truly Maleficent with her - I want to see the bad luck physically. It's rare that we see Chance do anything truly evil aside from standing NEXT to corpses and assisting Jack. Even her prison escape had to be "in her imagination", as if Uni was too scared to suggest she would ACTUALLY kill all those people. And, well, Bloody Mary was the most well done, but there was room to give her more agency instead of being stuck behind a mirror for many of the scenes in the event. I think Universal has great potential with Storyteller, Cindy, and Terra Queen, but for some reason, probably the ones stated above, they fear that the girls will have an impact. I think it's a dang shame.
I hold firm that Universal has been thinking about this, and that each year we should expect a growth of female-led houses and a shift in this perception, including this year.
On a side note: Selfishly (as a gay guy), I wish they would get around to objectifying the men just as much as the women. I would love to see the Director come back as more of a seducer than he was before, a sexed-up Eddie, or even like, a Lost Boys-styled vampire Icon. It seems like the Vamp-style zones do well. But sometimes I think Uni forgets why sexy villains work. The Lost Boys don't walk down red carpets, catwalks, or whatever else they want to turn Hollywood Blvd into. They're out for blood. Maybe they should consider moving "the sexy zone" into a place where it feels less like an exploitative runway.
