In horror films women are stereotypically presented as weak and innocent, and as though they need to be saved, but are nearly always victorious by the end of the film. A lot of the time they are presented as conventionally "beautiful" and sometimes a bit stupid. It is usually a womans role in a horror film to be the final one left at the end of the film, who has been horribly close to also being killed but has found her way out of it or as the victim, who is the killers target for her innocence and weakness. The women who are presented as victims, and are killed are often shown to be stupid, and dim and a lot of the time are shown through their image and sexualisation.
The women who defeat the antagonist at the end of the film are not seen as dim or stupid. They are still presented as attractive but are also seen to be strong and knowledgeable. Despite this, a lot of the time they do have a moment where it could all go terribly wrong, which fits the stereotype of women being powerless. They manage to overcome this, narrowly usually and are victorious by the end of the film.
When the roles are reversed and the woman in the film is the villian or antagonist it makes the film even scarier as it is swapping the stereotypical, traditional views people have of women being innocent and pure. A lot of the time this is done by the female character being possessed which also links in with the idea that woman cannot naturally be evil, they have to be possessed for this to happen. People don't like to think women could be capable of terrible crimes which is why they chose to use a situation where it is not the womans fault she has turned bad. This is unrealistic as it is knowledgeable that women have commited terrible crimes in reality but the media seems to be trying to protect womens idealistic image of being innocent, pure, powerless and weak, when this is certainly not always the case.
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