This is going to include a spoiler, for two reasons: first, it’s a truly paltry spoiler, and anyone who has ever seen a thriller will know the outcome from the first shot. Second, it uses really sh*tty trope that I’d hope we’ve moved beyond, but really haven’t. cw: transphobia. Still, it’s worth discussing.

A Woman Kills (“Une Femme Bourreau”, literally “A Woman Executioner”) takes place in May of 1968, in a very troubled France. Hélène Picard has just been executed as a serial killer. Hélène was a known thief, vagabond, prostitute and homosexuelle. She also brutally murdered other prostitutes. She was caught in the act, convicted, and executed.

Yet, as the news proclaims over and over (and over and over), Hélène Picard is dead but the crimes continue. Similar murders continue to show up.

So there’s the basic mystery: who is killing these women? Was Hélène Picard charged wrongly? Or is it someone else, a copycat? Witnesses and forensics suggest the killer is a dark-haired woman.

Then we are introduced to our first actual character: Louis Guilbeau (Claude Merlin). Throughout the film Guilbeau tells of his upbringing, how he was dressed as a girl by his mother, how he joined the army and became “society’s official killer,” how as a veteran he got a job as state’s executioner — in fact, he was the one that executed Picard. Louis woos and ultimately has an affair with Solange (Solange Pradel), the police inspector trying to find the new serial killer, and the one that caught Picard.  Pretty sure you can see where’s it’s going from there.

So here’s the spoiler: Guilbeau is the killer. And a transvestite. Really, the identity of the killer was never meant to be a mystery. Any tension is about whether he gets caught.

In today’s climate, you can imagine why I am treading carefully on the dangerous crossdresser trope — not to mention the killer lesbian that Hélène was.

It was made in 1968, and unreleased until today, with unfortunate timing, considering today’s anti-trans rhetoric. I can only hope no one watches it.

This grainy, black-and-white French film is moody, surreal and dark. It is also sexy and provocative. Very French, in fact. It’s not without historical merit, and is an interesting piece of filmmaking.

Now released to the world and applauded for its surrealism and allegorical treatment of gender roles and French colonialism, and all I see is another case of making the queer the villain coming out in a time when that very idea is seizing the minds of some very dangerous and influential people.

I said above that I hoped no one saw this film, and I have to walk that back. It’s a time capsule. A look into a very tumultuous time and place. A piece created by someone who wanted to do something different, and got shut down. It deserves its place. But the modern viewer should also be aware that this is part of a much larger trend in media that is still going on: the demonizing of the queer. This is Psycho, this is Al Pacino in Cruising, this is Carmilla and Dracula’s Daughter, this is Roman Polanksi’s The Tenant. Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs. Lois Einhorn in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. And on and on and on.

It’s a film whose time has come… and long past. I say let it rest in peace in a historical film archive, to be studied for what it was, a gross part of a gross trope that still has effect in today’s climate, but needs to end. Also, herea a GOOD essay on the topic from Bloody Disgusting.