The Evil Demon Seductress is a trope described by the YouTube channel Feminist Frequency as “Supernatural creature (i.e. demon, robot, alien, vampire) disguised as a sexy human female.” Commentator Anita Sarkeesian continues to give a large list of examples within the film industry in which this trope can be found. Popular examples included characters such as Jennifer Check (played by Megan Fox) from Jennifer’s Body (2009) and Mystique (played by Rebecca Romijn) from X2 (2003). It sounds harmless in that the characters make for good entertainment, but Sarkeesian identifies the underlying misogynist stereotype behind it which is that women primarily use their sexuality to manipulate, trick, and control men. She continues to add that this may give women the impression that their only social power is their sexuality.
The trope can be seen all throughout popular culture, but the video focuses on the film industry. Returning to the examples provided, we can see Jennifer from Jennifer’s Body (2009) is a cheerleader (an already hypersexualized trope) possessed by a succubus. For those unaware of what a succubus is, they are in, in demon mythology, female demons which seduce and have sex with men. In the case of the 2009 horror flick, they are killed as well. The succubus lures men in with her sexuality to ultimately kill them. There’s a perfect scene where this is portrayed, in which Jennifer lures a football player into the woods, seduces him, but they stop due to all the creatures in the wood staring at them. Jennifer realizes she’s lost his attention, and unzips her shirt to reveal that she is wearing nothing underneath. Whilst he has her attention once more, and ends up turning into her succubus form and kills him. This same theme repeats with her other victims. The next example used was Mystique from the movie franchise based off the Marvel comic series X-Men. The movie specifically named was X2: X-Men United (2003). There is a scene in the movie where Mystique seduces a security guard. She brings him over a couple of beers, which are drugged, and eventually she lures him into the bathroom, where he finishes his beer and he becomes unconscious, and from there she can complete the mission, injecting him with iron.
There are many more examples of The Evil Demon Seductress, for example the POV horror anthology V/H/S (2012) includes a segment in which a vampire-like female demon devours two men. Sarkeesian notes that this trope is popular in that it gives into objectifying females. This is appealing to the male audiences. It is not, however, rare to see this role switched, in which a male would seduce a female and ultimately kill her, but rare for it to be a male supernatural being unless we’re speaking of examples like The Incubus (1982). Most of the time, the sexual circumstances are depicted as rape instead of something seemingly consensual (aside from being murdered, of course), found in horror such as Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Honestly, other than Rosemary’s Baby (1968) male incubus-like horror is not as popular. Interesting to note that the popularity of the evil demon seductress trope is contingent on the women being the offender, otherwise it would be a disturbing supernatural rape scene instead of a sexy woman seducing a man. Neither are positive things. 