The Final Girl
To succeed in a horror movie is to survive. Stabbing, shooting, drowning or any means of disposal are useless against against unrelenting, homicidal maniacs. When you examine the prototypical horror movie villain, you find yourself looking at these oafish brutes, and psychotic fiends. They lumber from corpse to corpse, spilling blood or spouting one-liners, leaving a wake of blood for roughly ninety minutes. Despite having their own unique identifiers, their signature element across the genre is their indestructibility. It’s what makes them so scary. They’re impervious to sheer strength and bravery, it doesn’t matter how hard you punch Michael Myers, if he’s within an arm’s reach of you, it’s a wrap. It positions the killer as an invulnerable force of evil, unaffected by brute force and uninterested in mercy. We recognize then, that in order to defeat them physical strength is useless. You can’t outmuscle a hulking psycho, but you can outsmart one.
The answer to the unstoppability of a horror movie villain is the ‘Final Girl.’ They’re the only archetypical character as important to the legacy of horror movies as the villains are. They would be the de facto heroes in any other genre, but being that the villains are the stars in horror, they’ve been given an alternate title. It’s an odd duality of the genre, positioning female characters as the heroes of their films, without explicitly positioning those women as central figures. It’s probably because the villain is the nucleus that spawns the terror, but the Final Girl is the engine that fuels the resistance. Horror is full of inconsistencies as it pertains to its women characters, simultaneously delivering female heroines capable of defeating horror icons, while also manipulating female characters for sheer gratuity and sexuality.
A villain’s effectiveness is rooted in their force. It doesn’t matter how big or bad a character is, the villain is always inevitable. Brawn means nothing, you can’t put Jason is a chokehold anymore than you can punch a Xenomorph to death. In order to outlast evil, you need to outwit evil. In that way the genre lends itself to characters who need to rely on cunning, intelligence, resolve and measured ferocity. These characters are typically women. Which isn’t to say that women can’t be physically strong or violent, but rather that women aren’t as predisposed to resort to crude strength in the face of crisis and problem solving in the way that men are - at least male horror movie characters anyway.
Men in horror movies solve problems by going through them, they attack without thought and they often fail. The predominant male response in a horror movie is to identify the issue, and then charge into battle without much critical thought, nor success. Take Gabe Wilson from Us (2018) when a the family’s group of tethers shows up at their door Gabe takes to the driveway with a bat and a lowered voice in hopes of intimidation. It results in him getting his knee bashed in and limping around for the rest of the movie. In Halloween 5 (1989), a character named Mikey gets his car scratched by Michael Myers and the first thing he does is try to obliterate Myers with a hammer, only to die immediately. In Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), a character named Julius (whose only trait is that he’s a boxer) tries to punch Jason to death on a rooftop, only to get his head literally punched off of his body. Lastly, we have Father Damien Karras, a priest tasked with exorcising Pazuzu in The Exorcist (1973). Damien’s penultimate attempt to rid the demon is to just beat the shit out of the young girl it’s possessing before inviting it into his own body. It’s not until Damien abandons physical force sacrifices his own soul that he is prosperous.
The final girl is the antithesis of the the typical horror movie monster. Villains are a lineage of unlearning, mostly male figures, exerting their force of will onto the body of their victims. The Final Girl is a resourceful, adroit and adaptive character, hellbent on preservation. Women are made to survive in society, which isn’t to say that women are designed to simply survive, but that the failings of a patriarchal society writ-large necessitates that women live their life on alert. Women are taught to not dress a certain way, to cover their drinks, to put their keys between their fingers and to be careful walking in the dark. We have failed at teaching men how not to be direct and indirect dangers to women, and have neglected to create and exact forms of consequence for those who intentionally try to harm them. Women exist in a world that makes very little effort to accommodate decency. The world makes no effort to amend itself for the benefit of women, and thus, too often women have been made to survive in it.
What’s scary about a horror movie is similar to what’s scary about being a woman. It’s the terror of nightfall, the car driving by slowly, or the male shape that follows you down the sidewalk. What the genre paints as anomalistic psychopaths and fringe abusers are real and general traumas that loom large for women en masse. The stalkers, psychos and strangers that horror mythologizes into monsters, are everyday threats to women. So it makes sense that in a genre where the ultimate signal of success is survival, that women would be the last ones standing.
Mount Rushmore
You can’t talk about final girls without first talking about the top of the pantheon. There are four quintessential horror movie heroins the makeup the Mount Rushmore of the genre: Laurie Strode, Sidney Prescott, Nancy Thompson and Ellen Ripley. Taking on behemoth serial killers, dream demons, vindictive slashers and vicious aliens, each heroine leaves her own specific mark on the genre.
Laurie is thrust into her heroism. She remains in denial for the majority of Halloween (1978), despite seeing a masked man around every corner she clings to her sense of safety and logic. It isn’t until she’s face to face with the boogeyman that she takes assertion over her own story. Laurie is a carer, she spends most of her first movie doting after the kids she’s stuck baby sitting, and checking up on her friends. When she finally faces off with Myers, her first decision is to get the kids to safety, in fact at every opportunity Laurie sacrifices her own safety so that everyone around her can have a fighting chance. Over the course of her movies she remains resourceful, graduating from wire hangers and knitting needles to shotguns and murder basements, but her commitment to keeping her loved ones safe has remained a constant throughout the series.
The first thing you notice about Nancy is her proactivity. She refuses to be terrorized by Freddy Kruger, and chases her own survival. In A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) She learns, adapts and sacrifices. Remaining on the offensive throughout her story; she burns her arm to wake up, reads books about survival techniques, and pulls Kruger into the real world. She booby-traps her house with sledgehammers, coffee pots, wires and lightbulbs. She taunts her aggressor, before setting him on fire. Nancy survives drugging, mental manipulation and gaslighting from everyone in her life, from her friends, to her alcoholic mother. Yet she remains a typical teenaged girl who cries, swears and spends a ton of time in her room. Her defining moment comes as she “defeats” Kruger, by reclaiming her body and mind, the ultimate sign of a survivor.
In a movie about a vicious alien, Ellen Ripley is delightfully human. Ripley has a reputation as tough-as-nails badass throughout her run in the Alien franchise, but as a character, her fear is as important as her bravery. Ripley’s ‘against-all-odds’ situations are markedly more severe than most Final Girls, stuck in the vacuum of space with nothing but her perseverance and attitude. She also seems to be the only member of the skeleton crew who has the gumption to persist. Being able to balance guttural terror with poise, whilst wielding a flamethrower is not an easy task, but neither is outsmarting a Xenomorph. But it’s in that victory where we see the true brilliance of Ripley, the exemplary “strong female character” who fully embraces her human fragility.
There isn’t a realm of Sidney’s life, not family, not romance, nor academia, that isn’t infected by the trauma inflicted upon her when she was a teenager. For decades, iterations of serial murders have plagued her attempts to return to the loveable, together, and sociable young woman who had boys climbing into her bedroom window. Though her life is a pattern of tragedy, Sidney always seizes the opportunity for finality. She never welcomes the terror that follows her, often seen devastated and gargling tears, unable to escape the horrors of Woodsboro. However, she always faces her ghosts without hesitation, quipping while dispatching masked killers with bullets, televisions and defibrillators. She’s a reluctant hero, but she’s a relatable hero, yearning for normality and peace. She remains the wry, effervescent girl we met in 1996, while having embraced the rigidity that her life requires, walking the line between hope and resilience.
The Originals
They set the original standard that would be revolutionized over the next couple of decades. These are the women who shepherded the golden age of horror in the 70s. I’ve discussed both Ripley and Laurie at length, but Sally Hardesty, Jess Bradford and Suzy Bannion have earned their rank as well. We meet Sally in 1974s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, she’s tasked with escaping the Sawyer clan, a family of cannibals who’ve trapped her at dinner. Jess is a sorority sister being harassed by a threatening killer on Christmas, and Suzy enrols at a German dance academy that is, unbeknownst to her, run by vindictive witches in Suspiria (1977).
This was the age of the reluctant heroine. Each of Jess, Suzy, Sally, Laurie (and to a lesser extent, Ripley) deny the horror unfolding around them. Whether out of shock or despair they cling to the shred of hope that salvation may arrive. They don’t move their stories, but are swept up in their respective streams of terror. Sally opts for berserk desperation, Suzy becomes investigative, while Jess remains a passive victim of harassment until she’s forced into violence in the final moments of Black Christmas (1974). Suzy, like her counterparts, vanquishes the evil that propels her story, but each one of the trio remains mostly inactive throughout their movies. They were the Final Girls for whom fighting back was a last resort. As it pertains to Jess, we don’t even really see her fight back. It was the generation of characters who were bewitched, or tortured, or harassed to a breaking point, which would then ultimately unleash a resolve that would define the archetype.
80s Ladies
Nancy Thompson is the face of the decade, dominating the 1980s with both A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1986) graduating from resourceful teen, to steadfast therapist. The 80s, despite being a booming decade for horror films, is a period that lacks iconic Final Girls. 80s horror was so concerned with villains and bodycount that it never really bothered to create fully realized characters, let alone dynamic female characters. However, two manage to stand alongside Nancy as icons of the era. The first is Jamie, taking over for her aunt, Laurie, in the Halloween franchise, starring in the fourth and fifth (and kind of sixth) instalments. Jamie has the monumental task of taking the torch from the preeminent scream queen, and she also happens to be a literal child. The only tools at her disposal are her dexterity and cleverness, an eight-year-old attempting fisticuffs with Michael Myers isn’t exactly a fair fight. But after the maligned bomb of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, the franchise banked it’s success on Jamie, whose entire character boils down to our most primal urge to survive, expertly portrayed in the desperate eyes of a terrified child. There are moments when Jamie gets to be a regular kid, and the audience can identify with the small joys of childhood, but having inherited Michael Myers, that childhood is far more tragic than average.
Not many people can say they’ve outsmarted sadistic hell-demons from the nether regions of reality, but not many people are Kirsty Cotton. Not many people can say they’ve outwitted their homicidal, reanimated, sexual deviant uncle and vindictive step-mother, but again, not many people are Kirsty Cotton. Kirsty is the headline character of the Hellraiser franchise - the first two anyway, and is the Final Girl most similar to Nancy Thompson. They share a distrust of authority figures, an unwillingness to silently succumb to otherworldly threats, and massively volumed curly hair. The reason Kirsty is such a formidable character is because she, like Nancy, is incredibly proactive. She’s constantly digging, constantly questioning, and constantly trying to form her own conclusions. Were in not for her curiosity and suspicion she wouldn’t have been able to save herself, nor thwart the family members and Cenobites making attempts on her life. Kirsty’s effectiveness comes from her unique skepticism. Her cynicism is what propels her resolve and ensures her survival.
The Final Girls of Crystal Lake
Along with Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th defined the decade in terms of horror. Characters came second to elaborate kills, bodies were either naked or eviscerated and there wasn’t much emphasis on plot. Friday the 13th may be the chief offender of the decade, embodying the gratuity of the 80s, but still managing to produce three memorable Final Girls over eight movies in ten years.
First you have Alice, she’s most similar the women of the 70s, only fighting back once she realizes all her friends are dead. She’s a passive character, innocuous, and tasked with taking down Pamela Voorhees (Jason’s mom) in Friday the 13th (1980). Her cowardice is her most relatable trait, she seems to recoil and fuss throughout the fight, as if tangling with Mrs. Vorhees isn’t worth staying alive. It’s what makes her human. Her reluctance in victory speaks to her frailty, a sense of weakness we can all identify with.
Ginny Field is the prime example of a cunning Final Girl. At the end of Friday the 13th Part II (1981) she faces off with Jason Vorhees, an unstoppable killing machine. The finale sees her trapped in Jason’s shack, near a shrine to his dead mother. Ginny’s grand maneuver involves her putting on Pamela Voorhees’ sweater and mimicking her voice to trick Jason. It speaks to Ginny’s commitment to survival, being willing to dawn a dead woman’s sweater that’s been bloodied and decaying for god knows how long. She’s brave enough to stand and look at Jason in his bagged face, only equipped with her voice and some hope. She stands no chance against his brute strength, her only weapon is her intelligence, and it’s also her most effective. She’s able to swing a machete at Jason, incapacitating him and allowing her to escape. It’s the perfect distillation of brain over brawn, and of cunning over force.
Lastly, and potentially the most cerebral of the three is Tina Shepard. The reason I say cerebral is because while she is clever and resourceful, she’s also literally telekinetic. She arrives in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), as an outcast, struggling to control and understand her powers, while simultaneously trying to be a teenager. She’s balances cranial testing, zombified murderers and a love triangle. What makes Tina truly memorable is her growth over the course of her movie. She could’ve easily been remembered as ‘the girl from the seventh movie that movie with super powers,’ but her character depth stretches far beyond her abilities. Tina’s growth over her story is what makes her memorable, developing from a character who often retreats into herself, who defers to all other characters, slowly finding her confidence, asserting her will, going as far as to dominate Jason Vorhees with her telekinesis. She doesn’t find moments in which to be brave so much as she simply becomes a wholly brave character.
The 90s Called…
The premier horror queen of the 90s was Sidney Campbell. She embodied what the genre had and would become over the course of the decade. She was sleek, smart, and wry, and yet haunted. In much the same way the 90s were trying to reinvigorate the genre after the glut of the 80s, Sidney Campbell was bursting with potential, yet suck trying to get out from under an overwrought and turbulent past. Similar to Sidney, Julie James, of the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise is trying to outrun her tumultuous history. If Sidney is thee Final Girl of the 90s, Julie James is the Scream Queen. Julie is a distillation of the passiveness of the 70s, and the proactivity of the 80s. Despite kiiiiind of being an accessory to murder, Julie has no interest in reckoning with her demons, content to wither in guilt. However, when she decides to take control of her surroundings and preservation she erupts into a dynamo. Adopting scrutiny and aggression, rage and intuition, completely shifting from a participant in her consequences, to the architect of her finale.
The Modern Era
In previous decades the Final Girl was thrust into a survival situation and forced to adapt, the modern era sees Final Girls who awaken a rage and capability, burning within themselves. Modern Final Girls are adept, they’re fiercer and more violent, they’re ingenious and more callous. You have several women discovering and leaning into their proficiencies. The current archetype is uninterested in half measures. Whereas previous iterations of the Final Girl might shoot to maim, the current version shoots to kill, decapitates the head and burns the body. She flirts with nihilism, recognizing that nothing matters until her safety is assured.
Mia of Evil Dead (2013) is the best depiction of the Final Girl at all fringes. A recovering addict trying to survive withdrawals, having to wrangle with malevolent forces that takeover her body, and finally, being forced to battle evil incarnate during a blood storm with nothing but a chainsaw. She’s pushed to every boundary of sanity and yet never succumbs nor relents. Erin of You’re Next (2011) exemplifies expertise, caught in a depraved inter-familial revenge scheme, she finds herself in the midst of a gruesome and coordinated massacre. What no one else knows is that Erin is a survivalist, having been raised on a compound to hunt, suture, kill and persevere against elements and intruders. The second Erin is revealed an expert in combat and strategy the movie becomes entirely hers. We watch her cleave through any sense of danger with precision, it becomes less of a horror movie, and more of a demonstration of what a single woman can do, motivated and untethered.
We witness unbridled ferocity in Adelaide of Us (2018). She is narrow in her focus, intent on moving in one direction: forward. She shares in a lineage of Final Girls trying to bury a past trauma, but for Adelaide, as we know, her past contributes to an anxiety and brutality that bubbles under the surface. Yet, like other Final Girls, she prioritizes the safety of her family and loved ones, abandoning discretion when needed. Adelaide is versatile, we see her employ both reason and violence to preserve her life and the lives of those around her. When the Tethers arrive, she tells her daughter to put shoes on, and she tries to keep her family close. She puts the situation together in seconds and when confronted by her past, attempts to reason with the Tethered. However, the same Adelaide hunts and confronts her Tether below ground, succumbing to her rage and swinging wildly at her opponent. She chokes her Tether to death with handcuffs and lets out a predatory scream of anguish and relief. It’s in that moment we see the confluence of Adelaide’s constitution: her uninhibited fury and conscious decision making.
When we meet Jay in It Follows (2014) we meet this cool, understated, confident girl. As she begins to be stalked by an unrelenting “It” we watch as she slowly she erodes into a hollow vessel of concern. She drifts into the ether at moments, something we all do when being compressed by existential anxiety. Jay sinks into a weary young woman before levelling out as a steadfast, hardened character with a singular pursuit. She reaches her breaking point, but she never gives in. Like many great Final Girls, she gets proactive. She game plans for a face off with abject death. Her one and only goal becomes thwarting a proxy for oblivion, a daunting objective for anyone. We see Jay’s personality slowly fade, and yet it’s in the loss of her peculiarity that she becomes more distinct. She becomes mechanic, only ever thinking about incumbent death lurking around every doorway, in much the same way mortality looms in the back of everyone’s mind.
Thomasin of The VVitch (2015) is the ultimate example of self-preservation. Final Girls survive and engineer their own salvation, we watch Thomasin do so at the forfeiture of her soul. She conspires with the Devil for preservation which when compared to her family, isn’t that bad of an option. In most horror movies, the forces working against our protagonist are unambiguously evil, but in The VVitch, the forces working against Thomasin are just misguided. They’re untenable and unsavoury, so when she decides to live deliciously her decision makes complete sense. Her ultimate choice to make a pact with Satan is what’s best for her as we understand it. It’s her best chance at fulfilment and community. Although her decision is an affront to purity, it’s uniquely right for Thomasin, and thus we applaud it.
Grace of Ready or Not (2019) exists in the space below expertise, but above helplessness. Being hunted by her in-laws and her new extended family, Grace is forced to fend for her life. She must survive the night, and in order to so, she must tap into her resiliency. The moment the game begins Grace is left to fend for herself, she has no husband, no family, no support of any kind. She’s outnumbered, outmatched and outgunned. We resonate with her scrappiness so that when she stumbles into luck, we’re relieved. She’s elevated by her craftiness and wit, she’s allowed to be darkly buoyant throughout the film, adopting some comedy every now and again. Grace works because she’s an isolated character, we’re stuck with her the whole movie and she’s both charismatic and sympathetic enough that we want her to survive.
At Last…
Final Girls share in a lineage of overcoming loss. They are gaslit, maimed and manipulated by the world around them. Their perseverance is what makes them memorable, it’s their ability to succeed in a world that is made to be terrifying, but that isn’t so dissimilar to ours. The scariest parts of horror villains are their unrelenting paths of destruction, in the same way that the scariest part of men is their destructive potential, especially at the expense of women. They don’t become icons because of the fantastical nature of their successes, they become icons because of their uncanny ability to thwart iterations of evil, while remaining human. They succumb to exhaustion and fear, they cry and swear and fight and lead. They epitomize what it means to survive, exhibiting both a willingness and capability in the face of danger, and inventing a path to their own conclusions.