“No, please don’t kill me Mr. Ghostface. I want to be in the sequel” – Tatum (Scream, 1996)
It has been 50 years since the release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, arguably one of the most iconic slashers within the genre. So it’s a good time to ruminate on the scream queens’ past. Has the Final Girl truly evolved and superseded the notions of time?
Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) introduced herself as arguably the ‘first’ final girl in 1974. Shortly followed by Halloween‘s more notable Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee-Curtis) in 1978.
Unfortunately, I did not have the privilege to witness this low-budget masterpiece in a cinema when it was first released. I am shackled to the Gen Z experience of on-demand streaming. Nonetheless, rewatching this film never fails to evoke a sense of tension like no other.
Gritty, unsettling, and chaotic. Culturally earning itself the reputation as the ‘first’ slasher. Followed by its campy successors which turned it into a franchise, nothing really beats the original.
The final scene where Sally, drenched in blood sits in the back of the truck laughing in hysterical euphoria after narrowly escaping Leatherface’s murdeous rampage. She is traumatised and exhausted, but alive.
Then and there, she established the utmost basic idea of what it means to be the lone female survivor in a horror movie. Laying the groundwork for numerous franchises to build on during the late 20th-century slasher surge.
Typically said to manifest herself as the girl next door archetype, the ‘OG’ Final Girls seem to be defined by their virtue and innocence. As opposed to the other female characters, deemed unworthy to survive, who act on and embrace their sexuality.
A well-known example of a ‘classically’ conveyed final girl is Sidney Prescott from the original Scream franchise, who manages to survive all of Ghostface’s killing sprees. Initially her ‘girl next door’ persona was indicative of many other Final Girls; who seemed ‘deserving’ to survive based on their purity, we can see how problematic this traditional connotation is.
However casual misogyny aside, when looking through a post-modernist view. Average watchers and the most devoted horror fans can decipher that this archaic stereotype is constantly looking to be subverted with more complex screenwriting.
Cabin in The Woods (2011) does an excellent job of creating the perfect satirical take on slasher films, Final Girls included, with meta-commentary embedded throughout the entire plot.
In the end, Dana (the final girl) checks all but one box when it comes to fulfilling the role of this archetype. Later, the film revealed that her survival isn’t based on her morality, but rather an orchestrated plan to manipulate her into this virtuous final girl trope; a fun criticism of the idea of slashers operating on a repeated formula.
Further, my new favourite ‘unconventional’ iteration of a Final Girl is that of the character of Maxine in Ti West’s X film trilogy. Portrayed by Mia Goth, Maxine actually embraces her sexuality and lives to tell the tale. Not positioned to be a categorical victim at all times; she’s ambitious, complex, and ruthless, all in her fierce determination to survive. A refreshing representation of an empowered girl.
One thing most final girls have in common is their strength and tenacity. Refusing to be a ‘damsel in distress.’ Almost always facing the cold-blooded antagonist in a one-on-one epic showdown scene where she succeeds in defeating or escaping the killer.
Final Girls were an essential first step to pragmatically tackling sexism in film. While it may have taken some time to adjust to a more empowering role, all media, including horror cinema, grows with the current zeitgeist of society.
Watching a plethora of video essays, podcast episodes, and inciting real-life conversations about the Final Girl. I was curious about her cultural significance, how is she received? Also, in just half a century since hitting our mainstream screens, how has she progressed?
Coined from Carol J. Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws, the crossroads between gender representation and horror cinema have since been academically dissected a million times.
Published in 1992, this book served as a preliminary piece of work that is constantly referenced in such spheres. A brilliant piece of work that critiques the use of gender expression, violence, sexuality (and much more) in slasher films in accordance with the portrayal of women in society.
Despite being a huge horror movie fan myself. Annually dedicating the month of October to rewatch as many iconic franchises as possible just isn’t enough.
I knew I needed to talk to the experts.
Bailey is better known through her username @jiggysawgirl, a social media creator focused on horror, recognised for discourse around the Saw film franchise. If you have engaged with horror-related content on TikTok, Bailey’s videos have probably turned up on your ‘For You’ page. Having amassed an impressive 1.2 million followers, it is safe to say, I was excited to hear her viewpoint on the Final Girl trope.
“Slasher films are built on the foundation of the existence of the final girl. For these stories to be properly told there must always be someone who survives the film or at the very least makes it to the credits. Audiences love having a character to root for and believe in throughout a gut-wrenching story. A final girl, at least to me, is a character you can see yourself in and aspire to be like,” Bailey told me
This raises the question of whether the Final Girl is an empowering feminist icon or a symbol of the complexities and contradictions of gender in horror cinema, and Bailey is clear on that: “I believe the modern-day final girl is an empowering feminist icon. I find that most modern final girls are incredibly strong and resilient,” she said.
“Modern final girls like Sam Carpenter, played by Melissa Barrera in Scream 5 and 6, show that final girls can be complex characters who offer so much more to the story besides being ‘innocent’. I also find modern-day final girls to be incredibly determined like Sienna Shaw from the Terrifier series. Modern-day final girls show that you can have heart and strength without falling into ‘innocent’, puritanical stereotypes of horror films of decades past.”
She added that her favourite final girls of all time are Sienna Shaw in the Terrifier series, Beth from Hostel 2, and Laurie Strode in Halloween 2018.
I found it comforting to hear about the undeniably important presence of a strong female character in a plot. Bailey’s points favoured the nuanced conversations surrounding the Final Girl since her first repeated appearance on the silver screen.
With early slashers like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre marked the beginning of an evolution, and the final girls we see in films today will probably seem to subvert the values of survival that Sally Hardesty faced with Leatherface.
Lauren Jane Barnet is a horror writer, actress, and co-host of the London Horror Movie Club podcast. Based on her interaction with her large community of horror fans she has noticed a shift in how younger audiences engage with classic horror tropes, including the Final Girl.
“The younger horror fans I know are more likely to be divided on the final girl. When I was a teen the girls I knew who liked horror saw them as heroines; they were intense amazing women who kicked ass in a male world like Ripley in Alien or girls like us who had to fight to survive like Laurie in Halloween,” she told us.
“Now the context means more. There was a huge rush of that support and love for Dani in Midsommar, but a disease with Ready or Not. Some people are sick of it all together, others respond on a film-to-film basis.”
Lauren also believes the meta nature of some films such as Scream, where the characters discuss the “rules of horror movies” has affected how audiences respond to certain tropes: “Meta-horror brought a lot of awareness to the Final Girl trope, but also made it even more popular. We still have so many Final Girls, but now they make a conscious choice to try and play with the tradition. There is, for example, a popular misnomer that Final Girls are virgins, so films post-Scream make a point of ignoring it or playing with it like Cabin in the Woods.”
There is concern from some film fans that the Final Girl trope is becoming outdated in an era where genre-blending films are increasingly popular, while others think there may still be room for the Final Girl to grow.
“I think while the Final Girls are is definitely over-talked about, the prime reason women are often a focus for horror films is that they are easier to like. Men are often cliché jerks, predators, or idiots in films, particularly horror. It’s far harder to build audience sympathy, whereas we all are more likely to be on the girl’s side. Until that shifts, the final girl remains because that’s who we want to see win in the end.”
So is it time for the Final Girl to be redefined for contemporary audiences? “I write female-driven horror, but I have no male characters, so my Final Girls don’t fit the final trope. I wrote women because the fears I have drive my writing, and I’m a woman. I don’t think you need a Final Girls, but I think it also isn’t going away. It just changes and adapts to match the women of today.”
As for favourites, Lauren is a huge fan of Ripley from the Alien franchise: “I love Laurie and Alice but Ripley was the first Final girl that made me go ‘Wow, women are pretty badass’. My parents had just been murdered, and seeing her fighting with every last breath, despite all the odds made me feel like I could get through it, and I’ll always love her for that,” she explained.
But she also believes the studios are moving on: “I think what ‘Final Girl’ means changed a lot since the 80s and 90s; it used to be slasher-related so it was about a single girl surviving a mass murder spree, but the focus on the term as a critique was that we ‘enjoyed’ watching one woman endure these horrible things. Films like Mother and Midsommar give us that same suffering-tortured-woman trope wrapped in something new.”
So it seems the Final Girl is here to stay. Now considered a cultural icon, she may take on different manifestations through a postmodern lens. Nonetheless, she will continue to survive. Both the killer and the passage of time. Regardless of the many iterations, truthfully, as a trope, the Final Girl has come a long way.
For myself and many others, she represents female agency, which can be interpreted in many ways. This is what makes her such a complex character to begin with, and her endurance in the genre proves that we will continue to root for her.
Featured image courtesy of The Grindhouse Cinema Database