The Gold Standard for Final Girls: Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween The trope that dominated the horror landscape is changing with the times. The final girl reflects the culture of the times. The Scariest Things pries this theme apart in Episode 75. In the 1970s a new trend came to sweep out the Hollywood standard of the “damsel in distress.” 1974 ushered in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Black Christmas wherein two young women manage to escape as the last protagonist remaining after a deranged killer has cleared out ale the other would-be heroes in the story. This trend exploded with the franchise horror trendsetters, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and all the copycats and followers in the slasher sub-genre. The trope was de rigueur in the VHS era.
In 1992 Carol Clover coined the term “final girl” in her treatise Men Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Her basic argument is that although slasher movies seem to delight in the sadistic torment of female victims, they are actually providing the audience a point of identification with the last woman standing. Strategically, for a horror movie director or producer, the final girl trope made sense. A horror audience will bond with the most innocent, most helpless character in the film, and will tend to believe that the protagonists who exhibit sketchy behavior had it coming. Basic ground rules for horror movies for a very long time… but the times they are a changing.
Heather Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Shauna MacDonald in the Descent (2005)
Marilyn Burns in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Sanaa Lathan in Aliens vs. Predators (2005)
Key elements of the Final Girl trope:
There is usually a large group of characters from which to cull out the final girl.
The final girl has to survive at the end. There might be some ambiguous threat at the end of the film that suggests that the enemy might not be all that dead after. Queue the sequel!
The final girl is usually the clear thinking one within the social group. She is likely also to be the most cautious character.
The girl is most often a teenager, or a very young woman. Editor note: I stated that Sigourney Weaver was 23 when she did Alien, she was 28 when she filmed it… so a long way from being considered a “girl”.
Quite often, it’s this display of intelligence that ends up defeating the villain, though many times you will see a degraded villain, (another trope) where the final girl finds the monster’s weak spot.
Final girl movies often pair up with the well trodden trope of teens having sex = getting a machete/spear/axe/chainsaw. And, the survivor is usually the virginal and innocent one. Do drugs? Same thing.
The final girl is often spared for a sequel, as these movies tend to be franchise generators.
Many times the luck runs out for the final girl, as she gets eliminated in one of the sequels. Some academics suggest that this was a way for Hollywood culture to re-set the patriarchal norm.
Oddly, there are a lot of sexually ambiguous names. Sidney (Scream), Ripley (Alien), Max (The Final Girls), Jay (It Follows), Dana (Cabin in the Woods). Some have applied the thinking that this would help create associative bonds with male audiences.
Olivia Hussey in Black Christmas (1974)
Jessica Rothe in Happy Death Day (2018)
Neve Campbell in Scream (1995)
Jennifer Love Hewett in I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
The final trope is a divisive one, as it crosses over and back the exploitation line that horror tends to so often walk. There is a titillation factor that can’t be ignored, and certainly films like Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave clearly employed the visceral threats and rape upon the poor victims, only to utilize the revenge factor as a justification for the depravity imposed upon the female victims and in that way make it empowering. That is hugely debatable. I Spit on Your Grave was once called Day of the Woman which made it seem somehow feminist, but really, this is raw exploitation. Horror movies have often championed social movements, and to use the terror as an allegory. With the final girl trope, it’s a bit dodgier.
The ’80s theme of dead teenagers embraced the trope with open arms (and knives.) The film landscape was ruled by the legendary monstrous villains that you all know. Remembering who the final girls are, can be a bit tricky, though. Can you name all the Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street final girls? It also suggests that the importance of the final girl was less to demonstrate the heroism and bravery of the final girl, but to exhibit the power and threat of the villain, and once that villain is appealing enough to the audience, the final girl has served her purpose, and we move on to a sequel to revisit the villain, and not the girl. (Usually)
If the ’80s were the high water mark for the trope, there was a transition starting in the ’90s and continues on to this day, in that the girls and women become empowered and become something more like an action girl, not requiring the nerfing of the villain. Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers became the characters you came back for, not the Ghostface killer so much. What’s more, Wes Craven had been sensing that the old ways were getting stale, and Scream helped reset the table and rework how we saw this trope in action. Advancing on to the current trends, the new version of the final girl also reflects an era that is less dependent upon sequels and iconic unkillable villains. This era of protagonist forward allows the heroines to vanquish their foes for good.
Sigourney Weaver in Alien (1979)
Sharni Vinson in You’re Next (2011)
Maika Monroe in It Follows (2014)
Adrienne King in Friday the 13th (1980)
It became clear that this episode was going to feature some of the most recognizable actresses in the genre. There are so many prominent characters who have the honor of surviving the ravages of the screen terrors, it was hard to pick our final, final girls. It will be fascinating to find out how the final girls of our current age will be remembered in time. Listen in to Episode 75 and hear all of our thoughts on the subject!
Camille Keaton in I Spit on Your Grave (1978)
Samara Weaving in Ready or Not (2019)
Jane Levy in Don’t Breathe (2015)
Linda Hamilton in The Terminator (1984)
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