Originally posted on Instagram 16th October 2022

‘Final girls’ have been around since the dawn of horror as a genre, but it was Carol Clover who first coined the term in 1992. Clover criticised the trope as being oppressive, but there is something to be said for the existence of a female hero in a male-dominated field.

So, who is she?

The final girl is the last person standing before the killer. She has watched her friends die, and just as we start to think she, too, is doomed, the tables are turned and our final girl takes down the (male) villain.

She is white, cis, and, more often than not, a virgin.

Other typical characteristics of the final girl is that she has a unisex name – i.e. Chris, Laurie, Sidney – and she is the good girl foil to her wild best friend, who is usually killed off.

Often, final girls are subsequently killed off in sequels, for example Lila Crane (Psycho, perhaps the original final girl), Alice Hardy (Friday the 13th), and even Laurie Strode (Halloween; resurrected in other versions of the franchise).

Not always though – Sidney Prescott from the Scream franchise is the longest surviving final girl to date, having lived through and defeated the killers in all five films.

[The final girl] is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and her own peril; who is cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again. She is abject terror personified.

Carol J. Clover in her book, Men, Women and Chainsaws (1992)

Feminist or not?

Undoubtedly, the final girl trope has its roots in misogyny. It’s impossible to deny that the pure, virgin heroine being the one to defeat the villain while the other, ‘deviant’ girls are brutally murdered is anything other than a misogynistic condemnation of female sexuality.

However, more recent horror films – and often ones directed by women – subvert the final girl trope. Unlike in times past, the modern final girl survives by accepting her sexuality, by becoming battered and scarred and imperfect. She is powerful, and she provides a female hero in an industry that is sorely lacking.

Sources:

• https://www.filminquiry.com/final-girl-trope/
• https://nofilmschool.com/final-girl-trope
• https://www.hollywoodinsider.com/final-girl-trope/
• https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/final-girl-words-were-watching-slang-history
• https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/is-the-representation-of-women-in-horror-changing-gradually/

See also:

• Blog post: Regina Maria Roche
• Blog post: Paula Maxa
• Bitesize History: Summary