Note: there will be spoilers for Halloween, The Shining, Scream, The Cabin in the Wood, Midsommar, and Fear Street.
Horror and slasher film fanatics like myself know of the trope “final girl.” For those who are not into this genre, a “final girl” is the last girl or woman alive to confront the killer, thus being the one left to tell the story. This trope has evolved as the genre and society have. She started by being a virgin damsel in distress and she has morphed into a feminist powerhouse.
Laurie Strode from the Halloween franchise is one of the most longstanding and iconic final girls. The first Halloween movie came out in 1978 and the most recent film is scheduled to release on October 15, 2021. This film follows Michael Myers in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois as he is institutionalized at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium after stabbing his sister at 6 years old. He escapes a little over 10 years later and on Halloween night goes on a killing spree that ends with Laurie Strode. She escapes his attacks and believes to have killed him, but when she looks to where his body was, he is gone. This sets up for the following dozen or so movies to take place where she remains the survivor over Michael Myers.
The Shining (1980) includes one of the most iconic characters, Wendy Torrance. Jack Torrance is tasked with being the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the secluded Rocky Mountains. We are given a glimpse into the family’s possible future with the knowledge that the previous caretaker (Charles Grady) killed his entire family and himself while in the seclusion of the hotel. Jack soon falls victim to the influence of the hotel and the ghosts in it. When he attempts to kill her, Wendy fights back with a baseball bat. She escapes her husband, Jack, with their son, Danny, in tow. She is a powerhouse of a woman that makes you root for her in this psychological horror film.
The subversion of the trope begins with Sidney Prescott of the Scream franchise in 1996. Final girls were meant to be virgins, but she survives even after having sex. Sidney is the constant character in the subsequent movies as she develops from a helpless teenager to the confronter of each killer. The first Scream movie follows high school senior Sidney as she is taunted by the killer via phone calls while a spree of murders is being committed in the town. She reveals the identity of the killer known as Ghostface and kills the perpetrators. This trend of Ghostface following and taunting Sidney until they eventually confront each other, and Sidney comes out the hero continues onto the next 3 movies.
The Cabin in the Woods (2011) explicitly discusses the final girl trope with Dana Polk. This film was a horror-comedy, so they poke fun at the archetypes in horror movies. Jules as the “whore” must die first and Dana as the “virgin” must die last or survive to honor the final girl trope. The men in this movie are also representative of stereotypical characters in slashers with Holden as the nerd, Marty as the bumbling fool, and Curt as the athlete Americana dream. Dana knows that she is a final girl by the ending of the movie and struggles with the fact that the only way for her to survive is by letting her friends die.
One of my personal favorite final girls is Dani Ardor from Midsommar (2019). She completely subverts the role of final girl but still ends up surviving the brutality of the film. She is completely transformed by the end of the film and is crowned for it (literally). Midsommar begins with Dani Ardor losing her sister and her parents when her sister fills their home with carbon monoxide from car exhaust. She is struggling in her relationship with her boyfriend Christian and honestly cannot catch a break in this film. She ends up joining him and his friends Mark and Josh on a trip to the commune Hårga, in rural Hälsingland, Sweden for a midsummer celebration. The commune begins to feel darker than originally thought when two elders jump from a cliff to take their own lives and when one fails, his skull is crushed while the crowd watches on. Josh and Mark are subsequently killed due to their disregard for the sacredness of the commune. Dani becomes the only survivor of the group as she is crowned May Queen and is given the opportunity to have her cheating boyfriend, Christian killed. The film ends on her face where she is initially sobbing but by the end, she smiles and thus transforms the idea of final girls. She is not a survivor like the rest or a girl with a normal, suburban upbringing. She has trauma and is angry and seeks revenge. She is a victor of her own story and completely morphs what a final girl is meant to look and act like.
The most recent example of final girls lies in the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix. These films came out in early-late July of 2021 and go back in time as the trilogy continues. If you are looking for a puzzling slasher film with LGBTQ+ representation, look no further. There are three final girls with Ziggy Berman, Deena Johnson, and Sam Fraser. Ziggy Berman is the first known survivor of the witch and assists our main protagonist Deena fight against the witch’s influence on her girlfriend Sam. These films center around the towns of Sunnyvale and Shadyside and the curse of the witch that lies beneath them and has been for hundreds of years. The first film takes place in 1994 and follows our group of teenage protagonists that take on the evil force that seems to corrupt only Shadyside residents. The second film goes back to 1978 and takes place in Camp Nightwing and follows our first final girl, Ziggy, as she fights her way to survive the killing spree. The third movie takes place where it all started in 1666 and follows the witch’s story via Deena as the witch Sarah Fier. Deena is brought back to 1994 when she knows the truth about Sarah’s story and is able to free her girlfriend from the witch’s influence. She does and in a “Romeo and Juliet”-esque twist, Deena- a rebel Shadysider, and Sam- a Sunnyvale cheerleader are together and get a happy ending.
These are only a few examples of the longstanding archetype of the “final girl” over the years. She seems to have grown with our conceptions of women. She started with the helpless, teenage virgin and has developed into an angry, feminist powerhouse. This range and the power associated with my favorite final girls make this trope one of my all-time favorites of the genre.