Over the past few months, horror has become one of my favorite movie genres. I love the suspense, the twists and the endless creativity often presented in the genre, whether it be with the story, sets, editing, music or characters. That doesn’t mean, however, that horror does not have its fair share of common tropes or stereotypes found within the stories.
In recent years, a lot of these common tropes often associated with horror movies have become more widely recognized, with some films shifting away from what is stereotypical of a horror movie. Yet, there are still plenty of new films that stick to the traditional format.
A great example of both comes from this summer, with the release of I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) and a few weeks later, Weapons. I saw both movies in theaters, and I can say I had a very different experience with each. Weapons took a new route with an original story that still played into many different elements of the horror genre.
On the other hand, I Know What You Did Last Summer was a very traditional horror movie, and not just with the fact it’s a sequel to 1997’s horror mystery of the same name. The story here follows the typical “one by one people die”, has the masked killer, a mystery unfolding as the group of characters figure it out, and (spoiler!) ends with a lucky girl being left alive.
The remaining woman, girl, or female character left alive at the end of a horror film does have a name. The ‘final girl’ is a term coined by Professor Carol J. Clover in the 1990s while researching the slasher movie genre. Traditionally, the final girl is characterized as the well-behaved, ‘good girl’ who ends up being the lone survivor. Often embracing the embodiment of innocence and femininity, the final girl usually has a higher sense of moral intellect as compared to the other characters. However, that is not always the case, and many classic final girls break that mold.
Examples of Iconic Final Girls:
- Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
- Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978)
- Alice Hardy in Friday the 13th (1980)
- Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
- Sidney Prescott in Scream (1996)
Although very present in slasher movies of the 1970s to the 1990s, the final girl is absolutely not a trope of the past. This character type is ever evolving with the modern audience. Now, we see many final girls who are much less soft-spoken, perhaps even a threatening force herself. The modern final girl can represent a symbol of female empowerment and strength, rather than the stereotypical personality suited for the male gaze.
There are plenty of movies that also point out the flaws in the genre. For example, The Final Girls (2015) is a movie that perfectly highlights the final girl trope in a satirical fashion.
Examples of Final Girls in Recent Movies:
- Tree Gelbman in Happy Death Day (2017)
- Grace Le Domas in Ready or Not (2019)
- Cecilia Kass in The Invisible Man (2020)
- Emerald Hayworth in Nope (2022)
- Tess Marshall in Barbarian (2022)
The genre of horror is ever-changing, with new ideas brought to the table every day. Horror will always have its tropes, whether for better or worse, but the existence and execution of these formulas will always be fascinating. The progressing portrayal of female figures in film, the future for final girls is looking up.