The final girl trope reigns supreme in horror films—the one woman who defies all odds of chaos and gory trauma to emerge as the lone survivor.
To each generation, the final girl becomes emblematic of a new meaning, wearing many different hats. Many horror fans can agree that the final girl isn’t merely a horror trope; she represents a cultural legacy that shines a spotlight on the female experience.
The term ‘final girl’ was first coined by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws to describe the last female character left alive in a slasher film. But she’s more than just a survivor in a movie; she’s often a cultural mirror.
Across multiple generations and reimaginings, the final girl character has evolved into a defining feature of horror cinema. Her characterization is inescapably tied to the political landscape that she inhabits, becoming a manifestation of societal fears, morals, and beliefs.
Fans and horror film directors have wholeheartedly embraced this trope since the 1970s, when slasher films brought us the iconic Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and other slasher films followed. The 70s were a decade defined by feminism and sexual liberation, yet the pressure of lingering religious ideologies like purity culture and patriarchal ideas of autonomy still infiltrated societal norms.
Filmmakers of the era leaned into this cultural tension by embracing morbid curiosity and testing the limits of gore, violence, and sexuality on the big screen. Artistic endeavours in film began to blur the lines between societal standards and the audience’s desire for the taboo. Especially with the rise of widely distributed pornography and sexually explicit content in film becoming more mainstream. Slasher films were a predictable outcome within a culture where blurring boundaries in film was celebrated as artistic expression.
Despite this, one thing became blatantly clear about the 70s final girl heroine: she was often a token of purity who was propped up as ‘morally superior’ to fit pervasive standards around the ideal woman. She didn’t drink, engage in sexual activities, or rebel against social conventions of the ‘good girl,’ depriving her of existing beyond her morality.
Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978) is a perfect example of this archetype in action— she was the responsible babysitter who stayed home while her friends partied, drank, and indulged in their youth and sexual freedom.
Her survival wasn’t just a matter of chance, but rather an active symbol of her purity. She didn’t survive through her strength, but rather her identity as the most ‘moral’ and ‘deserving’ of survival to screening audiences.
The 70s final girl had clear rules— the girls who drank, smoked, or had sex had their fates sealed as victims of a brutal death.
Take Sally Hardesty in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Her purity isn’t tied to her moral virtues, but rather her instincts to endure violence. Although Sally isn’t an active fighter, she survives through a cautious innocence that sets her apart from her friends, who choose to fight back.
Her escape is not so much a victory for women watching as the ideal of the innocent woman demonizes other women who resist abuse inflicted on them. The first final girls became a representation of the 70’s societal anxieties around female sexuality, walking the line between sexual expression and moral consequences in horror films. This caused an influx of static characters who suffered by reacting in self-defence, or whose survival was pre-determined by their adherence to purity culture. The bottom line is that none of these girls were truly given the chance to fight back!
By the 1980s, the final girl began to subvert audience expectations as women reclaimed their agency and empowerment in horror films. Their survival began to move away from being dependent on purity or the good girl narrative, instead allowing women to fight back and earn their title as survivors actively.
Think Nancy Thompson in Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), who studies Krueger and is resourceful in setting traps and fighting back. Or Reggie Belmont from Comet (1984), who may be one of my favourite subversions of the final girl trope in 80s film, as her survival ironically hinges on her having sex in a steel-protected theatre booth early on in the film.
With iconic 80’s heroines like these, we witness a new era of women becoming the forefront figures in confronting and fighting the horror with full autonomy rather than just enduring it.
Then came the 1990s, when the horror genre began to embrace irony and a level of meta-awareness that was evident in iconic films like Wes Craven’s Scream (1996). We watch characters break the fourth wall and have complete awareness of horror cliches, rules, and tropes of the slasher genre. Meta-awareness in film emerged when directors began catering to horror-literate audiences familiar with traditional conventions.
Scream’s protagonist, Sidney Prescott, is reminiscent of the traditional ‘good girl’ heroine, yet there’s a modern twist to her character— she anticipates danger rather than becoming a damsel in distress, much like the supporting cast of women who also fight back. Sidney represents a new wave of self-aware heroines: women who take control of their own survival.
Over the last two decades, horror cinema has witnessed the emergence of complex female heroines who are redefining and bending the rules of the traditional final girl archetype. We’re no longer watching women only survive due to virtue, purity or chance. Like her male counterparts, final girls have regained their agency to become main characters.
What’s especially unique about the modern final girl is that she isn’t just fighting the familiar crazed serial killer, but horrors embedded into the female experience under patriarchy. The genre has begun to explore the horrors intertwined within the female experience, transforming the genre into a space to confront the cultural and systemic barriers that women face.
This shift is apparent in the rise in popularity of films like It Follows (2014) or Ready or Not (2019), where resistance to systemic control is central to the heroine’s survival.
For instance, the protagonist of It Follows is cursed after a sexual experience and must confront a shape-shifting entity that symbolizes her inherited trauma. The film serves as a metaphor for the lingering aftermath of sexual assault, capitalizing on scenes of isolation and shame as the main drivers of horror.
Similarly, in Ready or Not, the final girl trope is twisted into a dark satire. What begins as a celebration of marriage turns into a fight for survival as the protagonist must survive her rich in-laws’ sadistic game on her wedding night. Through her survival, she is forced to fight against literal and symbolic forms of patriarchal structures and class privilege.
Or even take Terrifier 2’s (2022) Sienna Shaw, who is emblematic of the modern final girl. She begins the film as a young, grieving teenager dealing with the aftermath of her father’s death and ends it as a warrior who’s beaten Art the Clown. Sienna’s evolution is all about transforming pain into power, an arc that is slowly becoming intertwined with the contemporary archetype of the final girl.
The final girl trope is ever-changing, reinventing itself with each new generation of horror fans. As the trope leans away from purity or destiny, modern final girls are finally able to reclaim their survival as their own. Through this genre evolution, she is no longer just a survivor but a legacy symbol of female power and resistance in film.