In her 1987 essay “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film,” Carol J. Clover makes the first reference to the “Final Girl,” a term expressly encompassing the solo female survivor of a horror massacre. Almost always the virginal type, she shows great strength of character as she witnesses her friends die miserable deaths and conjures up deep primal rage to slay her monster. The Final Girl, as we’ve come to identify her, finds trace reflections in the visages of Lila Crane (Psycho), Suzette (Blood Feast), and Helen (Peeping Tom). Regarded as proto-slashers, these 1960s films serve as murderous vehicles by which their women discover agency through sheer determination of spirit in the face of a raving madman. There’s no doubt, either, that the rise of the giallo contributed greatly to the Americanized version—peer through such films as Mario Bava’s early works (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Blood and Black Lace), and you’ll uncover slasher markings that were later magnified and repurposed for a predominantly male audience craving torn flesh and mangled corpses.
The 1970s introduced various early archetypes of the surviving woman—most notable with Diane Adams in 1972’s Silent Night, Bloody Night and Jess Bradford in 1974’s Black Christmas. The filmmakers shaded these pioneering figures with stronger attributes we now expect from our Final Girls: willpower, intuitiveness, self-awareness. Being cognizant of their surroundings would soon be crucial in their survival, signaling that women were controlling the narrative more than ever before. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s Sally Hardesty would appropriately fit this description with her knack for jumping out of windows and taking advantage of her killers’ blind spots. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film suggested that women could endure immense trauma and never lose sight of their humanity, an unwavering self-importance driving their survival instincts. The bloodlust they embraced proved to be a pivotal turning point in their lives; they were no longer the bubbly, happy-go-lucky girls next door, but instead women living up to their potential as vengeful beings.
Laurie Strode soon emerged from the house Sally built in John Carpenter’s classic Halloween. The 1978 film fine-tuned slashers (the masked stalker, the butcher’s knife as a primary weapon) and cemented the Final Girl as a cultural phenomenon. From the well-laid groundwork, there rose a perfect foil to Nick Castle’s Michael Myers—a resourceful heroine who used everything in her arsenal (knitting needle, wire hanger, knife) to thwart her stalker. There was no denying that Laurie changed everything about the modern horror movie. Not only did the film itself pull terror into everyone’s backyard, but she challenged the status quo and turned cinema more broadly on its head.
A year later, Ellen Ripley appeared in the sci-fi/horror feature Alien. Her placement as a true Final Girl is highly debatable these days. While her strength and ingenuity make her one of horror’s most influential heroines, Alien isn’t a slasher—and adhering to strict definitions, Ripley isn’t a Final Girl. She’s neither stalked by a masked assailant nor does the killer brandish a typical weapon like an ax, machete, or kitchen knife. For the sake of outlining the traditional Final Girl, sorry, Ripley, you’re out.
The bloodlust they embraced proved to be a pivotal turning point in their lives; they were no longer the bubbly girls next door, but instead women living up to their potential as vengeful beings.
A new decade quickly dawned, and horror flooded with Final Girls. The slasher boom was well underway with its cheap Halloween knockoffs and countless holiday-themed killers. Many Final Girls have been forgotten to time, while others remain important mile markers in the archetype’s lineage. Alice (Friday the 13th) and Ginny (Friday the 13th Part 2) kicked down the door for a new era of strong women, riffing on Laurie and Sally but offering their own spin on the classic Final Girl features. Where Alice was quick to use a machete to behead Mrs. Voorhees in the film’s final moment, Ginny knew how to turn Jason’s psychology against him for a deadly blow.
As the slasher faded in popularity, A Nightmare on Elm Street came along in 1984 to inject the subgenre with some much-needed adrenaline. Featuring a sleep demon with a blood-popping eye, it’s not your typical slasher given its supernatural edge. Wes Craven swapped a mask for a burned face, with Freddy Krueger wielding knives for fingers rather than holding them. Instead of stalking the streets, Freddy haunts your dreams, trapping you inside a mental labyrinth of death and decay. It’s only up to the sharp-witted and capable Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) to plot his destruction. After studying a book of improvised personnel devices, Nancy mounted a proto Home Alone scheme in the climax, thus sealing her fate as a perfected Final Girl model. In the film’s first sequel, Jessie embodied the gender-flipping Final Boy, while the franchise’s fourth installment saw its female protagonist make valiant attempts to take up the Nancy mantle.
By the early 1990s the slasher had disappeared, and so had the traditional Final Girl. It wasn’t until 1996 when Sydney Prescott in Wes Craven’s Scream entered the scene that the slasher was cool again. Sydney took what Laurie and Nancy did in their franchises and turned everything up to 11. Genre-savvy and strong-willed, she broke down genre tropes and cliches throughout numerous sequels and redefined what a woman could and should be in contemporary horror. During that time, no other Final Girls emerged out of the slasher rubble, as slashers were switched out for torture porn and the paranormal.
But the genre once again underwent a facelift with the introduction of Erin in the slasher/home invasion flick You’re Next in 2011 (it took the filmmakers two whole years to find a distributor, so the film didn’t see a wide release until 2013). When animal-masked killers show up, Erin doesn’t even flinch. She’s immediately on the ready, advising her boyfriend’s family about how to survive, from using wooden chairs to dodge arrows to battening down the hatches to keep the killers out. She thinks on her feet, keeps a level head, and gets the job done. Erin is Laurie, Nancy, and Sydney all wrapped up in one character—agile in the face of lunatics and unwavering in her decision-making. Sally Hardesty’s blood pumps in her veins (I mean, come on, Erin jumped from a second-story window! Sally would be proud).
Where You’re Next captures Millennial angst in the aftermath of the 2008 job market crash, Erin is just struggling to survive and pulling from a wealth of resources to conquer monstrous evil.
Erin’s backstory of having grown up on a survivalist compound serves her well. As things escalate, she proves inventive in how she kills the intruders. In the film’s most interesting set piece, she uses her camera’s flash to confuse one of the killers and get the upper hand. But nothing compares to the finale, during which she grabs a blender and minces one killer’s brains. Step aside Sally, Laurie, Nancy, and Sydney—there’s a new Final Girl in town!
Erin unequivocally defines the ultimate Final Girl to this day. She’s steely-eyed and determined, a real force of nature against the dangers of the outside world. In many ways, she’s the Millennial generation’s Final Girl. Where the film captures Millennial angst in the aftermath of the 2008 job market crash, Erin is just struggling to survive and pulling from a wealth of resources to conquer monstrous evil. She became the breath of life for a genre that had long lost its luster.
You’re Next served as a precursor to where we find ourselves now. In the last three years, slashers have come back in popularity, and many names have made a bid as this generation’s Final Girl. Tree (Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2U), Sienna (Terrifier 2 and 3), and Sam Carpenter (Scream 5 and 6) are the most notable. While each demonstrates guttural strength, wits, and instinct, none reach the heights of Erin, a one-of-a-kind heroine. FL
