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Final Girls Come in All Shapes, Sizes, and Genres

We have reached the end of our time together. We are in Act Three of the slasher movie, and by the looks of it, you have survived my blog about final girls. We have spent all this time talking about the diversity of the final girl. We started with one of the most iconic final girls, Sidney Prescott from the Scream franchise. Sidney broke common stereotypes associated with women in horror. Then we took a look at Samara Weaving as Grace le Domas in Ready or Not and how marital and familial violence are a common trend in horror movies. Next we discussed a personal favorite of mine, the Fear Street trilogy, and how queer people are becoming final girls after a long history of burying your gays. Most recently, the Escape Room franchise showed us a glimpse of final girls of color. After all of these characters and analyses, we’ve proven that there are no limits to how a final girl looks or acts, despite the boxes history had tried to put them in. Final girls have never been constrained ...
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Escaping Racial Stereotypes in the Escape Room Franchise

In my first post, I asked you to think about your favorite horror movie. I bet you that the sole survivor of that movie was a woman. Well, I want to issue another bet, double or nothing. The person that survives is a white woman. If I am wrong, let me know what movie you’re thinking of. I would love to watch it. In this post, we will be talking about final girls of color and the racial stereotypes that have become associated with them.  Horror has a long standing history of killing their characters of color, quite brutally and swiftly. So much so that a common media trop is the “black dude dies first,” referring to the regular occurrence of a character of color dying early on in a film’s runtime. This trope arose from filmmakers having a token minority in their project to check a box, but limiting their role by killing them off as soon as possible. Tropes like this in horror are an extension of society’s beliefs of who they believe is worthy of life. The United States of America is...
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Queer Street

What if I told you there was a slasher trilogy centered around a lesbian love story and they both survive and live happily ever after? You’re probably thinking I’m telling a cruel joke and my punchline is “in your dreams!” Well it’s not a joke, it’s very real actually. Just look at the Fear Street trilogy on Netflix. The Fear Street trilogy follows Deena Johnson (Kiana Madeira), a high school student from Shadyside, and her friends as they fight off serial killers trying to kill Deena’s ex-girlfriend Sam Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch). Throughout the three movies that span three centuries of time, the audience learns how to save Sam, the history of the killers, and the real story of Sarah Fier, Shadyside’s first witch. The Fear Street trilogy is a masterclass in subverting common slasher tropes. The movies draw a lot of influence from iconic slasher movies, but are careful not to make the same mistakes and perpetuate harmful stereotypes.  Movies and television have had a troubled p...
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Till Death Do Us Part

To some, marriage may seem very daunting. I mean you’re promising your whole life to another person. Others will find it beautiful for the same reason, finally getting their happy ever after ending that they thought only existed in fairytales. However not all love stories ride into the sunset or even make it past their wedding night. Behind divorce, death is the second leading cause of a marriage ending. That’s not to say the bride is the one dying. We are talking about final girls here. In this post, we will be highlighting final girls who survive family violence and what these narratives say about women. In Ready or Not (2019), Grace le Domas (Samara Weaving) must survive a murderous game of hide and seek conducted by her in-laws on her wedding night. The le Domas family are incredibly wealthy due to their business in the game industry (think cards and board games, not video games). Every time a member of the family gets married, their spouse must draw a card from a puzzle box craf...
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"Please Don’t Kill Me Mr. Ghostface, I Wanna Be in the Sequel"

  “What’s your favorite scary movie?” Think about your favorite scary movie. I’d bet some money that the person left at the end is a woman. I’m also guessing that the woman alive by the time the credits roll is probably a little different than the girl you were introduced to at the beginning: covered in blood, some battle scars, lots of trauma, and a lot less friends.  Surviving the brutal killings of a slasher movie allows a character to claim her title as a “final girl.” A “final girl” is most simply defined as the female character left standing to face off against the killer and ultimately kill them in a horror movie. It is one of the most popular tropes in the slasher genre. Final girls are most often in the horror genre, but the concept can span genres like science fiction. Though the actual term “final girl” was coined in 1992 by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws , final girls have existed before that. Some iconic characters in the ranks of the “final...
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