"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...