For as long as masked maniacs have been mowing down horny teens onscreen, there has also been the final girl. One of horror’s most enduring, influential tropes, the evolution of this role has coincided with the progression of the genre as a whole. It’s a part with a deep history of characters who have become iconic.
From common characteristics to how to crush the role, here’s everything you need to know about the final girl.
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The final girl is one of the major tropes of the horror genre, used most commonly in slasher films. In the simplest terms, she is the sole survivor of a killer’s bloody murder spree. The term was first coined and explored in-depth by professor Carol J. Clover in her 1987 paper “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film” (which she later expanded on in the 1992 book “Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.”)
“She is intelligent, watchful, level-headed; the first character to sense something amiss and the only one to deduce from the accumulating evidence the patterns and extent of the threat; the only one, in other words, whose perspective approaches our own privileged understanding of the situation,” Clover wrote. “We register her horror as she stumbles on the corpses of her friends; her paralysis in the face of death duplicates those moments of the universal nightmare experience on which horror frankly trades. When she downs the killer, we are triumphant. She is by any measure the slasher film’s hero.”
Characteristics of the final girl
Although the final girl has evolved significantly, the early archetype of the character was a well-mannered, rule-abiding brunette girl. She is the “good one” of the group; she doesn’t drink, do drugs, have sex, or wear revealing clothing. She has moral superiority (but never uses it) over her friends who do engage in these immoral acts—and who are subsequently picked off by a masked murderer.
Shades of slasher tropes existed in early works like Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and the giallo films of Dario Argento and Mario Bava; but the rules of the final girl trope truly crystalized in John Carpenter’s “Halloween” (1978). In the film, Jamie Lee Curtis plays Laurie Strode, a straight-A student who is deathly afraid of asking a boy out (let alone sleeping with him). She stays in on Halloween night to babysit without complaint; meanwhile, escaped serial killer Michael Myers murders her hard-partying friends.
Meet the Modern Scream Queens Leading a New Age of Horror The importance of the purity of a final girl really became apparent two years later, thanks to Sean S. Cunningham’s “Friday the 13th.” Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) survives the massacre at Camp Crystal Lake to discover that Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) is specifically targeting promiscuous teens because her son, Jason, drowned at the camp while two counselors were having sex.
The slasher movie template often features a third act during which the final girl discovers her deceased friends and confronts the killer. She isn’t always the one to defeat the monster, which is why there’s overlap with the damsel in distress trope. (It’s Donald Pleasence’s Sam Loomis who finally defeats Michael Myers in “Halloween,” not Laurie.) But she always survives… until the sequel, at least.
The idea of the final girl has shifted over the years, celebrating their strength and allowing them to explore their sexuality without punishment. The tide significantly turned with the 1996 slasher “Scream,” directed by Wes Craven, who originally helped create the archetype with his 1984 movie “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” In “Scream,” Craven aimed to both satirize and upend horror tropes. This is most obvious in the story’s final girl, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who loses her virginity—a death knell in the slashers of the 1980s—and still takes down both killers in the end.
Now, the idea is that final girls can be well-rounded and exhibit the same desires and habits as others their age and still be a hero. The character is defined less by her purity than her perseverance. “The final girl is the vessel we keep our hope in,” says horror author Stephen Graham Jones. “Final girls show us how to stand up against bullies. They show us how to insist on ourselves, in spite of everything. And that’s important, whether you’re dealing with some machete-wielder or a bad boss.”
Halloween Is Coming! Audition for These Horror Gigs Modern final girls, more often than not, are the ones to actually kill (or defeat) the bad guy. Beyond that, films like David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” (2018), which catches up with Laurie Strode 40 years after the original film, reckon with the emotional toll the experience would take on a person. Final girls are no longer just eye candy or symbols of morality; they are complex human beings who happen to fight for their lives.
The evolution of the archetype has happened beyond the slasher, too. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror is an early example of placing final girl qualities into a different subgenre. That thread is still seen in more recent films, with characters like Jay Height (Maika Monroe) in David Robert Mitchell’s “It Follows” and Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh) in Ari Aster’s “Midsommar.”
So, you’ve been cast in a horror film as a final girl. Once you’ve perfected your scream and learned the genre basics, give these seven performances a watch. They will offer the full final girl spectrum, from its inception to the current twists on the tropes. Taken altogether, it’s a lesson in how to honor one of horror’s most vital archetypes while also putting your own unique spin on the character.
Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) in “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” (1974)
As a sexually active blond who does drugs, Sally was breaking all the rules before the rules were even truly written. But the sheer veracity of Burns’ performance puts her on the final girl pantheon. She doesn’t defeat Leatherface and his cannibal family; she just escapes. The mania of the film’s final moments is a master class in unnervingly realistic acting.
Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the “Halloween” franchise (1978–2022)
The quintessential final girl, Laurie wears conservative clothing, runs errands for her father, is afraid to ask a boy out to the dance, and smokes some of her friend’s weed in an uncomfortable, never-done-this-before (and likely never-going-to-again) way. But the innocence in Curtis’ screen presence added to the horror of Carpenter’s highly influential slasher. The actor has reprised the role in six sequels over 44 years, which offers a unique chance to study how someone grows with their character’s trauma.
Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) in “Friday the 13th” (1980)
The 12-film “Friday the 13th” franchise has a wide array of final girls, but it all started with Alice. King’s performance is a lesson in stamina and reactions. In the film, the character isn’t actually running from the series’ iconic masked killer, Jason Voorhees, but from his mother—a twist saved for the end. That means much of the tension is on Alice finding her slaughtered friends.
Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984)
Nancy is a final girl in the Laurie Strode mold, except for one key difference: She dispatches the killer all on her own. Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is a uniquely boisterous slasher, and Langenkamp puts in the fiery performance needed to match him. She’s not quite as proactive as modern final girls, but there’s something to be said that, after kicking the crap out of Freddy in the real world, Heather ultimately defeats the killer by ignoring him.
Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) in the “Scream” franchise (1996–present)
“Scream” might just be the first film with two final girls. Shifty journalist Gale initially comes off as an antagonist—and even a potential suspect for the Ghostface killer—but eventually proves vital to the third act finale. Sidney, however, is the more traditional final girl, and any actor entering the slasher realm today should take notes on Campbell’s performance. It’s truly the fulcrum point between the classic “pure” final girl and a version of the archetype that really gets her hands dirty. (You can absolutely see shades of it in Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, stars of the more recent “Scream” sequels.)
Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) in “X” (2022) and “MaXXXine” (2024)
If you need proof that the final girl has become a part to prove your range, look no further than Goth in Ti West’s “X” and “MaXXXine.” In the former, which is heavily inspired by “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” Goth plays porn actor Maxine, who survives the night an elderly woman, Pearl (also played by Goth), murders her costars. “MaXXXine” catches up with the character a few years later, where a new murder spree finds Goth playing in a whole new setting, tone, and period pastiche. For the full picture, also watch the prequel, “Pearl” (2022); Goth isn’t playing a final girl here, but she’s still a marvel to behold.
Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) in “Terrifier 2” (2022)
Damien Leone’s ultra-gory “Terrifier” films gifted us with a new slasher icon in Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), as well as an awesome final girl in the second entry’s Sienna. A fierce teen obsessed with an angel warrior invented by her recently deceased father, Sienna is (spoilers!) the rare final girl who dies and comes back to life to see the end of the movie. “Terrifier 2” is not for the weak of heart, but LaVera remains compelling among the bloodshed.