Final Girls in Horror Movies Essay Example

In horror films with every new one that comes out there is something new to discover or to analyse. Oftentimes while watching horror movies there is a killer, a monster, or a disease on the loose that ends up terrorizing the town and the people that are occupying it. There is a constant evolution throughout horror films in which we see the evolution of the final character also known as the “final girl.” The final girl is described as “showing enough courage, strength, assertiveness, and plain luck either to escape from the psycho or to kill him herself. (Clover, 167)” In most horror movies there is a final girl who is courageous and vigilant in which she shows her strength to save herself, along with showing the strength to be intelligent while being hunted, however in some horror film the case might be found that some final girls aren’t as lucky as others.. 

Throughout the Final Girl text there is an abundance of text that shows how the final girl shows courage, strength, vigilance, and strength in order to save themselves or help their friends survive throughout the movie. The image shown throughout hearing the text final girl is the thought that they are weak and more secluded as they are more reserved from their friends instead of being consistently social throughout the movie whether that be partying or not being responsible in the slightest. An example shown throughout the text describes the final girl as “she is alone also finding the strength either to stay the killer long enough to be rescued (ending A) or to kill him herself (ending B) (Clover, 167).”  This indicates how she is facing death in the way that nobody else could as she stays to face the killer or she takes enough time to get herself saved from the killer hunting her. Along with that, in the movie Halloween Laurie hides herself and the children she is hiding in order to keep them safe from the killer. However, being vigilant she creates a weapon out of a hanger and saves herself and the children as she stabs the killer in the eye to save them. Moreover, she also fights the killer long enough to wait for the children to get help and to save her as Dr. Loomis shoots him out the window. 

While being hunted by the killer at large the final girl tends to panic due to being hunted and being close to death, however they always have a tendency to show the right strength and intelligence in order to make the best decisions in order to survive the killer. An example in the movie Friday the Thirteenth is when Alice keeps Mrs. Voorhees occupied as she runs for a machete in order to save herself  in which she chops Mrs. Vorhees heads off and rows into the middle of the lake to save herself until morning. The final girl trope describes them in some movies as the clueless girl who survives based on their luck rather than their intelligence. The intelligence shown from final girls helps solve a problem in which they are able to outsmart the killer and to be able to save themselves. An example is in Texas Chainsaw Massacre II in which the final girl saves herself in which she finds a way to make leatherface fall in love with her. With that being done she was able to save herself from what could have been her death. With that being said, it helps show the quality of the final girl's fight in which she is able to run away and enable herself to survive.

Moreover, in some cases the final girl isn’t always as lucky as they always can be. In the second installment of Friday the Thirteenth the final girl Alice is shown to be slaughtered by the then alive Jason Vorhees in revenge for her killing Mrs. Vorhees in the previous movie. Along with that, in the series Final Destination the final characters although not all girls are shown premonitions throughout the movie in which they are shown the future that could be and will be their lives where they are killed. Within seeing that they decide to change their fate not knowing that no matter what they do their deaths are inevitable. Throughout the movie, the main characters are shown to continue to die and just when they thought they could outrun death they are shown to be killed by a sign in the ending of the movie after feeling a gust of wind as their previous friends had too.  The way some final girls act and go about doing specific things they are shown to be detrimental in the way that they are cornered and unable to do anything but coward in fear of their life. In most horror movies the final girl is shown to be strong and intelligent however in some specific cases they can’t do anything but be killed whether it be in the first installment or in later installments. Examples being Laurie Strode being killed by Michael Myers in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, in which Laurie  was killed before the events of the film, however being the final girl she was she killed. With that being said, it’s shown how some final girls are shown not  as vigilant and not as intelligent as one could be in those situations.

All in all, final girls in horror movies are shown to be vigilant and intelligent in order to save themselves or the people they are with. The example described shows Laurie Strode in Halloween in which she makes a makeshift weapon out of a metal hanger and stabs the killer in the eye. Along with the final girl being strong and vigilant in which they are able to think under pressure and able to survive long enough to keep themselves from being killed, an example is Alice being intelligent enough to hide herself in the middle of the lake after she killed Mrs. Vorhees post being hunted. And lastly, sometimes there are the struggles of the final girl not being as lucky as they could be in which some final girls don’t make it into sequels or past their own first movie such as the group in Final Destination in which the final group of people are killed after they are trying to skip the unavoidable death that was shown previously in the movie.