Throughout the history of slashers and monster movies, one prominent horror trope has stood above the rest as the most famous and most prominent in all of horror media: the blood-splattered, machete-wielding final girl.
Hello, and welcome back to The Modern Monster, a biweekly column focused on the scariest ideas in both fiction and fact. For today’s Freaky Friday, we’re looking at one of horror’s best-known tropes.
The role of the final girl is simple: she survives the story. Final girls are prevalent in all sorts of stories, but specifically in horror movies that feature large amounts of violence. If people aren’t dying throughout the film, we can’t have a final girl.
As the trope went on and solidified in the public consciousness, the final girl began to take on more traits. She’s often presented as the main character of the story, with a moral compass that stands apart from the rest of the characters in the film. The characters that died often do so at the hands of their own character flaws, but the final girl is too pure to fall. Typically, the final girl is a virgin who refuses to drink or smoke or engage in any other vice, which other characters gravitate towards.
As horror modernized, more power was granted to the final girl. The heroines of 1996’s “Scream,” Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers, are the ones to ultimately put an end to the movie’s bloodthirsty villains, while the male heroes are conveniently put out of commission for the final fight. The final girl is not only the movie’s survivor but also its winner.
As the final girl trope matured, it became something like a joke amongst horror movies. The genre is well-known for its meta commentary, and nothing is more meta than a joke about your own film.
2015’s “The Final Girls” is a refreshing take on the topic at hand. Max Cartwright, played by Taissa Farmiga, finds herself and her friends trapped inside an ‘80s horror movie that her deceased mother once acted in. The standard horror movie plot takes a backseat to the drama unfolding between Max and the movie character Nancy, who was played by her mother Amanda in the 1980s. Amanda / Nancy is played by Malin Akerman.
The horror movie Max is trapped inside in, titled “Camp Bloodbath,” has a final girl in the overly badass Paula, played by Chloe Bridges. But when Paula dies, Max is forced to take over the role of final girl with the goal of ensuring Nancy makes it out of the story alive, unlike the real-life Amanda Cartwright. Max is later stabbed by Billy, the movie’s villain (played by Daniel Norris) and reveals to Nancy that, in some form or another, she is her daughter. Nancy ultimately sacrifices herself to cement Max’s place as the movie’s final girl.
“The Final Girls” is my all-time favorite meta-horror film. For many years, horror movie buffs have spent their time analyzing a movie’s final girl. From “Halloween’s” Laurie Strode to “Alien’s” Ellen Ripley, there must be a woman who somehow fits the category required to survive.
The beauty of “The Final Girls” is that the final girl chooses her status as the movie’s survivor. The characters of the film are aware of the requirements needed for the film to have a final girl and actively follow the guidelines set to make it happen. The painful twist at the end of the film is that, at the end of it all, Max doesn’t want to survive. She wants it to be Nancy.
In the original script of “Camp Bloodbath,” Nancy dies after losing her virginity, a typical red flag for any girls who hope to survive a horror movie. But when Max promises Nancy a better life outside the screen, Nancy does her best to make it out.
In my mind, Nancy represents every young woman with a dream to escape the girl she was meant to be. Amanda Cartwright is long gone, but Nancy still has hope. Max grants Nancy the agency needed to dream of a better world and frees Nancy from the original “Camp Bloodbath” script.
When the bloodthirsty Billy ultimately strikes her down, it’s Nancy’s choice. She may never see a world outside of “Camp Bloodbath,” but she still made her mark as a hero in her own right, breaking free of the script she was placed into.
I think it’s safe to say that many young girls and women feel a connection to the idea of a female community. We tend to gravitate towards established friend groups with close connections to the girls around us. It’s common for young girls to experience deeper friendships in smaller groups, whereas boys often find themselves more comfortable in larger groups with less emotional closeness.
As my mother’s daughter, I find it easy to look at her and feel a strange sense of similarity and emotional connection that’s difficult to find with other family members. Strangely enough, my mother and I have fewer common interests than I do with my father, but there’s something unique about a mother-daughter relationship. I feel the same with my stepmother — there’s a special connection that feels stronger and more complex than others.
Looking at my mother and my stepmother, I’ve always felt like a reflection to their worlds. We live in a strange time to be a woman, but it’s always been strange throughout history. Different as we may be, no one else can understand a mother the way their daughter can. I walk my path the way my mothers did and I do so with their experiences in mind. I see them in both my anxieties and my dreams.
“The Final Girls” is touching in a way that seems indescribable. Max views Nancy as a version of her mother where the world couldn’t hurt her. Nancy views Max as a future she could strive for, but Max’s world is so different that Nancy could never step foot inside. Nancy may not be Max’s mother, but Amanda Cartwright in the 1980s could never be Max’s mother — she’s just a girl.
There’s an undefinable world in a mother-daughter relationship, but “The Final Girls” finds a way to show off what many girls could only ever dream of: to see their mom as a girl like them.