Slasher movies aren’t all about bespattered psychos killing teens in increasingly creative ways. Well, of course they’re about that, but they’re about so much more, too. Like any long-running genre, there’s a vast literature dedicated to analysing the hidden mechanisms of slasher films, and there’s no more celebrated theory in all of horror than that of the Final Girl. After all, she’s the reason we keep watching, and why slasher movies are about more than just sating a primal bloodlust. She’s the unexpected heroine, who when imperilled digs deep, finding unknown reservoirs of resolve and resourcefulness, while all those around her lose their heads (sometimes quite literally).
You’re Next – part-slasher, part-home invasion horror – really capitalises on the modern incarnation of the Final Girl, and possibly moves it forward yet again. Here are the Scream Queens that made You're Next's strong female lead possible (also, it's a good excuse to use our new slideshows - click through or go fullscreen for the best experience):
Whenever I think of the Final Girl, I always think of Laurie Strode. She’s the one girl in Haddonfield, Illinois, that actually takes babysitting responsibly (her peers are too busy getting high or drunk to care much about tucking in toddlers). Laurie chooses to busy herself with a spot of knitting, instead. Laurie wasn’t strictly first Final Girl, but she ticks so many of the boxes – virginal, conscientious, a close relationship with the killer. But she’s got smarts, too – when wan-faced killer Michael Myers appears, Laurie’s actually smart enough to run out of the front door (well, sometimes).
There’s a lot of debate as to whether Ripley even qualifies as a Final Girl. Either way, she’s a pronounced influence on developing the trope; this is testament to Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of Ripley – undoubtedly one of the great female characters in the history of cinema. Ripley doesn’t merely defy strict gender roles; she flips the bird to them. She’s incapable of backing down or deferring to authority, whether that’s the corporate suit Burke or a gigantic Alien queen.
On the surface, Nancy is a very sweet yet fragile teenager. She comes from a broken home – her mother has taken solace in the bottom of a bottle and her father is largely absent from her life. But it’s a deceptive vulnerability, though, and gradually, as the film unfolds, Nancy shows herself to be an incredibly canny leading lady. Her resourcefulness is nowhere more evident than the film’s final reel, when Nancy literally drags the disfigured pervert Freddy Kruger out of her nightmares and into the real world. Waiting for him, in a darkened suburban home is a series of elaborate traps, from exploding lightbulbs and tripwires to a delicately-balanced sledgehammer. Nancy took down her psycho with a calculated game plan.
At first glance, Sidney was a return to the classic mould – timid, dutiful, prim and oh so proper. But Scream was anything but conventional. It foregrounded all of the genre’s most beloved tropes, and Sidney was its attempt to interrogate one of its most central elements. Sidney commits the one of the cardinal sins that Randy so memorably enumerates during the film – she sleeps with her boyfriend – but unlike the nubile teens before her, she isn’t ‘punished’ for her transgression of the code; in fact, she goes on to terrorise the killers before putting them to death. It’s said the final state of any genre that’s been around for too long is parody, and Scream is the perfect example. After it came out, everything changed – including the Final Girl.
Okay, okay. It’s not a slasher film, but Buffy The Vampire Slayer intentionally played off against the Final Girl trope. Ostensibly a bimbo, Buffy actively hunted the monsters that stalked her fictional ancestors. She was a new breed of leading lady. A lot of Final Girl theory concerns itself with detailing the ways in which the heroine sheds her femininity to more effectively combat the killer. Final Girls tend to have gender ambiguous names – Laurie, Ripley, Sidney, and so on. But Buffy is purposefully girly, undermining one of the tropes most central characteristics.
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Sharni Vinson’s Erin is more fiercely independent than many of her beleaguered ancestors. She’s the culmination of this general trend – she’s stronger, more capable from the outset. It isn’t a third act revelation. Vinson was well aware of getting this balance just right with her performance. “There was trying to find this blend of a character that when you have to stand up and fight, it’s almost second-nature,” says Vinson. But there’s an obvious problem with making the Final Girl such an outwardly capable figure from the off – if you’re not careful, the Final Girl can very quickly become a replacement for psycho she’s supposed to combat. Importantly, Erin isn’t unaffected by the violence that surrounds her. “It’s not like she’s this killing machine or she’s this supernatural person,” observes Vinson. “She’s not untouched by what she’s done.” And that’s key – if she didn’t register the horror that surrounds her, she’d be no different to the killers. “You’re not going to cheer for her anymore, because you’re not going to care. She’ll have just taken on the mindset of what killers had to start with.” But over the last thirty, forty years the leading lady has progressed significantly. We need to realise that the trope of the Final Girl isn’t static, and each girl who survives a night of terror, drenched in the blood of her friends, alters what we expect from our future survivors.
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Daniel is IGN's UK Games Editor. He sometimes writes about films, too. You can be part of the world's most embarrassing cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.
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