Most seasoned horror fans, especially those that love slashers, know the final girl. They are intimately familiar with the trope of the last girl alive, separated from her friends and forced to fight the horrible monster that’s been tormenting her. However, many horror fans don’t realize how the final girl got to where she is today.
Over time, the final girl trope has evolved from a damsel in distress who escapes torment by sheer luck to a strong feminist depiction of women in classic slasher horror. This evolution will be explored through the three most iconic final girls.
Many people consider Sally Hardesty from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to be the first final girl, but when weighed against her more modern counterparts, it’s almost difficult to fit them into the same category. While Sally is, in the barest of definitions, the final girl alive, she lacks some of the defining characteristics of the trope. Sally is not connected to her killer in the way many other final girls are. She also doesn’t have a final standoff where she actually fights back against her killer, the slasher staple that iconicized the final girl.
Sally is not given much of anything in the way of agency or connection. She’s only made into the final girl due to her outlasting her friends by chance, eliminating any inherent importance of her character. On top of this, she’s barely given a chance to connect with the audience, due to her non-active role in her final conflict.
When watching the ending of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it’s difficult to even define the final conflict as any sort of fight. Rather, it might more accurately be defined as a painfully prolonged torture scene with our final girl bearing the entirety of the brutality. Hardesty is given little to no chance to fight her way out, and is only able to survive due to her being able to endure the violence.
In the final scene of the movie, Sally runs from the house she has been trapped in, and is chased by two men. Upon reaching the street, one of these men is hit with a semi truck. The truck driver then takes it upon himself to help defend Sally from the other man still chasing her. At the very end of this scene, another truck drives up, and allows Sally to climb in the truck bed before driving away from the killer in the street. Throughout the entirety of this scene, Sally does nothing other than run about wildly and scream. She has no role in her own salvation, and only survives on pure luck.
On top of being given an entirely passive role in her final conflict, Sally is given no agency to save herself. After she is able to escape her torment, she’s rescued by an entirely random male character, rather than given the chance to make her own way to safety.
While Sally Hardesty is considered the first final girl, Laurie Strode from Halloween is considered the quintessential final girl. Though there is only a four year difference between the release of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween, there were leaps and bounds made in the progressive nature of the final girl trope.
While Laurie Strode is by no means the most progressive representation of a final girl, when weighed against her previous counterpart, there is a clear advance being made. Though Laurie is still not given complete agency in her final conflict, it is still made clear that she is a character to identify with and root for, rather than observe detachedly like Sally.
Laurie’s final conflict lacks full agency because she is not given the chance to start nor end the fight. Laurie’s role is initially purely reactionary, the killer has found her and is intent to kill her, the fight is not her decision.
But throughout the fight, Laurie slowly gains the upper hand by outsmarting the killer. She spends the majority of the final conflict scene fighting back and using her environment to her advantage. She is able to improvise weapons to defend herself, as well as create distractions to stall her killer. Laurie is not only surviving this confrontation, but fighting actively to live.
Despite the progress made in the actual conflict of Halloween, the end still leaves something to be desired. Although Laurie is given heaps more agency than Sally, she still fails to finish the fight herself, as she is eventually rescued by a male side character. At least this time the man is introduced prior to showing up to save her!
Though Nightmare on Elm Street’s Nancy Thompson is often overlooked when discussing iconic final girls, she is arguably the most admirable instance of this trope. She is a far more positive example than other final girls before her.
Nancy Thompson is not only given the most agency, she is also quite a dynamic character. She spends most of the movie fighting against people in positions of power doubting her experiences and writing her off as traumatized or dramatic, and rather than allow this to happen, she decides to disregard the people that are failing to help her and work to save herself.
Nancy is the first final girl who is allowed to initiate conflict with the killer rather than only being able to defend against his attacks and pursuit. She is the first final girl that is given the agency to actually plan and follow through on her plan to defeat the killer. This adds onto the previous evolution of the final girl being able to defend against the killer to the final girl being able to actively plan and execute an effective offense.
Nancy is also the first final girl to escape fully of her own merit, cementing her agency to not only initiate conflict, but finish it on her own. This moves the final girl fully away from a glorified damsel in distress, and establishes this trope as a positive representation of women.