Final Girl - Thriller

The Final Girl
The final girl is used in a thriller film and refers simply is defined as ‘the last character left alive to confront the killer’. The final girl has been observed in lots of films including Halloween, Friday the 13^th and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

This is the final girl in the Scream franchise. The
character is called Sidney Prescott she is the
one solve survivor.

The term was coined ^[2] by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.  Her concept focuses around the idea that in every thriller film there are a series of victims who are killed by one killer amid increasing terror and suspense and increasing climax whereby the last surviving member, girl or women either kills the killer or gets away. According to Clover, the final girl carries many common characteristics including:

Typically sexually unavailable

·      Always female

·      Avoid death by sex or drugs

·      Wont drink alcohol or smoke

·      Sometimes has a unisex name

·    Occasionally will have shared history with the killer e.g. in Scream 3 the killer is the half brother of the survivor.

The final girl is known as the ‘investigating consciousness’ of the film, which moves the narrative forward and exhibits intelligence, vigilance, bravery and curiosity.

One of the premises of Clovers theory is the unstable identification of gender. During the final girls confrontation with the killer, she argues hat she becomes masculinized through ‘phallic appropriation’ whereby she takes a weapon such as knife or gun and uses it against the killer. This is controversial because women are not associated with violence and therefore give an inaccurate representation of women.

The phenomenon of the male audience when they gave to identify a young female character in a male–orientated genre usually associated with topics such as violence raises interesting nature of ‘slasher' films and their relationship with feminism.

 Clover also argues that for a film to be successful, if the final girl is masculine the surviving character must bee female, this is because she is experiencing terror and viewers would reject this if it were terror against a male.

This is the final girl from the 'Halloween' franchise.
The character is Laurie Strode.

This is the final girl from the 'Nightmare on
Elm Street'. The character is Nancy Thomposn.