The slasher film genre created the Final Girl ; see Texas Chainsaw Massacre / Halloween in the late 90s, and in the early 2000s with I know What You Did Last Summer and Scream.
The trope in itself is deeply expected and therefore allows filmmakers to give the audience what they want or surprise us by going against it.
 

While our pov usually takes us through our male killers eyes, our male audience still routes for our Final Girl to overcome her killer. We can see this in Halloween with the many successes of Jamie Lee Curtis, (1978) against Michael Myers in Halloween and Heather Langenkamp, (1984) against Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Of course we have the classic rule given to us by Friday the 13 th (American horrors golden rule) - women are usually murdered because their character had sex or desired it. A saving grace for all those virgins out there, you’re invisible.

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You might be thinking why follow these tropes then? Is it bordem? lack of creativity? Safety? Well no, tropes and cliches are followed out of adoration, respect & simply love for them that make the genre what it is.

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But what does our virgin rule say? Why is it there?
The Final Girl is relatable. She is who we wish to be. When you have a serial killer following the rules of sexuality - who frowns at your premarital sex, who works in a sexual frame of mind, then it’s safe to assume the threat of rape is ever present, and which woman hasn’t constantly had to think about that?
 

Thus we can say horror films have the threat of sexual assault in common with our daily life and it is empowering to watch a woman who is stalked, hunted and preyed, fight & conquer her attacker.
 

An ideal example is 'I Spit on Your Grave (2010)' which is widely known as a rape revenge movie. In the remake of this movie we watch Jennifer get captured and raped repeatedly.
Jennifer survives and tracks her rapists down and makes them suffer at the hands of disturbing revenge. 'I Spit on Your Grave (1978)' however is one of the most controversial films that cemented it as a cult classic. The film Roger Ebert called ‘a vile bag of garbage’. While banned in many nations because it is ultimately a gore fest, this movie is widely discussed whether seen as feminist or not. We watch the horrific repeated rape lead to the revenge of our main character. Clover says that this movie would be better understood if the male audiences identify with
Jennifer and not her attackers. The bloody catharsis of revenge in both movies gives her the redemption she deserves.

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Scream (1996) sees Neve Campbell struggle with her sexuality finding out her mother was the ‘neighbourhood slut’ and murdered because of this, shines a light on who our final girl is.
Eventually having to face Skeet Ulrich (her boyfriend) & Matthew Lillard (his friend) we saw Skeet earlier trying to get our final girl to finally sleep with him to only be turned away.

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So what about movies like cult classic Jennifer’s Body which have been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community? While elements might have been played with in the movie it doesn't erase the intent of preexisting tropes being marketed towards horny boys instead of embracing the previously stated elements.

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Thankfully, we've seen this narrative shift.
Stranger Things shows us Barb, the stereotypical final girl dying while her friend is sleeping with a boy upstairs gets to live on.
You’re Next (2013) gives us Erin with badass survivalist skills and self sufficient enough to react to the unfolding madness. Adam Wingard and Simon Barret gave us a final girl who was not punished not being viriginal and pure. They gave us a self relient woman.
We see Tree our main character in Happy Death Day (2017) although dying multiple times, who isn’t punished for having sex.We even see Neve Campbell survive to the end after having sex.

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Thus we can say the Final Girl trope grew and evolved with feminism.Which is evident even in the costuming & performance differences that echo the cultural shifts. Even down to Androgynous naming seeing a shift.

Let’s take it a step further and compare the 80s Final Girl with her 2000s counterpart. Laurie never kills Michael in Halloween, hiding until she’s saved by Dr. Loomis however fast forward to 2007, she gets to shoot Michael in the face.

 

The Other

 

The concept of the other shows us the ideas of belonging and identity. The WHO defines Gender as “socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of & between groups of women and men.”

 

Gender Roles are ways in which men & women are expected to behave that align with their chosen gender. Sandra Bem constructed the Bem Sex Role Inventory in 1974 aiming to assess traits people possess as Masculine or Feminine or Androgynous {combination of both traits}
Bem 1981 states Masculinity is the traditional behavior expectation in Men & Feminity is the traditional behavior expectation in women.

 

An example of this thought is woman taking care of children while men work. Or in restrictive rules such as boys, don’t cry and girls don’t swear.
 

When constructing these social categories you inherently pose a difference between the 2 making them opposites. 

 

Simone de Beauvoir (1950) "Otherness fundamental category of human thought. Thus it is no group ever sets itself up as the One without at once setting up the other against itself. Thus humanity is male & man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him." "She is incidental the inessential, as oppossed to the essential. He is the subject. He is the absolute. She is the other."
- Simone de Beauvoir
The Second Sex..

 

In horror we see fear of the female in films the such as The Exorcist 1973 (William Friedkin), Carrie 1976 ( Brian de Palma), I Spit On Your Grave 1978 ( Meir Zarchi).

Another take on ‘the other’ is seen in horror movies that give you the safe suburban neighbourhood. With its white picket fence and know each other neighbours. The "it's not supposed to happen here” area. This is the place you go to, to escape the danger lurking around every corner in the city. The "nice” neighbourhood. Telling you that it can very much happen at home, that is what makes people uncomfortable.

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Carol Cover (559) points out that in Halloween our protagonist Laurie Strode possess masculine gender traits of intelligence and strength vs traits seen in her friends.

Maya Zhou brings up an important aspect of the female audiences enjoyment of horror films, out of pleasure & not just to try on masculinity in viewership.

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Feminism has progressed from the 80s – we see more movies directed by women for women. Such as the Babadook focuses on working through grief and the struggles of motherhood (Jennifer Kent).

It is no longer necessary for our Final Girl to have Masculine traits.

Maya Zhou sums it up best by saying “the success of a feminist movement depends not only on critically examining women's oppression but also mobilizing their pleasure as well.”
 

So can we still see our Final Girl a heroine while also using a feminist pov?
It depends on the movie, but it’s important to recognize that the movie plays to the male gaze & therefore address the sexualization behind it. We need a vulnerable woman for the audience to worry about.
 

Yet, if a woman is strong and simply doing what she wants the dangerous situation will still make people worry. She does not need to be innocent and ‘perfect’ for an audience to care about her safety.
 

According to Clover we need a Final Girl to survive because audiences would reject films showing harsh violence on men and men also need to feel recognized - thus originally Final Girls would be androgynous (name and clothing).
 

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The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

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“And I’m every girl who's ever run from a man with a weapon. Every girl who ever ran for her life across spaces where she was supposed to be safe"

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This is an important book in the midst of MeToo horror. We usually do not expect horror to be about what happens after the violence. About the trauma and coping of our main characters that are left behind.
About the paranoia, the importance of therapy or how they deal with mourning the loss of their friends, of their youth, of their past.
Its seen in Halloween (2018) Laurie Strode living in the woods with a panic room. No longer waiting for Michael to find her, 2018 Laurie Strode goes after Michael. This shift is important. It addresses her fall out, her paranoia, the way its destroyed the relationships around her. The way her coping is not healthy. The impact of the trauma and the ptsd she holds. Yet here she is tracing down the one who caused it all.
 

The Final Girl Support Group touches upon all the points we see above. It covers the female identity and the double standards given between men and women. 

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“Men don’t have to pay attention the way we do. Men die because they make
mistakes. Women? We die because we’re female.”

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Grady gives us tough survivors and not victims. We see through our main character, Lynette the impact of the trauma she endured in the portrayal of her living with heightened survival skills and crippling fear. The paranoia that she holds, the attention to detail for the sake of safety can only come from someone who can no longer take safety for granted.

The concept for this novel was a unique look at our Final Girls years ahead, understanding their individual coping methods, grief and mourning – as well as addressing the gender differences and the power of a final girl.

 

Conclusion
 

Ultimately what we as horror fans can only hope for is a continuation of the progressive badass Final Girls we deserve to see. We deserve to root for someone that feels real. That goes through life as messily and with as many mistakes that we would make. We deserve a Final Girl who unapologetically is herself, whether she has sex or not, whether she parties, drinks and dares to live her life – she deserves to keep on living.
 

We can only hope that with the cultural shifts and the recognition of the feminist movement. We see every kind of woman get her own desired outcome. It is with this hope that we can mold the new Final Girl trope and make it mean so much more.

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References

Ebert, R. (1980). I Spit On Your Grave. Retrieved 20 August 2021, from
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-spit-on-your-grave-1980

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Feminism and The Final Girl. (2016). Retrieved 30 July 2021, from
http://pilerats.com/written/light-easy/feminism-and-the-final-girl/ 

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Garner, B. (2019). Feminist Film Theory 101: Carol J. Clover's “The Final Girl”. Retrieved 30
July 2021, from https://intheirownleague.com/2019/10/03/feminist-film-theory-101-
carol-j-clovers-the-final-girl/

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Stevenson, S. (2019). The Final Girl: Outdated Trope or Empowering Image in Horror?.
Retrieved 30 July 2021, from https://www.echo-lit.com/blog/the-final-girl-outdated-
trope-or-empowering-image-in-horror/ 
 

Weekes, P. (2018). Is the “Final Girl” in Horror Movies a Feminist Concept?. Retrieved 30 July
2021, from https://www.themarysue.com/anna-billers-the-final-girl/

Zevallos, Z. (2021). What Is Otherness?. Retrieved 30 July 2021, from
https://othersociologist.com/otherness-resources/ 

Zhou, M. (2019). Evolution of the Final Girl: Exploring Feminism and Femininity in Halloween
(1978-2018) (Senior). Claremont.

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dir Remi Weekes 2020
 

“Your ghosts follow you. They never leave. They live with you. It’s when I let them in, I could start to face myself.”
 

This is not your typical haunted house movie. With His House we finally have a horror movie that answers the question, ‘why don’t they just move out of the house?’

A heavy story of survivor’s guilt and the struggle of assimilation, a look into the refugee experience and the trauma it holds. In escaping a war torn region to fight through racism and make the most out of the new.

We are introduced to a story of Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) and Bol (Sope Dirisu), asylum seekers that are placed in a house after waiting for three months that while larger than most, which we are constantly reminded of as if this should stop their complaints, is run down and filthy.

The trouble is, the horror of the house is larger than the bug infested house that they’ve been given. The house, while holding within it a supernatural horror, stands for so much more. We see the house reflect their inner state of the trauma they went through- seeping through the cracks and doors, haunting them. We watch as Bol takes apart the walls as he chases his demons around the house. We watch as Rial considers a deadly proposition to get back the child they lost. The house is not a separate being, it doesn’t become the thing they have to escape and win over. It is their own pain engulfing them.

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This is not to say that there are no classical horror scares. Weekes gives us fears through sounds in the dark, sounds of ghosts moving around the house, glimpses behind the walls, scares in the corner of our eye.

The state of the house, cluttered with holes that show their wounds. These holes which grow larger by hammers only to become the very pieces floating in the sea they travelled across.  A powerful scene of the movie is the witch, holding Bol’s head and making him watch and relieve his journey. Forcing him to face all that he went through.
 

Rial and Bol’s journey started running from gunfire, to being in a stuffed pick up truck, to an even more stuffed motorboat in storm filled waters.

We watch as they struggle with PTSD in the form of flashbacks of the many other people who have died and bodies they left behind. The bodies they had to step over and swim away from to get to this new start. The bodies of the people who just couldn’t run fast enough.

Outside of their home they are the Other. Constantly watched, “Be one of the good ones”  because it’s not just about the witch haunting them but it is about the way they are looked at when they bring it up, it is their beliefs and culture being seen as mad or odd “She’s wearing a bedsheet”. It is the way they are trapped by the system, where any complaints they make about their house could go against their refugee status and hurt their asylum case.

We watch and root for them to find a way to make this house their home. We watch Bol sing songs they don’t know, try to get Rial to use utensils to eat, even changing his wardrobe.. Try to assimilate and fit in just as their caseworker (Matt Smith) has told them to.Whereas Rial wears her jewelry and colorful clothing, and prefers to speak in Dinka, her native tongue, instead of English. Until the only thing she feels is the need to go back.
“Stay here until we kick you out or wait until you want to go”

 

You find yourself asking what more could they do? Learning of their journey and the steps they took, we know they did what they had to because they had no other choice. Now that they are here and dealing with noises in the night and a supernatural presence they once again must face the fact that they have no other choice. It is this unwinnable situation that leads to the reconstruction. They don’t have to abandon their house because they don’t abandon themselves. A sense of change, of adaptation.

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Weekes presents us with a complex tale filled with so many kinds of horror, whether it’s the asylum seekers ptsd, whether it is their struggle to assimilate, whether it is in the nuanced racism or the outright racism Rial faces with the children she asks directions from. Horrors of trauma, of grief, of isolation and guilt interlaced with a few jump scares of a witch pulling at their tired hearts.

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By the end of the movie we have gone on an emotional journey and finally know that Rial and Bol are stronger than we could ever imagine. That they carry the stories of others inside of them and refuse to be sent back to a place that has been a source of so much turmoil. Weekes directorial debut is a fresh look at the haunted house genre and did what Mother! (2017) dir Darren Aronofsky  failed to do.
 

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“𝗪𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐦 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐨 𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬.”
 

This is a story of a small town on the edge of a forest.  Struggling with businesses leaving, layoffs becoming common and people shifting out of the town, it seems to be slowly engulfed by the forest.  The people remaining in Beartown are held together by their love for their junior ice hockey team.

           

“Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”

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It is this love that will eventually be their undoing.  The teenage boys who play in this team are treated as royalty since it is the first time in 30 years that their team has a chance of providing a sense of pride to their town. They are going to compete in the national semi finals. They have investors finally taking an interest. The hopes and dreams of every citizen, parents, sponsors, club members, coaches and fans all have placed everything on these boys.  In this town nothing is more important than hockey. Nothing.

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If the players win it can breathe life back into their beloved abandoned town.

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"Sometimes the entire community feels like a philosophical experiment: If a town falls in the forest but no one hears it, does it matter at all?"

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Simply put, yes it does. This is because of all the people in it matter. Their hopes and dreams, their fears and success, their judgments, their unique back stories, all of it makes the town matter. Backman switches narratives and pov and carries you through the story effortlessly. Each character is thoroughly fleshed out and well developed. You feel like a citizen, welcomed into this complex town. You know them all, you know their strengths and weakness’. You are a part of the town. It makes you face blind support. Backman created a detailed world and placed us in it beautifully.

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Beartown is more than a sports book. It forces you to look at your values and morals. Backman has presented us with an emotional thought provoking novel that made me tear up multiple times (but I also cried reading ‘A Man Called Ove’ so maybe Backman just does this to me?)
It is a book about responsibilities, parental hardships, training dedication and belonging. The book tackles serious topics of rape culture, racism, classism, grief, homosexuality, homophobia and misogyny. 

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“Here he is burdened with too much that no one sees, and here he has hockey. The team, the guys, Kevin. They mean everything to him, so he is everything they want him to be. And that’s a terrible thing. Having to keep a secret from those you love.”

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Ultimately you do not have to be a hockey fan, or even a sports fan to enjoy Beartown. I know nothing about hockey or sports in general and I was swept up in this town and their love for the sport. This is a story about family, friendship, loyalty and loss. This is a book about love.

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”Do you think I’m less of a man because I can’t fight?” he whispers.
“Do you think I’m less of a woman because I can?” she asks.

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Trigger Warning for the tough subject matters that do come up : rape,sexism, homophobia, victim blaming.

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My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent is a story about a 14 year old girl, Turtle Avelston who lives with her survivalist father, Martin. Through the book we're taken on her journey as she faces emotional, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the one who is supposed to protect her. 

Turtles upbringing has made her into a fiercely independent girl. Her bedroom wall is lined with a multitude of guns, she spends her night cleaning them and her mornings practicing how to use them. Turtle can also sharpen a blade and often goes for long treks by herself.

The book is filled with detailed descriptions of the surroundings that paint a beautiful picture but is contrasted with an unlivable home both physically, with Turtle sleeping with an army surplus bag over her, listening to the sounds of rats, as well as the skin crawling descriptions of abuse. It shows us the reality of a survivors internal thought process. We watch Turtles thoughts change and reflect the world views of her father, as well as abuse reflecting in her sense of self. The sense of dread makes us hold out hope for Turtle. This is all accomplished by Tallents hold over the language and delivery of descriptions that place you into the story.

 

As a reader one should proceed with caution because of the unstable home life. We are silent observers to situations such as watching Turtle hang from a rafter above a knife, Martin has placed between her legs, while he pushes her to hang above, he presses upward to force her into a pull up. After thirteen pull ups when pushed to try and do more her arms give way and her fingertips let go, her father moving the blade away only at the last second leading to her sawing open her jeans and cutting her. This is met with only laughter from her father. 

Another instance we are witness to is at Turtles request to go to a school dance being met with Martin striking her and branding her with a fire poker. Martin sees Turtle as his and only his, however he reduces her to nothing with the nightly rapes and with his nickname for her 'Kibble' placing her at the same level as dog food. 

The other characters that fill this book are other silent watchers, some, like her teacher who cluelessly tries to help Turtle, her grandfather who notices Turtle covered in bruises and finally the two boys she befriends through whom she finally sees a different world, a different way to live, one not as blurry and confusing as her complicated love for her father but one of ease.

 

Thus this book takes us on a journey from Turtle's point of view as we feel her conflict and hear her destructive self thoughts and watch her in worrying situations. It's raw and horrific and hard to read. Keeping in mind that the author is male makes the hellish experiences our protagonist has been put through questionable. It is at this where we question how Tallent wrote this journey with what intention and purpose or whether it was simply a form of torture porn.

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The book holds its strength in Tallent’s writing that absorbs you into the world so wholly, that today, months after reading it, I find my mind still wandering to Turtle and her life.