The 10 Best Final Girls In Horror Movies

If a bloodthirsty maniac put a knife to my throat and forced me to name my favorite trope for women in horror, it would probably go a little something like this: I’d whip around and disarm him, sending his machete/butcher knife/rusty razor into the dusty field around us. A grand scuffle would ensue, with one or both of us getting are-they-dead-or-not knocked out a few times. I’d probably sustain some epic wound that I’d be able to fight through anyway, and with my last bit of strength, I’d rise, covered in dirt and blood, to deliver my fatal blow. Before finally vanquishing the maniac, I’d look him square in the eye and sassily spit, “The answer is ‘final girl,’ bitch.”

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Carol J. Clover uncovered these queens of horror in her life-changing text “Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film” back in the slasher zeitgeist of 1992, but her observations are just as astute today. In coining the “final girl,” Clover identified slasher’s greatest heroines by their tomboyishness, virginity, and ultimate ability to defeat their oppressors. The trope has evolved across horror subgenres in the last forty-ish years, but the final girl end game remains the same. Whether surviving alien colonies, conversion therapy, or their own lovers, these women are some of cinemas grittiest broads, and it’s practically impossible not to root for them. In honor of Halloween, here are The Playlist’s top 10 final girls. –Lena Wilson

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10. Erin – “You’re Next”
“You’re Next,” Adam Wingard’s super small-budget slasher romp, delivers on more than just blood splatter and screams. It also features Erin (gamely played by Sharni Vinson), a final girl integral to the film’s greatest plot twist. When Erin goes home to meet her boyfriend’s family for the first time, the most pain she’s expecting is a semi-awkward dinner—but things get hairy really fast when it turns out a band of killers has descended upon the family home. They’re out to get Erin, too, but she has something they don’t: a decade’s worth of experience living on a survivalist camp with her paranoid father. Her unprecedented badassery makes for a fun fucking time as the film progresses and her self-defense gets more savage, culminating in one of the most satisfying (and surprising!) horror movie kills seen on screen in ages. Erin lands a place on this list due in large part to the unexpected pleasure of her existence. –LW

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9. Nancy Thompson – “A Nightmare on Elm Street”
Wes Craven, as a veritable master of his craft, interpreted the conventions of horror films in a myriad of ways throughout his decades-long career, including the idea of the final girl (including, notably, in his genre-dissecting classics “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” and “Scream”). However, none of his takes are more memorable than Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy Thompson, the protagonist of the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and a number of its sequels. Tortured by Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger alongside her friends and boyfriend (Johnny Depp’s Glen Lantz), Nancy, in the mold of Laurie Strode (see below), is forced to develop from a timid, average teenage girl to a brave warrior (a dream warrior, if you will) unafraid of the evil that haunts her, making her one of the most capable heroines of the 1980s. Though the fear-fueled series continued throwing new challenges at Nancy (including death) through its conclusion in “New Nightmare,” she never wavered from her fight against Freddy, solidifying her as one of the most iconic horror movie characters of all time. Nancy’s character, transplanted to the much-maligned 2010 remake of “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” was played by the normally capable Rooney Mara, but much like Jackie Earle Haley’s portrayal of Freddy Krueger just couldn’t quite fill Englund’s knife-tipped glove nor beat the original. – Jake Naturman

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8. Audrey Jensen & Emma Duval – “Scream” (TV Series)
If you love teen slashers and you haven’t indulged in MTV’s gone-too-soon “Scream” spin-off, what are you doing with your life?! Set in the fictional town of Lakewood, “Scream” tracks a plucky band of teens across two seasons (and one Halloween special) as they fend off a bloodthirsty serial killer—and their own pasts. One of the show’s greatest joys is Noah Foster (John Karna), a true crime nerd who spends Lakewood High’s English classes expounding on the cinematic parallels between slasher films and his own life. His preoccupations include deciding who among his friends, is Lakewood’s true final girl. The obvious answer is Emma Duval (Willa Fitzgerald), the show’s too-sweet-to-die protagonist, but those waters get muddied toward the end of season one when Emma reconciles with her childhood best friend Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus). The girls’ relationship is one of the best in horror history, as Audrey’s burgeoning teen gayness and Emma’s comfort within the popular-girl mean crowd cause the two to butt heads and share an intense bond. They unpack their family traumas together. They have excruciating first-straight-girl-you-were-in-love-with chemistry together. They kill together. If you didn’t know there were two of fascinating final girls lurking in the shadows of MTV’s dubious programming, well, now you do. –LW