Daily archives: November 16, 2010


Final Girl

The final girl is a horror film (particularly slasher film) trope that specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in dozens of films, including Halloween[1], Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Hellraiser, Alien, and Scream. The term was coined [2] by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.[3] Clover suggests that in these films, the viewer begins by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experiences a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.