Rogue Squad: The 7 Most Fiendish Final Girls in Horror Movies
Naughty or Nice?
The final girl is one of horror’s most famous tropes. Of course, it was Laurie from Halloween (1978) who became the prototype for modern final girls in horror movies – a shy young woman who finds surprising inner strength against the seemingly unstoppable Michael Myers.
The classic final girl is clean cut, empathetic, and morally virtuous in a traditional sense. Today, we’re looking at characters that cleverly subvert this trope. These final girls are anything but conventional. In fact, they’re downright naughty. These ladies are deliciously diabolical takes on a familiar formula.
Here are seven fiendish final girls in horror movies ranked from nicest to naughtiest. Because we like to have fun here at The Slasher Shack, I’ve assigned each of them a naughty level: moderate, high, or supreme.
Warning: The entries below contain major spoilers. Like my 12 Horror Movie Victims Who Deserved to Live and 10 Shocking Horror Movies Where the Villain Wins posts, it simply isn’t possible to write this without revealing significant plot details.
7. tree in Happy Death Day
I’ve covered Tree and Happy Death Day before, but there’s no way I could leave her off this list. After becoming ensnared in a time loop where she repeats the same day over and over again, this narcissistic and shallow college student repeatedly battles the mysterious Babyface Killer, who kills her in a variety of creative ways.
Along the way, she becomes more likeable and shows an empathetic side, although this movie (unlike its inspiration Groundhog Day) isn’t really about Tree needing to become a better person in order to escape the loop.
Tree engages in an ongoing affair with her married professor, which lands her in hot water in more ways than one. The killer (well, one of them) turns out to be her roommate, who tries to kill her with a poisoned birthday cupcake. She’s jealous about Tree’s affair with the professor. Tree dispatches her nemesis by shoving the cupcake in her mouth and kicking her out a window.
Although her sins are relatively minor compared to the rest of the ladies on this list, Tree is far more morally gray than the typical final girl. Her cynical and apathetic worldview would normally be grating, but Jessica Rothe adds enough charm to keep us rooting for her.
Naughty Level: Moderate
6. maxine in X
Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) is a nascent ’70s porn actress who is determined to become a superstar. She keeps repeating the mantra that she will not accept a life that she doesn’t deserve. X gradually reveals Maxine’s enigmatic backstory, including the surprising revelation that her father is a conservative television preacher.
Maxine is shooting her latest adult film, The Farmer’s Daughter, in a small guest house located on a remote Texas farm. Unfortunately for her and the rest of this intrepid gang of pornographers, the farm is owned by a deranged elderly couple with a sordid history of murdering anyone who bothers them. The wife, Pearl (also played by Mia Goth), commits most of the killings.
After Pearl kills her friends, Maxine destroys her nemesis by crushing her skull with her husband’s truck. X is modeled after ’70s exploitation films. Maxine’s drug use and occupation are polar opposites of the typical final girl archetype, making her one of the naughtiest final girls in horror movies.
Naughty Level: Moderate
5. Sam in Scream
Sam (Melissa Barrera) is the daughter of original Scream killer Billy Loomis. She has recurring visions of her dad, who offers her advice and often urges her to kill. Sam is often suspected of being a psychopath. Murder runs in the family, after all.
She’s protective of her younger sister, Tara, and will resort to extreme violence when she or Tara is threatened. Sam enjoys inflicting pain and violence, but only against bad people. She has a conscience, which makes her fundamentally different from her psychopathic father.
Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2024) flirt with the idea that Sam is becoming a coldblooded killer, but she mostly resists her darkest impulses. In her final scene, she discards a Ghostface mask on the ground and walks away, symbolizing a break from her father’s legacy.
Naughty Level: High
4. deena in Night of the Reaper
Deena (Jessica Clement) is a shy, softspoken college student living in the ’80s midwestern United States. She is returning home to her parents’ house for Halloween. After accepting a babysitting job, Deena is menaced by a mysterious masked killer.
She seems like a typical final girl at first, but Deena turns out to be anything but. She’s an avenging angel who has figured out who’s responsible for her sister’s murder (which is depicted in the film’s opening scene).
Deena isn’t interested in bringing the killers to justice in a conventional sense. She doesn’t trust the justice system to handle them. Pretending to be innocent and naive, Deena manipulates and deceives everyone as she puts together her revenge master plan.
Deena turns the tables on the film’s antagonists. It’s a classic “hunter becomes the hunted” scenario and a fun subversion of the norm.
Night of the Reaper climaxes with her battle with the two killers, whom Deena plans to eliminate. She is nearly killed herself, but is saved by the town sheriff, who manipulates the crime scene to cover up Deena’s actions.
Naughty Level: High
3. erin in You’re Next
Erin (Sharni Vinson) is the seemingly easygoing and unassuming girlfriend of Crispian (A.J. Bowen), who is the co-inheritor of his parents’ vast fortune. When the family gets attacked in their mansion by masked men armed with crossbows, Erin shows a secret side that even her boyfriend was not aware existed. She grew up in a survivalist camp, where she learned a certain set of skills that the attackers are unprepared to handle.
After the unsurprising revelation that Crispian, his brother, and his brother’s girlfriend paid the hitmen to kill their family so they could claim the full inheritance, Erin brutally finishes them off. Most of her kills are justifiable self defense, but she closes out the movie by slaughtering Crispian and his brother’s girlfriend despite that both are unarmed and don’t present an imminent physical threat.
Her status as the sole survivor could backfire. Will the police believe her story? It’s not hard to imagine Erin being found culpable for the killings, especially since the last two were straight up murders.
You’re Next leaves Erin’s ultimate fate ambiguous, but it would have been smarter for her to leave at least one person alive.
Naughty Level: Supreme
2. chelsea in The Ranger
Chelsea (Chloé Levine) is an emotionally disturbed ’80s punk chick who simmers with dark impulses and homicidal rage. She fatally shot her uncle when she was a little girl, supposedly by accident.
Years later, Chelsea and her gang of friends are hiding out in the woods after stabbing a cop. They run afoul of a psychopathic park ranger who despises punks and has a surprising connection with Chelsea.
Chelsea’s ruthlessness makes her a shadowy reflection of the ranger, who believes that he and the punk girl have a special bond. They’re both wolves, he says, and wolves like to kill. He has a point. The epic final battle between this borderline sociopathic anti-hero and her crazed villainous counterpart reaches an apex of unhinged insanity.
Like most final girls in horror movies, Chelsea eventually comes out on top. She proves to be resourceful and creative, even using a pair of binoculars as a bludgeoning weapon. But is butchering the ranger enough to satiate her bloodlust?
Naughty Level: Supreme
1. Rocky in Don’t Breathe
Rocky (Jane Levy) is part of a criminal trio who robs houses in the Detroit area. She teams up with her boyfriend Money and friend Alex to rob an elderly blind man of his fortune. He’s a military vet whose daughter was killed in a car accident. The man received a large settlement, which the robbers discover is stored inside his home.
Rocky is broke. She’s desperate for money so that she and her little sister can move to a safer area. What they don’t know is that the homeowner is a violent sadist.
She becomes the default heroine against the blind man. Rocky is a thief, but he’s a demented torturer, murderer and rapist. Ultimately, she emerges from this house of horrors with both her life and the money. Her two companions aren’t so lucky.
Rocky isn’t as evil as the blind guy, but I think it’s a stretch to even call her an anti-hero. She’s a villain. Remember, her initial goal is to rob a lonely elderly man of the money he received as compensation for his daughter’s tragic death.
Rocky never expresses genuine remorse for her actions, nor does she receive any kind of comeuppance. She’s an awful person. That lands her the top spot in my list.
Naughty Level: Supreme
we need more final girls like these
Horror is filled with well worn tropes and cliches. Final girls are chief among them. The final girl as an antihero, or sometimes even a villain, is a concept that needs to be explored in more movies.
I hope that filmmakers will continue to find creative new ways to subvert this and other common genre devices. Horror is at its best when it’s broadening its horizons instead of treading over the same familiar ground.
