The Most Underrated Final Girls in Horror History

The Background and History of the “Final Girl”

The final girl is one of the most recognizable tropes in horror, especially in the slasher subgenre. These resilient and resourceful ladies are the last people standing at the end of the movie.

They’re usually soaked in blood, traumatized but triumphant, after defeating the villain (at least until the sequel). Not every horror movie has a final girl, of course, but they remain a prominent aspect of many films.

The concept of a horror movie “final girl” was famously discussed and analyzed by Carol J. Clover in her seminal genre book Men, Women, and Chainsaws (1992). The trope has evolved over the past four-plus decades.

How Final Girls Have Changed

The final girls of the ’70s and early ’80s were typically portrayed by conservative moral standards. They often needed help from male characters in order to survive, and were almost always portrayed as “pure” young women who abstained from drugs and sexual activity.

These characteristics have been deemphasized in more recent horror films. Final girls today are tougher and more independent than their retro counterparts. They no longer have to abstain from drugs and booze, and they certainly don’t need to be virgins.

Have final girls transitioned from an antifeminist trope into a feminist one? An in-depth examination of the political and social implications of final girls are beyond the scope of this story, but it’s interesting to think about how much this trope has changed over the years.

Every horror fan knows the most famous of these ladies, like Laurie in Halloween, Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Sydney in Scream. But there are plenty of other memorable final girls that haven’t gotten their just due.

Here are my picks for the five most underrated final girls in slasher history. Careful for spoilers if you haven’t seen the movies below.

Megan is the cute, spunky daughter of the gruff Crystal Lake chief of police. She becomes the love interest of Tommy Jarvis, one of Jason Voorhees’s arch nemeses. Megan is the only person who believes Tommy when he tries to warn the town that Jason has returned from the dead.

Megan, played with great enthusiasm by Jennifer Cooke, is better written than most of the characters in the “Friday” series. Her relationship with her dad has actual emotional depth. That’s a rarity for this franchise.

In the movie’s climax, Megan watches tearfully on shore as Jason fights Tommy on a boat in the middle of a fiery Crystal Lake. After Jason chokes Tommy into unconsciousness, Megan dives into the lake and defeats Jason by using the boat’s motor as a weapon.

4. Taylor (Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon)

Next up is Taylor, a mousy, sweater-loving true crime journalist. Accompanied by an amateur film crew, Taylor attempts to create a documentary about Leslie Vernon, a wannabe spree killer who hopes to imitate the fame of horror villains like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers (who are real people in this movie’s world).

Although they are fascinated and intrigued by Leslie and his deadly plans, Taylor and the crew eventually grow consciences and decide to make a last ditch attempt to stop him. In the process, Taylor is stunned to discover that she is Leslie’s final girl. Can she defeat the fiend, or is she just another chess piece for Leslie to manipulate? Taylor earns major creativity points for using an apple press as a weapon. Turns out that those devices are very efficient skull crushers.

3. Jess (Black Christmas)

Next up is Jess (Olivia Hussey), a sorority girl who receives terrifying obscene phone calls from an anonymous maniac. As if she didn’t have enough problems, Jess is also saddled with an unwanted pregnancy, courtesy of her ill-fated boyfriend Peter. After her friends begin to disappear, Jess suspects (incorrectly) that Peter is responsible.

Jess is more mature and poised than her sorority sisters. This makes her a formidable opponent for the film’s unhinged killer. She is quite adept at defending herself. Don’t sneak up on this girl or she’ll bludgeon you with a fireplace poker!

2. Maddie (Hush)

Maddie (Katie Siegel) is a horror novelist who has been deaf and mute since contracting meningitis at the age of 13. She lives with her cat in an isolated wooded area. You’d think a horror writer, of all people, would know that living alone in the middle of the woods is never a good idea.

Maddie attracts the attention of a masked crossbow-wielding killer. In most horror movies, a disabled young woman living alone wouldn’t make it past the first scene. But Maddie is far from typical opening kill fodder. She is tough, resourceful, and more than a match for the maniac who has targeted her.

Maddie is one of the few final girls with a disability. Genre representation for deaf characters has increased significantly in recent years (A Quiet Place and Only Murders in the Building are prominent examples) but deaf major characters were rare when this film was released in 2016.

1. Alice (A Nightmare on Elm Street Parts 4 and 5)

Although she doesn’t appear until the franchise’s fourth installment, Alice (Lisa Wilcox) is one of the most interesting characters in the “Elm Street” series. In A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Alice starts off as a quiet, shy girl who is friends with Kirsten Parker, the returning heroine from the third installment.

After Freddy kills Kristen halfway through the film, Alice becomes the new protagonist. In the process, she transforms from a shrinking violet into a supernatural badass (the “dream master” of the title) who gains the mystical ability to absorb the personality characteristics of Freddy’s victims.

In Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Alice deals with an unexpected pregnancy in a storyline somewhat similar to Jess’s in Black Christmas. Freddy returns to haunt her fetus’s dreams, but Alice eventually discovers a way to defeat him again.

Although she survives both installments, Alice is mysteriously missing from the sixth film, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. Considering how awful that movie is, it’s probably a blessing that she wasn’t included.