Outside of the obvious, who is your favourite female lone survivor or 'Final Girl' in the horror genre?

Submitted by LeGaffe t3_yhf1uc in movies

By 'outside of the obvious', I am specifically referring to the likes of Laurie Strode & Ellen Ripley & Sidney Prescott & Nancy Thompson (my favourite of the bunch).

 

If the net can be cast further (they are either the final survivor or took on an 'entity' and won) who would you include in your list?

Some of my leftfield choices:

 

  • Suzy Bannion in Suspiria (1977)

  • Wendy Torrance in The Shining (1980)

  • Reiko Asakawa in Ringu (1998)

  • Claire Spencer in What Lies Beneath (2000)

  • Sarah Carter in The Descent (2005)

  • Jay Height in It Follows (2015)

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Badwolf_131 t1_iuddjws wrote

Would the girl who bought her way out of Hostel Part 2 count? Because that was a pretty epic way she got out “let him bleed out”

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TotesObviThrwawy t1_iude2yu wrote

Max in The Final Girls.

Susie Bannion in Suspiria (2018) ;)

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msprang t1_iudexz2 wrote

The girl who makes it to the end of the Evil Dead remake.

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mandarin_orange1 t1_iudfeng wrote

Sharni Vinson as Erin in You're Next (2011) has always been a stand-out to me. Samara Weaving as Grace in Ready or Not (2019) is great, and so is Betty Gilpin as Crystal in The Hunt (2020)!

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LeGaffe OP t1_iudfidz wrote

Replying to Badwolf_131 (#343,546)

Absolutely it counts! I hadn't thought of Beth.

I guess depending on how far you want to push the 'horror' envelope, you might even be able to include someone like Laura Burney in Sleeping with the Enemy.

I totally get that it's not a horror film per se but Patrick Bergin is an amazing antagonist.

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Coconut-bird t1_iudfnix wrote

Well obviously Erin from Your Next and Grace from Ready or Not. I also really liked Tree from Happy Death Day

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urborous t1_iudgnc7 wrote

Replying to msprang (#343,868)

Do you think the death/rebirth mythic structure works for the Final Girl?

It was a smart idea you see smart people using (JK Rowling at the end of Harry Potter or George RR Martin in the Jon Snow arc,) yet I'm not sure how effective it was, in this one.

Actually you could argue all of these kinda don't work, from the just-okay end of Harry Potter, to heaping even more "Hero's Journey" shit on characters calculated to disappoint you in "Game of Thrones," to trying to enrich the journey of the Final Girl?

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fishwithfish t1_iudhyue wrote

I hate to be that guy..... but the "final girl" trope is more or less confined to the slasher genre (or genres closely related) and doesn't just mean "girl/woman who survives to the end."

Wendy Torrance, for example, does not confront the killer (Danny does). Neither does Reiko Asakawa in Ringu. On the other hand, while What Lies Beneath's Claire Spencer does confront the killer, it isn't a slasher film.

That said, to answer your question: since I can't use Ripley (too obvious), I'll use Ginny from Friday the 13th: Part II.

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mediarch t1_iudjl90 wrote

Sigourney Weaver in Alien

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_humanpieceoftoast t1_iudjoqw wrote

Samantha Hughes in House of the Devil (2009)

Dana in Cabin in the Woods (2011)

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Fair2Midlander t1_iudn96h wrote

Tangentially, for those interested, there is a board game called Final Girl, that is supposed to be really tense and brings out the suspense of being a final girl. It is a single player experience, but solo board games are a good escape.

The game has a core box that on its own can’t be played without the purchase of a “feature film” consisting of a final girl and a story line, based on classic horror films/tropes. I believe buying multiple feature films allows you to play different final girls with different scenarios.

Final Girl for more info.

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wightsrus t1_iudpwkr wrote

Laurie from the Halloween series.

I'm saying this not having seen the recent movie, so maybe she dies at the end of this final chapter. She's clearly a survivor up to that point, though.

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msprang t1_iudyyxz wrote

Replying to urborous (#344,267)

Hmm, that's a really good question. I was mostly more impressed that she made it. But you're right, those other examples don't necessarily work.

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cwt8466 t1_iue8hwa wrote

Kirsty Cotton, Hellraiser.

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lucia-pacciola t1_iuen6px wrote

Replying to cwt8466 (#350,392)

Interesting. I generally think of the "final girl" as a member of a group of people that are being picked off one by one. I think Hellraiser is a slightly different kind of story: More "gothic" horror. She's there to bear witness to something from beyond the limits of sanity, and live to tell the tale. Like the med students in Flatliners, or Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (which is why the fact that he doesn't actually change the outcome doesn't bother me; it's totally on-brand for the kind of 30s pulp adventure stories the movie is based on).

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andropogon09 t1_iuey8q9 wrote

Mandy Lane (All the Boys Love Mandy). The final girl is actually the first girl.

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Puzzled-Journalist-4 t1_iufex0l wrote

Mia from Evil Dead (2013)

I thought it was a fantastic idea to make your protagonist both villain and heroine at the same time. Since Mia was a struggling drug addict in the story, it made total sense that she was her own biggest enemy and it also worked plot wise.

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Chri5Coyn5 t1_iug176k wrote

I thought by obvious you meant Sigourney Weaver in Alien.

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