Women in the horror film
I hope everyone has been enjoying the first three reviews. I know I’ve enjoyed writing them. I’m posting a second entry this month, which isn’t a review but more of an essay about one of the aspects of the horror film. I hope you enjoy it. Oh, and it will include spoilers so beware.
WOMEN IN THE HORROR FILM
I wanted to do something a little different for this entry. I want to talk about a theme, if you will, present in the horror genre since the late 1970’s. Inspiration behind this entry has really always been on my mind but if you weren’t aware, March is National Women’s Month and that triggered me to write this. I thought this could be my humble contribution.
Who is the last person left alive at the end of horror film? More specifically a slasher film. That’s right – a woman. This is a trope called the Final Girl. The Final Girl is the last woman and person for that matter that survives to engage in some sort of a confrontation with the killer. In this piece I want to talk about a few of the most well known of the Final Girls, the heroine aspect of that role and of the darker side as well.
The Final Girl character always has a few traits in common. She is usually the good girl of the group. She doesn’t engage in any drinking or drugs. She is usually sexually unavailable or virginal. Ever notice that in a horror film if a character drinks or has sex they get killed off? The Final Girl is spared in these movies because she abstains from these things. She’s tougher than she thinks but doesn’t know it. In the slasher film we spend about the first half of the movie associating with the killer. The second half shifts to a relationship with the Final Girl. While she is left standing at the end it is sometimes because of a male character that saves her but this is not always the case. It’s interesting too to note where she is mentally at the end of the film having survived the madness.
John Carpenter’s Halloween is not only one of my favorite horror movies but one of my all time favorite films. Jamie Lee Curtis in her first film role plays Laurie Strode who may be the very first Final Girl. Her friends are killed one by one until Michael Myers comes for her. She outlasts him through numerous encounters and survives “The night he came home” Laurie is shy and doesn’t share any of the traits her friends do such as worrying about their hair, what to wear to the dance or when their boyfriends are coming over to hook up. Presumably this is why they all get killed. She fends off the killer with a sewing needle, a coat hanger, and survives a physical encounter. Only when Dr. Loomis shoots the killer is she saved. Which isn’t to say a man saved her though because Michael Myers doesn’t die from the gunshots.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the all-time horror classics. Unrelenting in its fear and all too real feel that this is actually happening. TCM has a group of teens/young adults killed off one by one but it isn’t because they were drinking of getting laid. While they get killed because they got lost we still have the Final Girl. Sally is played by Marilyn Burns who is basically tormented beyond belief for 90 minutes by a sadistic family of cannibals. She takes the abuse until she finally escapes by breaking through the living room window. She makes it to the highway and jumps into the back of a pickup truck (driven by a man), which takes her to safety.
The original Friday the 13th has an interesting wrinkle at the end of its story. Final Girl Alice is the lone survivor of a group of camp counselors disposed of by an unseen killer. Alice seems to be saved by Mrs. Voorhees – “an old friend of the Christies” at the end of the film. Well, Mrs. Voorhees IS the killer. She is out for revenge for the drowning of her son Jason at the camp years earlier. Noteworthy that Mrs. Voorhees mentions that the counselors weren’t around when Jason drowned– one would assume they were off drinking, partying, etc. which in the horror world equals death. We get the rare woman killer against Final Girl battle in which Alice comes out on top. Mrs. Voorhees plays the role of the killer, which is almost always portrayed by a man who is then bested by a woman hero.
While this is only a snippet of the list of Final Girl characters, the ones I listed don’t exactly have happy endings. After the first Halloween we follow Laurie Strode’s character in Halloween II at the hospital where she once again survives the killer’s pursuit. The next time we see her is in Halloween H20. She has changed her name and identity but needless to say the ordeal years earlier has taken its toll on her life. However in this film she is no longer frightened. This time she is ready for Michael and relishes the chance to kill him off but is unfortunately unsuccessful. We see her once and for all in Halloween Resurrection wasting away in a mental hospital. Her life ruined from the years of torment. She tries one last time to kill him but she is finally murdered. We find out in one of the later Chainsaw films that Sally eventually dies in a mental hospital years after her ordeal. Finally Alice is killed off at the very beginning on Friday the 13th part 2. Don’t worry it’s not all doom and gloom though as you’ll read next.
One of my favorite and probably the best example of the Final Girl is Sigourney Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley from the Alien films (By the way I’m not here to argue whether the Alien films are horror or sci-fi so stay with me) Ripley is the lone survivor in the film Alien of the crew of the Nostromo. Just to remind us that she is indeed a woman the last scene shows her in her underwear. She breaks the mold though of the typical Final Girl. Her character would appear to have more stereotypical male traits. Short haircut, working with all men, and operating heavy machinery. That changes however in Aliens. In that film the crew finds a young girl named Newt. The monsters killed her family and she begins to bond with Ripley. It really becomes almost a motherly relationship as we get to the end of the film. Newt is snatched up by one of the aliens and the crew needs to leave the planet they are on before it explodes into next Tuesday. Ripley is NOT leaving without Newt though. She puts together an arsenal an entire militia would be proud of to go look for the little girl. She finds Newt but still has to kill off the queen alien to rescue her. No problem. Ripley is the ultimate Final Girl and a total badass. She’s smarter than the aliens and will stop at nothing to protect those she loves. She’s the character who made the move from Final Girl to female hero. No male character is going to upstage her.
“One, two, Freddy’s coming for you…” You recognize that right? A Nightmare on Elm Street. Heather Langenkamp plays Final Girl Nancy Thompson in Wes Craven’s very original 1984 film. Freddy Krueger kills all her friends and boyfriend in their dreams but Nancy makes it to the end by drinking absurd amounts of coffee with no help from her police officer father or alcoholic mother. Nancy isn’t afraid of Freddy and learns that by bringing things back from the dream world, she is able to bring him into the real world for a showdown. She does just that and takes back any power that was given to Freddy and defeats him. Nancy returns in Nightmare part 3 to help lead anther group of kids against Krueger. Although Freddy ultimately kills her in the end, she is without a doubt one of the most iconic Final Girls returning to play herself in Craven’s New Nightmare film years later.
I want to touch on the character of Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs. Starling is an FBI trainee used by her boss to try and get into the mind of serial killer Hannibal Lecter. She lives in a very male world and it shows throughout the movie. Her father was a police officer; she very much looks up to her male supervisor, and begins a “courteous” for a lack of a better word relationship with Lecter. Starling really gets in deep on the hunt for Buffalo Bill and just as she is told the FBI has him, they don’t. But she does. In a fantastic final act Starling enters the torture chamber basement of Bill. She finds the Senator’s daughter who was kidnapped but before she can get her to safety Bill kills the power to the house. Wearing his night vision he reaches out a hand inches from her face without her having any idea he is there. He makes his fatal mistake though when he cocks the hammer on his gun, which Starling hears and turns around to unload on him. The Silence of the Lambs certainly isn’t a slasher film, nor does it follows the script of kids getting killed and the typical Final Girl ending. It does however have the ONLY woman to confront the killer. Not only does she take down Buffalo Bill she does so by gaining the help no one else (including men) in the FBI could get from Hannibal Lecter. Starling’s character is a very powerful woman who proves time and again in the film that she is able to do the things the male agents could not.
While the last few examples have shown women who saved the day, what about a girl who uses her power to wreak havoc? Carrie is originally a novel by Stephen King and later a film from Brian DePalma. It’s been referred to as King’s version of Cinderella. I’ll reference the film version here although I recommend you read the book. Carrie White is a young woman born to a mentally ill religious fanatic mother who tells her daughter nothing of what goes on in the real world. This is painfully obvious when she is terribly ridiculed by her classmates after having her first menstrual period at school and has no idea what is happening to her. She is constantly picked on and bullied and things get even worse when a few girls decide to play a prank on her. They rig the voting of the prom to have her win. While Carrie is on stage glowing in the moment a bucket of pig’s blood meant to dump on her, falls on her date knocking him out. Did I mention that Carrie has telekinetic powers? Carrie is aware of her ability but only uses it to move objects. Once she realizes what has just happened at the prom she unleashes all her power. She locks the gym shut and uses the fire house to attack people, electrocutes many, and starts a fire killing everyone inside. She makes her way home and has a fatal last stand with her mother. Carrie may not be a concrete Final Girl film but she is the last one left at the end and there is a confrontation – albeit with her mother who isn’t the killer. It is a story about a powerful woman though. A woman who is tormented her whole life by classmates and her mother alike. Carrie kills everyone that laughed at her and treated her poorly. Does that equate to the same revenge a typical Final Girl has in a horror movie? Does she win or become a hero in the end?
The majority of horror film audiences are male. I know I’m not telling you anything you didn’t know but let’s look at it. Usually men in groups but there is always the percentage of couples that want to go and get scared on a date. Typically the movies men want to watch have explosions, death, etc. which is what horror has too. Men want to relate to things they know which is why the killers are almost always male but the scary movies men love end with a woman standing alone or victorious. Most of the time the tough, usually asshole type male character in horror films gets killed off hallway in to the movie. We all cheer when the woman stabs the killer in the eye right? I’ve been to a lot of horror cons and the longest lines are usually to get the female celebs autograph. There are a lot of ways to interpret the Final Girl trope. If you want to get deeper then I suggest you read Men, Women, and Chainsaws by Carol J. Clover. Excellent stuff that digs into the psychology of the trope and horror in general – not to mention Clover is credited with coining the term Final Girl. While I’ve only listed a few films here there are certainly many, many more (how great is the Sarah Connor character from the Terminator movies? Neve Campbell’s character in the Scream film series?) Believe me I know most people don’t think much of horror films but there is plenty to appreciate if you give them a chance. Gone are the days of the damsel in distress tied to the train tracks in the silent movies. Next time you watch a scary movie pay attention to the characters. There is a good chance it ends with a Final Girl.