How Sci-Fi Horror Movies Use the Final Girl Trope to Explore Survival and Redemption

The rise of feminism throughout the 1970s became a major milestone not only in social justice and equality but also in the film industry. Sci-fi horror movies jumped the wagon around the same time, and back then many female characters were mostly damsels-in-distress who needed rescuing from evil, or survived only because of good luck, hence the Final Girl trope. In many modern movies, the Final Girl remains a popular trope, but filmmakers have found a lot of creative ways to implement it in the story. Here are some examples.

Dana Polk – The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Filmmakers Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard once said something to the effect of the screenplay for The Cabin in the Woods being a loving hate letter to the horror genre. But after watching the film, you couldn’t help but notice that the hate must have been aimed mainly at the overused tropes, including the Final Girl of course, because everything else about the film was nothing short of lovely. Some would go as far as analogizing it to a genre kitchen sink, for it featured many of the genre stereotypes and presented them predictably. Others argued that the film was, at its heart, a crushing criticism to the typical slasher formula, which had already been overused to severe exhaustion.

The Cabin in the Woods has its Final Girl trope in Dana Polk (portrayed by Kristen Connolly). As typically observed in the trope, Dana isn’t (theoretically) the heroine everyone expects to defeat the villain/killer/monster, mostly because she doesn’t exactly bring forward the outlook of Sarah Connor or Lara Croft. She is basically the innocent virgin, which, for a shock treatment, should be the one to die first among her peers, but she survives.

While the outdated gender roles are well-preserved nearly throughout the storyline, it’s at the very end that Dana shows how she isn’t as dumb as the slasher formula might dictate. Instead of portraying the morally intact character all the way to the final moment of survival, Dana takes her sweet moment as she points a gun at her stoner friend Marty and finds herself outside the genre convention. Survival is more important than morality, especially when the entire humanity is at stake. She doesn’t pull the trigger, and in fact, Marty saves her once again from a marauding werewolf. It turns out Dana fails to be the Final Girl at the last moment, and the world is doomed.

Sarah Carter – The Descent (2005)

Since the old days of Hollywood, horror films are expected to appease a certain group of viewers who like to see a girl or two escaping the terror at the end of the story. While it hasn’t always been the case, many horror movies over the years adhere to that assumed standard. But things are different with The Descent (2005), mainly because all the major and minor characters are female. On the one hand, there has to be the “Final Girl” as long as one of them survives; this begs the question if the trope still applies because all of them are girls to begin with.

The film tells the story of six women going on an adventure deep in the Appalachian Mountains. They have known each other since their university days and been doing this kind of retreat annually. This trip feels different for Sarah because the retreat seems to be – at a glance – about burying the past following the deaths of her husband and daughter in a car accident last year. As the story progresses, however, it’s more like the girls are trying to bury the present animosity among each other. It turns out that Juno was having an affair with Sarah’s husband, which resulted in the fight that might have led to the fatal accident.

Where’s the horror, then? During their cave-diving stunts, the girls end up being hunted by cannibalistic monsters living in the depth of Blue Ridge Parkway. Approaching the end of the film, Sarah can only make sure that she’ll be the true Final Girl by leaving Juno in the dark to the cannibals. Is Sarah the Final Girl because she ends up as the sole survivor, or an evil for effectively feeding Juno to the monsters? The UK version has a bleaker final moment, but excuse us for using the US version for the sake of the discussion instead.

Ellen Ripley – Alien (1979)

Very few Final Girls from any era are as iconic as Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley from the first Alien film. We only use Ridley Scott’s Alien because James Cameron’s follow up and all its successors are predominantly action rather than sci-fi horror movies. It’s the same reason we won’t include Charlize Theron’s Furiosa and Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor; they’re action heroines, not Final Girls. Some might argue that both Alien and Aliens have the same person portraying Ripley. That being said, the first Ripley witnesses how her colleagues get slaughtered by what’s said to be the perfect organism and is the only survivor at the end of the film.

When the spaceship captain wants to bring an injured crew member (with a parasite hugging his face), Ripley attempts to prevent such a breach of protocol out of concern that it may endanger everyone else – of course it does. But unlike the conventional Final Girl with a sense of cluelessness about what’s going on, Ripley takes charge of the situation and comes out as the smartest and bravest among her peers in the face of a peril. She’s not traditional, but that’s exactly what makes her – most likely – the best Final Girl in the entire sci-fi horror movies history.

We think the Final Girl has become a cliché because it’s a good thing. It started as an attempt at feminism in sci-fi horror, and then it indeed turned out to be a popular way of sending the message. People see the empowerment in the Final Girl trope, which somehow translates to the character being the perceptive, intelligent, powerful, and independent individual to survive against all odds. Gone are the days when the Final Girl used to be depicted as virtuous, virginal, and somewhat the victim of the circumstances; modern films gradually move away from that stereotype and choose to present the Final Girl as a character with strength and determination to overcome adversities, instead of a helpless one only to be rescued by her male counterparts.

Who is your favorite Final Girl? Can you name some modern movies that use the Final Girl trope? We’d love to hear from you.

Other Things You Might Want to Know

What are the main characteristics of a Final Girl?

In the 1992 book “Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in Modern Horror Film” by Carol J. Clover, the Final Girls often share similar traits such as being virtuous or virginal, having unisex names, and sometimes knowing the identity of the villain. The most important aspect of a Final Girl is that she must function as a bridge between the story and the audience, or a reflection of how the audience should consume the horror and violence in the story; the screaming, the crying, the hopelessness, the worries, the desperation, etc.

What is the difference between a female protagonist and a final girl?

A female protagonist can be in any film genre, whether action, drama, fantasy, comedy, and so on. But a final girl is a term used only in the horror genre, more commonly slasher. She has to be the last person standing after lengthy confrontations against the killer/villain.

Who is the first Final Girl ever?

It remains unclear who the first Final Girl is. Some critics suggest that Sally Hardesty from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is among the earliest examples of the trope.