It’s a horror film trope well-known and well-loved — The Final Girl — the sole survivor in horror films depicting bloody sprees of death and violence. It is a character spotlighted early in the movie and painted in character shades which mark her as the possible Final Girl. 

She is an endearing and attractive lead character, pitted against deadly forces and unlikely to be heroic enough to save herself. It’s always a delight in horror movies to root for her; she defies the odds and the expectations, and in doing so, she neatly wraps up the movie with the emotional catharsis of an underdog victory. We love a Final Girl and everything she stands for — but is she so wrapped up in anachronistic antifeminist thinking that we may have seen the final one?

The very first Final Girl is a subject of vigorous debate, but strong contenders date back to 1974, with both Jess Bradford from “Black Christmas” and Sally Hardesty from “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” as early examples. Both heroines are sole survivors, confronting their killers in epic cinematic showdowns which have left their mark on the genre as a whole and helped define the Final Girl as a critical plot device in horror movie storytelling. 

Many others followed this, including Laurie Strode from “Halloween,” Sidney Prescott in “Scream” and Julie James from “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” yet each of these characters display conservative female archetypal elements — they are attractive, innocent, likeable and vulnerable. This is where the Final Girl trope becomes problematic, because the modern horror audience demands more relatable heroines which don’t subvert feminism and everything it stands for. Quite simply, the model for the Final Girl needs to be one we resonate with, not rewarded for her virginity, purity and innocence, but given her dues for being courageous, resourceful, resilient and intelligent.

It’s hard to redraw the lines of a trope without impacting the stamps of the genre itself. Horror films, like any other category of film, are embedded with satisfying elements which horror movie fans are drawn to again and again. It’s a question that must be asked — can the Final Girl of modern horror films be as captivating and surprising as the heroines of old? Can she be an effective Final Girl if she is already imbued with elements of the heroine she is destined to be by the end of the film? Do modern horror filmmakers lose elements of surprise, empathy or catharsis if the Final Girl’s most feminine aspects are redrawn? The answer lies in the audience’s empathy with the Final Girl as a critical plot device, as well as the movement away from the omnipresent male gaze of scriptwriters and directors who never could have imagined their Final Girl’s victory as a result of anything but desperation or dumb luck.

Modern horror gems give their heroines broader strokes of character development and allow them to be imperfect and morally ambiguous. And in doing so, they make their female heroines far more understandable and relatable, connecting modern audiences with the consciousness of the main character and creating more effective storytelling. 

“The Babadook” (2014) displays its heroine, Amelia, as a disheveled single mother battling depression who is far too dismissive of her son’s fear of a storybook monster. Ari Aster’s “Midsommar” from 2019 has its main character, Dani, transition from a confused young girl to a woman embracing the sinister and murderous practices of a cult she stumbles upon. Dani is always relatable, yet is she a Final Girl in this story? She’s the only survivor in a murder spree, her point of view and emotions always on display, and most would consider her passage and ethical decisions within this storyline understandable. Yet she becomes part of the villainous group, as murderous as the cult that invites her to be their leader. If she is a Final Girl — and most would agree that she ticks most of the boxes for this — then she completely redraws the boundaries of this trope. Dani’s complex character arc emphatically states that likeable female leads can also be damaged, flawed, surprising — and they can reveal questionable ethics and a heart containing the darkest of shadows.

If a newer example of this trope is to be found, it is in the 2024 horror film “Abigail.” The Final Girl here is Joey, escaping a dark past of drug addiction and hoping to earn enough money from the simple kidnapping job at hand to get back to the son she left behind. Joey’s arc is a slow reveal; at first, she is tough, brash, prickly, but with enough insight, wit and confidence to win the audience’s empathy. Through the course of the film she becomes courageous, fighting against vampires and watching those around her fall one by one. The only explicit element of traditional female archetyping here is her unwavering love for son, her willingness to risk it all to get back to him and be a good mother. Joey is clearly an underdog, battling forces of evil which build to a stunning cinematic showdown. She emerges victorious, the sole survivor from the nightmare house, the blood and gore she is splattered with her badge of honor. And with it, she plants the flag for a new, better type of Final Girl — relatable, knowable, fleshed out with elements of feminist thinking, intelligent, strong and brave of her own accord, allowed to be feisty and celebrated as the heroine who defeats not just the forces of evil but the tropes from days of yore that could have tarnished her true shine.