The end of our third week on the OkGoreberfest 30-Day Horror Challenge, and today’s question is “Your favorite ‘Final Girl.'”
The final girl, as you may know, refers to the sole female survivor in a horror film (usually but not always a slasher movie) who survives a murderous rampage by her own abilities, rather than by the strong male hero character. The latter is more the “damsel in distress” trope, the “final girl” has the distinction of saving herself (and occasionally others), rather than managing to get rescued.
It’s the more badass of the female survivor tropes!
By the end of the movie she’s almost always covered in blood and poop and mud and goo, clothes ripped, hair all messed up. Sometimes she’s a complete basket case (like in “The Terrifier” or “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”), sometimes she kills the baddie outright and saves the day, but she’s usually the one female in the movie with the strongest moral compass (no sex no drugs etc), or the one with a checkered, often traumatic past (because people like an underdog).
I chose Sigourney Weaver’s character of Ellen Ripley in the “Alien” franchise. There are plenty of good ‘final girls’ to pick from throughout the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and beyond, but Ripley is just the most badass one I’ve seen. She shows genuine fear, like in the classic still from the original movie, so she’s not just some one-dimensional comic bookish killing machine, but has that fierce tenacity and overall kickassitude that sees her believably surviving sequel after sequel.
Especially in the second installment, “Aliens” (which is the best of the bunch). That scene with the roboty punch-up in the mechanical exosuit against the monster?? Friggin’ sci fi horror gold medal winner, right there!