Horror movies have popularized the idea of a final girl, one last survivor whose friends or companions have been killed by whatever terror plagues them. The final girl is often just out to survive, but sometimes she is forced to confront the evil head-on and find a way to defeat it at last before anyone else is killed.
Survivors first, the final girls have always managed to write themselves into horror history alongside the killers that make the film possible. But some of them have been forgotten or underappreciated for various reasons; even some modern final girls who had truly fantastic plots and characters have been left to one side when talking about new lists of the best final girls out there.
6 Ginny Field (Friday The 13th Part 2)
Friday the 13th, unlike some other major horror franchises, has not been defined by the final girls within it. Alice Hardy was a fairly forgettable final girl who battled Jason’s mother, the killer of the first Friday the 13th film, and was killed by Jason at the beginning of the sequel. But Ginny, the final girl of the sequel, battled and outsmarted Jason in incredibly intelligent ways.
Figuring out Jason’s weaknesses, like his obsession with his mother, and using those against him to find victory without having to just use force, was one of the smartest performances put on by a final girl in the history of cinema. Other final girls have put on good showings against Jason, but a totally unprepared final girl like Ginny has not matched sheer intelligence through almost any franchise.
5 Sarah (The Descent)
British horror film The Descent has been forgotten in itself to a far greater degree than it deserves. About a group of women that go spelunking in a cave system and find a horrible race of cannibalistic creatures down there, the final girl Sarah has to be resourceful beyond belief and go to extreme measures to escape the caves alive.
While The Descent received much praise from critics and fans alike, it didn’t find the widespread love that American films might have managed. Sarah has been a relatively forgotten character, despite her bold and ingenious survival throughout the film, which was heavily deserved as she was one of the most capable female characters in horror movies this century.
4 Needy Lesnicki (Jennifer’s Body)
Jennifer’s Body has had a resurgence in popularity, which finally sees the film getting the recognition it deserves for being an excellent horror product of its time. Amanda Seyfried has gone on to many bigger projects since starring as Needy Lesnicki, the survivor of Jennifer’s demonically possessed rampages.
However, while the film has been recognized for the ingenious way it tackled a number of issues and made a unique type of horror, Needy hasn’t received her dues for outwitting the demonic Jennifer and managing to kill her and destroy the demon in the process. Unfortunately, Needy’s fate was to be brought to an asylum and eventually manifest some of Jennifer’s demonic powers herself.
3 Alice Johnson (A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master)
Nancy Thompson gets all the attention as one of the most famous final girls of all time in A Nightmare On Elm Street. However, the franchise produced a follow-up to her with just as compelling a story and abilities. Alice Johnson was introduced in the aftermath of the third entry, The Dream Warriors, which had been a hugely popular film for the franchise.
Alice gained the dreaming powers of Kristen Parker after Kristen was killed by Freddy midway through The Dream Master. After doing so, she quickly became more than just the quiet, shy girl she’d been before. Coming into her own and tackling Freddy like an old nemesis, Alice gained the powers of her friends as Freddy picked them off, enabling her to finally become powerful enough to defeat him in battle. Alice was a fascinating character who grew exponentially over the course of her film.
2 Maddie Young (Hush)
There are few horror films that set the stakes as basic as Hush goes about it. Mike Flanagan is known for his strong female characters and great new thinking for the horror genre, and Hush is a completely different sort of horror film. Maddie is a young deaf woman alone in her remote home who goes up against a lone assailant looking to break in and kill her.
Without much explanation at all, the two go about their battle. Maddie has to deal with being deaf and taking on this deranged lunatic, and yet her name is on only a few best final girl lists despite the film-long battle that ensues between them. Constantly finding fresh ways to outsmart her attacker, Maddie is a final girl of the highest caliber.
1 Cecelia Kass (The Invisible Man)
Cecelia was a prime example of a modernized final girl in The Invisible Man reboot. While she had previously suffered as a victim of domestic abuse from Adrian, she eventually manages, as he continues to terrorize her in his new form, to rise up and stand against him and use his own invention to finally end him in a brutal fashion.
The story of Cecelia was an incredible journey of rising up against an oppressor, a more on-the-nose version of what has been happening in horror films for many years now. It was a beautifully told store,y and the performance of Elisabeth Moss as Cecelia was one of the best in recent horror film memory.