Final Clash Girls

The term “final girl” is now as ubiquitous in horror culture as “slasher” and “jump scare.” The phrase was first coined by Carol J. Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, and it refers to a heroine (or “survivor girl”) who can be defined by several features: most obviously she is the last one standing after most or all of her friends have been sent to that big boiler room in the sky; she also is traditionally young, and has remained virginal and pure in the face of vice—making her far too innocent for a chainsaw’s sullying touch; and finally she must appropriate a masculine object to assert herself above the monster (i.e. Pick up Jason’s machete and stab him right between the hockey pads!).The contradiction of trying to create strong female protagonists who are usually still defined by the binary terms of “whore” and “maiden” is an obvious paradox inherent with this trope. And we’ve also seen it ignored, slyly mocked, and even celebrated in any number of horror movies. But this list aims to accept the type’s limitations while still finding 13 final girls who stood their ground and kicked serial killer ass while doing it! So join us as we look at the 13 best final girls. This list is in descending order with the best at the bottom!

Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns)The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was one of the first slasher movies, and the concept had yet to be refined; the “Other” that gobbled children up still lay on the outside of society like a storybook villain. It also literally gobbled since the Sawyer family gorged themselves on any teen or fool stupid enough to wander from the safety of civilization. Thus this family of cannibals forces Sally to break bread with them while the family chef, cross-dressing Leatherface, sits in the next room, likely already thinking about tomorrow morning’s menu.Sally herself is fairly reactionary as a character and survives more by luck than anything else.

During his battle against Jiren, who mocked his arrogance, Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta used a superpowered Final Flash against the Destroyer-like foe of Universe 11, taunting him into taking the blast full-force (as Cell did many years prior).The blast was a direct hit, forcing Jiren to block at the last moment, and while the Pride Trooper was relatively unharmed, he was knocked face first to the.

She doesn’t realize there is a threat until Leatherface has the chainsaw eight inches deep into her chatty brother and then she runs for her life. But in addition to being the first true final girl, she is also the one whose life was most evidently and believably scarred by the nightmare as the film closes on her covered in blood and laughing maniacally into a Texan sunrise while her getaway car takes the first off-ramp from hell—for Sally though, there’ll never be any getting off.Jess Bradford (Olivia Hussey)Black Christmas (1974). Texas Chain Saw was not the only groundbreaking slaughterfest in 1974. Bob Clark also helped pave the way for holiday-themed massacres with Black Christmas, an underrated gem that will also forever be the quizzical prequel to Clark’s next Yuletide picture, A Christmas Story (1983). But on this earlier and far darker silent night, Clark imagines a sorority house where a serial killer hides in the attic as he slowly picks off the Greek sisters one by one over winter break.The final girl here is Jess, who is played with a genuinely emotional arc by Olivia Hussey. Released in the years before a final girl was a checklist box, Jess is a young woman whose personal struggles are still incredibly relevant today.

In fact, it is hard to think of any horror movie now where the central heroine is in the process of getting an abortion. But in Black Christmas, Jess realizes she is pregnant and, without wavering, tells her temperamental artiste boyfriend that she is canceling the baby food orders. She then goes on to be the last sorority girl standing when it appears that boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) is the killer. By the time producer Moustapha Akkad had jumped on the slasher icon train by resurrecting Michael Myers from the dead (Michael had clearly done the full Jacob Marley in 1981’s Halloween II), the slasher genre he’d helped define had passed him. Now, the killers were the heroes with Freddy Krueger cracking wise in Nightmare on Elm Street sequels and Jason Voorhees never being anything less than a walking joke in the Friday the 13th films. And they all were driving into the ground a formula that had perfected.So if Michael Myers was going to compete with his fellow knife-wielders, any distinction would be crucial—and making the franchise revolve around an eight-year-old girl proved to be a cunningly singular difference. Whereas the survivor girls in other horror movies were becoming as disposable as their dead friends, this ostensibly orphaned daughter of Laurie Strode from the original continued the “Myers Curse” in a much more immediate way with her very real innocence in constant danger of being hollowed like an overripe Jack O’Lantern.Danielle Harris does pretty well for a child actress in this role, particularly in her second entry where her pantomime expressions (the terror of the fourth movie left her mute) allow her instant sympathy—a trait long lost in most horror movie heroines.

Also, she sells the hell out of the scene where she finds her dog and adopted sister turned into festive lawn ornaments. Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence)Hellraiser (1987); Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988); Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002)Clive Barker’s sadomasochistic fantasia is probably not a slasher film in the traditional sense. To call it that would understate the nasty brilliance of what is at work in this gory passion play where BDSM meets Lovecraft. At its essence, is about people unknowingly calling down a demon known as “Pinhead,” the lead Cenobite.

And whether they acknowledge it or not, they subconsciously are yearning for their own flaying.In this demented context, Kirsty Cotton is unique in her relationship to her would-be tormentor. Repeatedly, she finds herself in situations where she has summoned the Cenobites into her world, and despite there always being a narrative logic to it, Pinhead (Doug Bradley) might have a point when he infers she wants to know the pleasures of exquisite torment. Of course she does not actually want to be skinned alive like Uncle Frank (Sean Chapman), but that dynamic of miscommunication is one of the more disturbing elements in the pantheon of heroine/monster relationships. Kirsty is generally at her best in Hellbound: Hellraiser II where she lives in the worst psychiatric ward in history and is powerless as her doctors open the gates to a realm of body horror once more.

But this time, she is able to save more than herself. Courageously, she attempts to save her dead father from Cenobite torture and at least succeeds at saving another young woman from their clutches while making sure all the bad people in the hospital get what’s coming to them. This character growth of heroism (as opposed to victimhood) is a bit undone in the seedy direct-to-video follow-up Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2002), but the less said about that movie the better.

Sophomore guard Meghan McIntyre scored 13 points and junior guard Marisa Tanga added 11 as Huntington Beach’s girls basketball team defeated short-handed Laguna Hills 53-19 in the semifinals of the Garden Grove Classic on Friday night.The Oilers (11-4) didn’t face Laguna Hills twins Kayla and Lina Chang — the guards were attending a funeral — but they will encounter plenty of athleticism in the final Saturday night against top-seeded Bishop Montgomery. Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. At Garden Grove High.“I think they’re an Open (Division) team,” Huntington Beach coach Russell McClurg said of Bishop Montgomery, which features Mater Dei transfer sophomore Khylee Pepe. “Very athletic.”. Dan Albano has been a high school sports writer at The Orange County Register since 1993. He covers football and all the aquatics: boys and girls water polo and boys and girls swimming. Multiple tiny echogenic foci.

Dan's passion for water sports has earned him the nickname, Aqua Dan, in the newsroom and taken him to multiple U.S. Olympic Swim Trials and many USA water polo events as a reporter. He also writes about high school football recruiting, including The Register's annual FAB 15 teams that list the top high school football players in the Western U.S. Before National Signing Day. He compiles the Hot 150 list of football players to watch in Orange County before each season.

During football season, he also partners with Steve Fryer and Jonathan Khamis on OCVarsity.com's Gridiron Show and hosts a weekly podcast on Trinity League football. In 2015, Dan received the Bud Dwyer Jr.

Media award from the Southern California High School Football Coaches Association. Dan is a graduate of Cal State Fullerton, where he worked at The Daily Titan as a news reporter, sports reporter, managing editor and opinion editor. Join the ConversationWe invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request.

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