Editorials
10 Underappreciated Final Girls!
The final girl trope has long been a staple in horror and refers to the last woman left standing to confront the killer. She’s the survivor left to tell the tale. Though the term was only coined in 1992 by film professor and author Carol J. Clover, the final girl has persisted for decades prior. The trope is so intertwined with the genre, that the phrase already triggers a long list of popular final girls at its mere mention. Laurie Strode, Nancy Thompson, Sidney Prescott, Alice Hardy, and Ellen Ripley are rightfully celebrated as the toughest women in horror. But they aren’t the only Final Girls worth celebrating. Whether their films were underseen, underrated, or forgotten, here’s 10 more final girls that deserve more love:
Alice Johnson – A Nightmare on Elm Street series
When it comes to this beloved series, most fans fondly recall Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy Thompson as their favorite final girl. While she deserves every bit of the praise and adoration, there’s another final girl in the franchise that’s often overlooked; Alice Johnson. Alice is introduced in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master as the best friend of Kristen Parker, the final girl from Dream Warriors. Alice begins the movie as a timid girl from a dysfunctional family, using her lucid dreaming as a means of escape. When Kristen pulled Alice into her nightmare, she transfers her powers to Alice upon her death. As the movie progresses, Alice amasses the power of every one of her friends killed by Freddy Krueger, making her one fierce adversary. No longer the shy girl, Alice becomes a force to be reckoned with. Her character growth makes her transition into final girl even more fun, but that she survives not one but two rounds with Freddy makes her deserving of far more attention than she’s received so far.
Jannicke – Cold Prey & Cold Prey 2
Cold Prey and its sequel aren’t exactly original; they borrow heavily from American slashers, namely Halloween and Friday the 13th. Fans of slashers will pick up immediately who will and won’t survive. Yet, they’re extremely stylish and brutal. The icy setting of the old, abandoned ski lodge makes for a thrilling location. Then there’s Jannicke, a strong-willed woman that seems a lot like Ginny Field from Friday the 13th Part 2. She’s half the size of the giant killer, but her athleticism and strong desire to live compensates for the massive size difference, resulting in a thrilling head-to-head battle. The killer isn’t fond of losing, though, and round two commences in the hospital set sequel (sound familiar?). When the staff and police fall violently at the hands of the revived mountain man, Jannicke once again faces off against him.
Barbara – Night of the Living Dead (1990)
The 1990 remake of Romero’s classic is an underrated gem in its own right; George Romero re-wrote the screenplay and persuaded Tom Savini to take on directorial duties after initially being hired to handle special effects. The most revelatory update to the zombie classic, however, was the reimagining of lead heroine Barbara. Unlike her 1968 counterpart, this Barbara doesn’t fall into a state of shock and hysterics upon losing her brother to a zombie in the film’s opening sequence. Instead, she becomes a vital asset to the group of survivors holed up in a farmhouse. Played by Patricia Tallman, this more modern take on Barbara eschews her shrinking violet nature in favor of intelligence and toughness. This version of Barbara not only outlasts on her wits alone but ruthlessly delivers a satisfying conclusion to the power battle between hero Ben (Tony Todd) and obnoxious jerk Harry Cooper (Tom Towles).
Meg Penny – The Blob (1988)
The amorphous monster at the center of this creature feature proved to be a terrifying match for even the military. Crash landing from space as a small entity, the Blob quickly amasses into a size that threatens to engulf the entire town. Enter Meg Penny (Shawnee Smith), an unwitting cheerleader that suffers perhaps the worst first date in history, when nice guy Paul becomes one of the first victims to be dissolved and devoured by the Blob. Yet, Meg doesn’t let it keep her down for long. She not only discovers the creature’s origins but also figures out the way to stop it. She also uses her charm to woo the town’s black sheep, Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon), to assist in saving the day. When an entire town quarantined by the military are helpless, leave it to one pissed off cheerleader to take care of business.
Yasmine – Frontier(s)
Granted, this 2007 entry in the New French Extremity movement feels like countless horror films before it, borrowing memorable plotlines and moments from films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes or Hostel. Yet the balls to the wall level of violence and gore was so over the top that it didn’t matter. The NC-17 rating slapped on by the MPAA is a giant clue that final girl Yasmine worked harder than perhaps anyone else on this list to earn her final girl status. The Neo-Nazi family that dispatches Yasmine’s friends are brutal, yet Yasmine matches their viciousness by ripping out the throats of her attackers, impaling them on a table saw, and using any means necessary to survive. This blood-soaked final girl takes no prisoners.
Taylor Gentry – Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
A clever mockumentary that lovingly pokes fun at the slasher genre also takes the relationship between final girl and killer in a whole different direction. Unlike most, where the killer stalks the final girl over the course of the film until the explosive showdown, this movie sees its final girl, Taylor Gentry, developing feelings for Leslie Vernon, as he shares his meticulous plan to slaughter teens over the course of one night. Once Taylor and her crew discover that Leslie’s plans for murder weren’t a farce, the film shifts to traditional horror, and the realization that Taylor was always the intended final girl makes for one of the most fun showdowns in slasher history. The foreplay between these would-be lovers is killer.
Megan Garris – Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
When it comes to this franchise, it’s usually the first two final girls of the series that hog the spotlight; Alice Hardy and Ginny Field. Yet it’s Jennifer Cooke’s sassy portrayal of Megan Garris that makes her my favorite final girl of the Friday the 13th series. Her zeal for breaking rules and rebelling against her father, Sheriff Mike Garris, makes for a lively counterpart to Tommy Jarvis’ (Thom Matthews) serious man on a mission. While Tommy, responsible for reviving Jason Voorhees in the first place, does all that he can to correct his mistake, it’s ultimately Megan that saves the day, both in rescuing a drowning Tommy and taking a boat motor to Voorhees’ neck. Final girls are known for their killer survival instincts, but Megan’s fearless passion for life sets her apart from the pack.
Tuffy – Feast
Tuffy doesn’t have a lot going for her when Feast begins. She’s a down on her luck waitress at a bar who moonlights as a prostitute, and her sole source of happiness is her young son. That happiness is ripped away from her violently, thanks to the gross creatures that descend upon the bar. When the bar patrons and purported heroes can’t seem to get their act together to ward off the creatures, Tuffy gets fed up and takes matters into her own hands. When both life and weird horny man-eating monsters keep Tuffy down, she fights back. Hard. Her revenge against the creatures earns her the title of “Heroine 2.”
Amy Harper – The Funhouse
Elizabeth Berridge’s Amy Harper begins as just another one of many horror teens that wished they’d obeyed their parents by the time the end credits begin to roll. Despite her father’s wishes, Amy sneaks out of the house to meet her new boyfriend, her best friend, and her best friend’s boyfriend to visit a traveling carnival. Sneaking around where they shouldn’t, the group ends up locked in the carnival’s funhouse for the night with a deformed Gunther in pursuit. It’s good girl Amy who winds up confronting the terrifying Gunther alone, resulting in one of the tensest final battles in slasher history. Of course, the unique setting helps. She may have been a simple good girl with a small rebellious streak, but her brutal slaying of her attacker earns her worthy final girl status.
Angela Vidal – [REC] series
What should have been a dull night covering the night shift at a local fire station became reporter Angela Vidal’s worst nightmare. A call results in Angela, her cameraman Pablo, and two firefighters investigating an aggressive woman locked in her apartment. You know the drill. The woman bites an officer, and before you know it this zombie-like rage virus spreads throughout the apartment building just as it’s quarantined. Just as lone survivor makes it all the way to the top, she seems to fall prey to the virus’ source, a very creepy Tristana Medeiros, and the camera cuts to black. For a final girl, it’s a pretty weak ending, right? Except, halfway through the sequel, REC 2, Angela is revealed to not only still be alive, but she’s kicking butt and determined to finally make it out of the building. Considering the sequel’s final reveal, a case could still be made against the plucky reporter for being a worthy final girl. Except, her return in the final entry in the series, REC 4: Apocalypse, has her squaring off against Medeiros infection once and for all. What should have been an easy reporting job turned into a hell that spanned three films, a possession by way of parasitic worm, an exorcism, and a whole lot of carnage in between. Perhaps she, more than anyone on this list, endured the longest to earn her spot.
Who is your favorite underappreciated final girl?
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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