Final girl

A horror-film archetype in which a woman survives long enough to confront or escape the killer, often becoming the story’s last focal character.

Halloween (1978 film): John Carpenter’s slasher film follows Laurie Strode as she survives Michael Myers’s attacks on Halloween night. Laurie Strode became a defining example of the archetype in a film often used to explain it.
Slasher film: A horror-film subgenre centered on a killer who stalks and murders a succession of victims. The final girl is most closely associated with the slasher’s escalating pursuit structure.
Final boy: A male character who survives to confront or escape a horror film’s killer. This counterpart tests whether survival traits associated with final girls depend on gender.
Women in horror films: Women in horror films include characters whose roles range from victims and monsters to protagonists and survivors. The final girl concentrates broader debates about how horror represents women.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror film follows Sally Hardesty’s escape from the murderous Sawyer family. Sally’s escape predates the archetype’s name and helped establish its slasher-film pattern.
Horror film: A film genre designed to evoke fear, dread, or shock through threats and disturbing events. The archetype belongs to horror’s broader repertoire of characters and suspense.
Scream (1996 film): Wes Craven’s self-aware slasher film follows Sidney Prescott through a series of attacks by masked killers. Sidney survives while openly discussing slasher conventions, turning the archetype into part of the story’s subject.
Male gaze: The male gaze describes visual and narrative conventions that position women as objects of heterosexual masculine looking. Critics ask whether the final girl escapes objectification or remains framed through it.
Carol J. Clover: Carol J. Clover is an American film scholar known for developing the concept of the final girl in horror cinema. Her analysis gave the archetype its influential critical formulation.
Identification (psychology): Identification is the psychological process of experiencing another person’s feelings or perspective as one’s own. Clover argues that viewers may identify across gender with the final girl’s struggle.

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