Final Girl

The final girl or survivor girl is a trope in horror films. It refers to the last surviving female character to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. The final girl has been observed in many films, notable examples being Voices of Desire, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Alien, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream. The term "final girl" was coined by Carol J. Clover in her article "Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film" (1987). Clover suggested that in these films, the viewer began by sharing the perspective of the killer, but experienced a shift in identification to the final girl partway through the film.