Hack the Past: We Will Never Be Broken

Kelly Gredner

The moment in Scream (1996) when Sidney Prescott shoots her homicidal maniac boyfriend Billy Loomis in the head and says “not in my movie,” the rules of the slasher film changed forever. The slasher film was extremely popular in the 1980s as the “heyday” of the subgenre, with over 200 films produced of varying quality and popularity. This was the time when the harsh sentiments towards them began; when famous film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert proclaimed that slasher films were “sleazy,” “exploitative,” and essentially anti-women (Wade). They lumped them into a genre they called “Women in Danger films,” films that contained gratuitous nudity and violence against women. But times have changed, and modern slashers are giving us something new – women who kill. Women are no longer in danger; they fight back. They are the ones to be feared. They are female avengers and warriors fighting against their foes in a battle of wits. And they prevail.

With a focus on You’re Next (2011), along with the support of Scream 4 (2011), Halloween (2018), and Black Christmas (2019), I will explore our 21st century slashers through the lens of a current female horror fan. These films subvert the outdated “damsel in distress” trope and reinvent the “Final Girl”.  This change occurred in the 2010s, when we saw a trend of more women expressing their horror fandom through podcasts and blogs. Normally seen as a “boys club”, women vocalized the need for more than just “Scream Queens”, a demeaning term for classic female horror actors of the 80s. They wanted complex, interesting, and physically capable women.  As the contemporary women’s agency rose, so did that of women in slasher films. With about half of the horror audience being female, they wanted to see replicas of themselves on screen: independent women fighting back against a villain. I was one of them; as a female horror fan of 25 years I wanted to see something new, and these films delivered.

The evolution of the Final Girl

Historically, slasher films were geared towards young men, but with the success of Halloween (1978) and Prom Night (1980), production companies were beginning to realize that young women were also interested in these fright fests. Understanding that young people were spending a lot of time at the movies, it was recognized that they were the driving force behind American cinema, with market research showing that “twelve-to twenty-year-olds accounted for half of US theatrical admissions and that attendance was divided fairly evenly between the sexes” (Nowell 121). Women in the 80s loved the thrill of being scared, and loved seeing themselves on screen, especially as these films—as well as many slashers to come—portrayed female friendships/bonding along with romantic relationships with other young people (Nowell 128). Though slashers were undoubtedly violent, they were still relatable.

This trend intensified in the 1990s with the revival of the slasher spurred on by the release of Scream (1996) and the introduction of Sidney Prescott, a new “Final Girl” and the lynchpin of a new era of survivors. We craved more. Except for a sprinkling of fully-realized female survivors in slasher films—Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Alice Johnson in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1987) and Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978)—many of our survivors were one-dimensional. They weren’t meant to be complex, nor were they involved with character-driven narratives (as in the Friday the 13th franchise). Most films followed the general guidelines that were introduced by Carol Clover in her seminal text “Men, Women and Chainsaws”: the “Final Girl” was a virginal, masculine figure with a masculine name who normally abstains from sex, alcohol, and drugs, unlike her friends. She survives to the end of the movie after fighting for her life, often with a phallic weapon.

 The classic “Final Girls” or “Survivor Girls” are loved by many of us female slasher fans, as they are a welcome component in the formulaic world. We cheer for them as they bash, stab, and provoke our (often) masked killers. They represent a basic idea of female empowerment (essentially showing women as human beings), and they remain predominately reactionary: women thrown into an acute state of survival that normally lasted for only one night. Their inherent resourcefulness and intelligence was what allowed them to put aside their fears and fight and survive.

As we moved through the “Girl Power” decade of the 90s and into the 2000s, we wanted more out of our survivors as well as our slashers. In 2021, we want our “Final Girls” to be proactive. We are now more educated when it comes to the dangers of living as a woman in this world, so we want our survivors to reflect that. We desire complexity and for their stories, not the killer, to drive the narrative. And although slashers are not the most popular within the female horror community due to the pervasive male gaze and the lack of truly admirable women, some “Final Girls” and films stand out (Vosper).

In 1996 Sidney Prescott became our prototype for the new type of “Survivor Girl.” And now, as a grown woman, she is ready to put the past behind her with her book Out of Darkness. She has been to hell and back, but, unfortunately, in Scream 4 (2011), she can’t escape the dangers of technology (when wielded by a psychopath). That said, Sidney continues to be a woman we can relate to, and root for, while she gallantly puts herself in danger to save others. Sidney exemplifies the journey of a survivor, from traumatized victim to recovering college student to wishing she didn’t exist, and then, finally, to becoming an inspirational writer. Sidney showed us that recovery is a bumpy road, but with inner strength and resilience, you can make it through literally anything.

Moving from a character who writes about her trauma to one who, above all, acts, Laurie Strode in Halloween (2018) is motivated to protect herself from Michael Myers—so much so that she trains her daughter for “the horrors of the world” with traps, guns, and the strength to meet violence head on. Despite how it damages her relationship with her daughter, Laurie knows first-hand the impact of male violence, and how it/Michael will never stop. Laurie meets violence with violence. How many victims of abuse get a second chance to confront their abusers, seek justice, and achieve it? Sadly, not many, but on screen, Laurie represents that catharsis.

Where Halloween (2018) takes survival to an isolated, dark place, Black Christmas (2019) is a hip tale of female friendship and sisterhood. Though these young women are initially in a reactive state, their chronic rage prepares them for war—a rage perpetuated by their friend recovering from a sexual assault and living within a failed justice system. They take action once attacked and are seen tending to wounds, organizing, and devising a plan. Are women weak? Not in this slasher film; the fraternity men are the ones who are weak, and their fragile egos/masculinity don’t stand a chance when the women band together to fight against them.

Transforming the Final Girl in You’re Next

Then we come to the penultimate proactive survivor and “Final Girl”: Erin from You’re Next (2011). Erin has a specific set of defensive skills because she was raised by her father in a survivalist camp until the age of fifteen. He trained her in traps, guns, and hand-to-hand combat. However, the viewer is not privy to this knowledge until late in the film; before that, we see Erin as a fun-loving, kind, personable woman ready to meet her boyfriend, Crispin’s, family for the first time. Once the arrows start flying, and people begin to die at the hands of the masked invaders, panic ensues. But Erin starts strategizing. She takes charge immediately, as the brothers just endlessly argue. Erin is a problem solver, and quick on her feet, so she starts making traps and delegating tasks for people like closing all the windows. As the women around her either die or fall apart emotionally, she maintains a level head. She finds weapons and arms herself.

Erin’s father prepared her for the dangers and violence of the world, knowing how important it is for women. Throughout You’re Next, Erin is told to stay safe by Crispin and his family. She is told to take care of herself, and that she does; never does a man help her, nor does she need it. She is in charge of her own protection. Erin isn’t afraid of blood and wounds, and she tends to her own injuries. She is whip smart, moving cautiously throughout the house, tricking the killers, and luring them into her traps.

As the killers stalk and kill the members of Crispin’s family, each time they come across Erin, she defends herself. She never holds back because she knows that when you hesitate, even for a moment, you die. The family members left in the house are shocked by her brutality when they witness her murder one of the intruders. Erin puts aside all sense of morality and emotion to survive—something that, by and large, only men have been taught to do. She confirms that each person is dead before moving on, unlike in older slasher films where the killer is often mistaken for dead only to come back for more later on.

It turns out that Crispin and his brother are in on this bloody charade in order to gain the massive inheritance they will receive upon the death of their parents. Yet, no one knew what they were in for when they invited Erin. They assumed that she would be just another weak woman “accidently” caught in the crossfire. They thought she would become paralyzed with fear and tremble at the sight of danger. Crispin even says to Erin, “If you would have acted normally you would have been untouched.” Erin refuses. She will not be another victim in a “tragic story.” Even as Crispin tries to convince her to go along with his plan of becoming rich, asking her to put aside all sense of humanity to be with him, she asks herself “why not” and kills him.

Erin takes all that we have learned about defense, safety, and protection from previous slasher films and blends them together to become someone we as women can aspire to be. We can learn from her response to a dangerous situation to come out stronger and more prepared than ever before. She is the “Final Girl” we need in 2021—the one unwilling to back down from a fight, who takes care of herself, and is unwavering when her survival is at stake.

Final Girls fight back – against systemic misogyny

Outside of the cinematic screen, women certainly need to be proactive; we are taught to avoid being assaulted, rather than teaching men to not assault. Modern slasher “Survivor Girls” are more relatable than the “Final Girls” of the past—the archetype has evolved as women have evolved. This isn’t the end of our story, it’s the beginning. In slasher films, women are often the ones victimized and the receivers of violence, though rarely the perpetuator. It’s refreshing, and often cathartic, to see this subversion of our very real experiences. We can finally witness the option of fighting back. And as we recognize and fight for autonomy and power in our personal lives, so do we for the “Survivor Girls.”

 In her book Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing, Isabel Pinedo articulates something very powerful. Although we watch what I would call “popcorn horror” movies—which is what a lot of slasher films are—such films also speak to women on a deeper, more personal level, whether we recognize it or not. Women like Pinedo enjoy slasher films because they communicate women’s “very legitimate anxieties about male violence and their fears of being assaulted and raped” (Bates). But also, she recognized that the fighting styles or tactics used by “Survivor Girls” are actual real life moves taught in self-defense classes to show women how to ward off male assaulters (Bates). Women need slasher films.

In modern slasher films, women take on the inherent misogyny of a system even though they know it to be dangerous: Ghostface rears its ugly head again, Michael Myers will always be hiding in the shadows, frat boys perpetuate rape culture, and strange men regularly invade our safe spaces. This is very different from the “Final Girls” of the past—what happened to them is because they are just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or they are victims of their parents’ mistakes. They weren’t directly fighting a fractured system, they were fighting in the moment. In Halloween (1978/2018), The Shape is terrifying because he could be your brother, lover or father. He could be anyone, and—as is evidenced in Scream 4, Black Christmas, and You’re Next—he is.

The masks cover their cowardice, but also society’s refusal to admit the failure of patriarchal rule. Hiding underneath the mask is centuries of gender-based assault and murder. The survivors of these films aren’t just fighting against this direct threat of male violence for their own survival, but for all of us. Women are ready and we will never be broken. I have seen enough slasher films to know how to survive the real world, and I am forever grateful. From the “Final Girls” of the 70s and 80s to modern “Survivor Girls,” from the subgenre’s misogynistic roots to Erin, slasher films have inherent value, and are here to stay.

 

Works Cited

Bates, Robin. “Slasher Films and Liberated Women.” Better Living Through Beowulf, 26 Mar. 2010.

Nowell, Richard. “‘There’s More Than One Way to Lose Your Heart’: The American Film Industry, Early Teen Slasher Films, and Female Youth.” Cinema Journal, vol. 51, no. 1, 2011, pp. 115–40, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41342285.

Vosper, Amy Jane. “Film, Fear and the Female.” Off/Screen, vol. 18, nos. 6-7, July 2014.

Wade, Lisa. “Sex, Death, and Slasher Films – Sociological Images.” The Society Pages, 5 Apr. 2013.