The Final Girl Theory

Carol J. Clover

Clover

• Born July 31, 1940• American Professor of Film Studies• She identifies that at the start of the film the viewer

shares both perspectives on the killer and the victims but as the film progresses the audience experience a “shift in identification” to the only perspective being the final girl .

Concept

• Identifying the main plot in horror films:• The main plot is a group of victims is hunted by one killer

and each of the victims die one by one until there is one left, therefore this increases the terror as the audience are constantly suspecting the next death. In which the last surviving girl or woman kills the killer or gets away.

Gores Description

• “In almost every horror film, one girl is always a wimp! And she’s the one you know is going to survive! That’s in case any parents see the picture! They’ll think it’s some sort of profound message!”

• This connotes that in some way horror films are trying to carry on a message in which the people who deviate from the norms die but the one that is good and does nothing wrong, survives! Connoting that this can only be a women or a girl and not a man or a boy because women and girls are seen as pure in mainstream society where as boys are more daring and deviant.

Characteristics• She is usually “sexually unavailable” avoiding things like sex,

illegal drugs and a deviant lifestyle. She usually has a unisex name as well like Billie. The final Girl is the person moving the story forward by actively seeking the “killer” in which this shows curiosity and intelligence. Clover identifies horror to be a male-orientated genre in which the final girl becomes masculinized by taking up a weapon like a chainsaw. She also identifies for a horror film to be successful there needs ot be “abject terror” from the final girl and this cant be a man as “many viewers would reject a film that showed abject terror on the part of a male.