And the path the final girl, who is almost always the pure (read: chaste) one is layered with a buffet of victims for us to fetishize their demise. I love slasher movies and you'd have to be a fool to not recognize that this is the design.
It's also why the killer often becomes the real protagonist of the slasher film as all the victims are the most broad stroke caricatures rather than real people.
And in all fairness this is a topic that people have been debating for 30 years now and will never have a definite answer.
A good read is Men, Women & Chainsaws. amazon.ca/Men-Women-Chai…
A good read is Men, Women & Chainsaws. amazon.ca/Men-Women-Chai…
Personally, I don't come down on the side that slasher movies are default feminist because of the Final Girl trope, but I also don't dismiss the genre as being solely anti-feminist. I think it can go either way depending on who is telling it and how.
The reality is 95% or more slasher films are made by men and specifically for a male audience. Is it possible for a man to make a feminist slasher movie? Of course. Is it likely? Not usually.
The one thing that slasher films and the final girl have going for them however, is that it's almost the only subgenre where a woman is allowed to embrace violence without first sacrificing her femininity.
