Top 5 Friday: Final Girls

All horror fans know that one of the most important ingredients in a good slasher movie is the final girl. A good final girl goes through an emotional change through the carnage, using her resources to make it to the final showdown against the chainsaw-wielding villain. It's been noted, most specifically in pop culture, that the final girl is sexually repressed and displays more masculine traits that set her apart from her more emotional, feminine friends as they get dismembered left and right. After viewing as many horror movies as I have (both good and bad), I started to think of which horror movie heroines effectively made the transformation from helpless victim to hardcore avenger. In no particular order:

Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell)-Scream

I can't have a list of final girls and not include Sidney Prescott of Scream fame. She is the main target of a knife-wielding maniac obsessed with the conventions of horror movies for three (soon to be four) whole films. Throughout the movie she goes from feeling sorry for herself to actually stabbing, shooting, and slicing in order to get her life back.



Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis)-Halloween

Michael Myers' estranged little sister is the quintessential final girl. She conveys all of the qualities that the ideal final girl should: she's responsible, virginal, and tough. She is one of the few horror movie victims that wins the audience over through the danger she puts herself in so that she can rescue her friends and the children she babysits. By the end of the movie, she's forced to stop running and face her fear of "the boogeyman" head on.


Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)-Alien

Ripley proves to be the final girl that inspired them all throughout the Alien series. She's androgynous, perceptive, and her ability to keep her head in a crisis keeps her alive.



Erin (Jessica Biel)-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Say what you will about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, but it was an enjoyable romp through the rural hell of Leatherface and the Hewitt family. Jessica Biel played Erin, a young woman on her way to a concert with some friends before they ran into some trouble in the form of a cannibalistic maniac with a chainsaw. She manages to be the first and only survivor of Leatherface's wrath through sheer strength and her ability to fight back.



Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp)-A Nightmare on Elm Street

Going up against a nightmare-haunting demon isn't exactly easy, especially when your dad and boyfriend continually let you down. Nancy has to take matters into her own hands to defeat the sadistic Freddy Krueger. She is perceptive and doesn't depend on anyone to help her which makes her a perfect final girl.

Granted, everyone looks for different qualities in the famous final girl. So what final girls would you put on your list?

"Piranha 3D" Clip Banned From Comic Con

You don’t even have to be a horror fan to know that the genre relies more heavily on gore now than ever. With the overwhelming success of the never-ending Saw franchise and movies like Hostel, Wolf Creek, and anything by Rob Zombie, excessive blood and torture have obviously proven to be what people want to see.

Well, maybe not everyone. The 9-minute uncensored footage from Alexandre Aja’s Piranha 3D was prohibited from being shown at last week’s San Diego Comic Con 2010. Instead, the scenes were shown downtown to a very impressed crowd of gorehounds. Naturally, the clip was released online through BloodyDisgusting to even more acclaim from fans.

The clip introduces us to the piranhas in all their vicious, bloodhungry glory as they chomp into spring breakers’ flesh left and right. The piranhas aren’t the only things taking people out in the clip that envokes the amused dread of a Final Destination disaster.

You can view the clip here.

Before viewing this clip, I had very little interest in seeing this. Okay, none whatsoever. I love Alexandre Aja, but the trailers for this movie did nothing for me. The CGI looks awful (still does even in the clip, but I hear it’s supposed to be a bit more polished for the theatrical release), and I wasn’t sure how serious it was taking itself. After seeing all of the mayhem in the clip, I think I may catch a matinee showing. It looks intentionally campy and fun rather than corny like the trailer led me to believe.

Piranha 3D boasts a pretty well-known cast with Elisabeth Shue (Hollow Man), Ving Rhames (Dawn of the Dead), Jerry O’Connell (Obsessed), Dina Meyer (Saw I-IV), Eli Roth (Inglourious Basterds) and Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future I-III). It hits theaters on August 20th.