10 Best Non-Final Girls In Horror Movies

Superbly played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, I Know What You Did Last Summer's Helen Shivers is contemporarily regarded as one of the greatest non-final girls in history.

Simply put, a key element behind the success of Helen's lasting impression is that she's just a cool character. Effortlessly slotting in amongst the popular kids while managing to avoid the more obnoxious traits associated with such girls, Gellar's Helen was positively received by fans, many of whom preferred her to Jennifer Lowe Hewitt's lead protagonist Julie James.

This may be due in some part to the fact that JLH spends the majority of the film bogged down by stereotypical horror girl typecasting; too busy screaming her head off to contribute anything useful. While she admittedly does also do a lot of screaming, Shivers shows she is willing to fight to survive. Look no further than her bucking the stereotypical image of a pageant queen by hurling herself from a third story window to escape the film's hook-wielding killer, or kicking out the window of a police car.

Even after seeing her sister's brutally murdered body and falling several stories, Helen refuses to give up her bid for freedom. This makes it all the more heartbreaking when the killer catches up with her and she is bludgeoned to death - safety within eyeshot, screams drowned out by the passing parade.

Helen sadly highlights a common trait of many great non-final girls (often resulting in their status as such); lacking the ability to make a quick getaway.