10 Horror Movie Characters Who Had To Die To Win

Falling in the relatively small-but-steadily growing subgenre of meta horror movies, 2015's The Final Girls is a fun homage to '80s slasher movies, with a surprisingly solid emotional core holding together the gallows humour and genre staples.

After the plot's central group is transported to the world of Camp Bloodbath (the movie within the movie), they find themselves in the crosshairs of the picture's slasher antagonist, Billy Murphy. The machete-armed villain makes short work of the group and the fictional characters he shares a world with before Nancy (Malin Akerman) sacrifices herself to give protagonist Max (Taissa Farmiga) the ability to stop Billy's reign of terror by becoming The Final Girl.

Nancy's selfless act worked well as a means to add layers to the well-worn trope of "the final girl", and also gave Max a chance to bid her mother Amanda (who plays Nancy in Camp Bloodbath) a fitting farewell. Although the group somehow finds itself in the sequel Camp Bloodbath: Cruel Summer, and against a revived Billy, Max is now able to take on the villain with her newfound strength.