10 Traits That Make Up A Modern Day Horror Movie Final Girl
3. Rule 8 - She Is Pretty Blasé About Murdering Her Assailants
As we spoke about the final girl being forced into her role, it's only right to then talk about the girls that choose to fight back of their own free will.
Without sounding crass, this version of the final girl is a badass! She needs to be tough, strong and independent, and most importantly she has to be okay with getting her hands dirty.
For our heroine to stand toe to toe with the movie's killer, she has to be okay with, well, killing. A movie that revolves around a final girl is a movie all about survival, so it's only natural that our protagonist would do anything to survive.
On the scale of "Murder, YAY!" to "I'll only do it if I need to" there are two clear examples at either end.
If you've seen You're Next, you probably thought of Erin when you came to this entry. Erin starts the film as an every-girl, but when the action starts you quickly learn that she's more than prepared for such a situation. She goes straight into murder and survival mode and the audience revels in the gory ways she mutilates her prey. And yes I mean prey; she may have started as the hunted, but she quickly becomes the hunter.
On the other end of the scale is Grace from Ready Or Not, she doesn't go straight into murder territory. At first she is more focused on defence instead of offence, but as the movie's events put her through more and more trauma, she eventually hits breaking point. And when she kills, it's not with the refrain and training that Erin has, it's desperate and crazed.