10 Horror Movie Final Girls Who Actually Weren't
8. Arlene - Death Proof
Trust Quentin Tarantino to thoroughly subvert our expectations with his single directorial foray into the horror genre. Though Death Proof is styled as an homage to exploitation slasher flicks, Q.T. has a few nifty rug-pulls up his sleeve.
In the film's opening moments, we're introduced to our apparent trio of leads - Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), Shanna (Jordan Ladd), and Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) - set to be preyed upon by the psychopathic serial killer Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell).
Arlene is clearly earmarked as the central character in establishing scenes, cemented by the memorable sequence where she performs a lap dance for Mike in a bar. Though Arlene ticks most of the final girl boxes - including being suspicious of Mike's intentions early on - she's suddenly killed off halfway through the movie along with her two pals.
Mike murders the ladies by crashing his stunt-rigged "death proof" car into theirs at high speed, killing them all instantly. And Arlene arguably gets the worst of it, given that we see a tire from Mike's car collide with her face and shred it to mincemeat.
At this point, Tarantino cuts to 14 months later, where the rest of the movie follows an entirely new set of characters - Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), Kim (Zoe Bell), and Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) - who manage to kill Mike at the film's end.