Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings!    In honor of Spooky Season, I have decided to share a countdown of five of my favorite Final Girls in horror films.   In particular, I am keeping this list to Final Girls in slasher films, so Final Girls within other types of horror (like straight-up haunted house fair) will not be featured here.   I know that some of my opinions will be more than a bit controversial to horror fans, but this is a very biased ranking, so I make no apologies!      

Number 5: Julie James (I Know What You Did Last Summer 1997)

~I know that this fifth-place character may be a bit surprising, but I have a lot of love for classic (and even cheesy) 90s horror films.   I Know What You Did Last Summer tells the tale of a group of teens who believed that they had accidentally killed a man, but he came back to kill them one by one a year later.   Over the course of the film, Julie fights back and tries to protect her friends, surviving into the next film, and even surviving that film.   So, yes I genuinely like her as a character and thought she was a compelling enough character to place on this list.   Yet, I must admit her inclusion here is, at least in part, because of my nostalgia for 90s horror.    

Number 4: Sydney Prescott (Scream 1996)

~So, my fourth-place character is Sydney from the Scream films, in particular the Sydney of the original trilogy of Scream films.    She is the first final girl of the meta-horror slasher film era, and is still mostly seen as the best!   I love the character of Sydney in her unwillingness to play by traditional slasher standards, as well as her warmth and ability to fight back against multiple people who wanted her dead throughout the original trilogy!

Number 3: Laurie Strode (Halloween 1978)

~Laurie is one of the most iconic horror Final Girls of all time!    She is just an average girl in the original film, sweet and happy to babysit on Halloween night, who fights back against a masked evil.    As the series continued and was rebooted we got to see many versions of Laurie, making her a very versatile character, and one that is very intriguing, even getting to see her as a Final Girl dealing with the trauma of what she had endured.   To me, seeing her dealing with the trauma is one of the most powerful things about this Final Girl! 

Number 2: Lori Campbell (Freddy vs. Jason 2003)

~Now, I know that this one may be one of the most controversial rankings on this list, as I know that this film is rather divisive with horror fans, either loving or hating it.   I personally really adore Freddy vs. Jason and likewise, I really love Lori as a character.    She is smart, kind, and brave, dealing with the grief of her mother’s death and feeling unhappy in her romantic life ever since her first love disappeared.   All of this makes her a very relatable character, who is dealing with emotional traumas that all of us have gone through.   I also really love this film for the subplot of the love story between Lori and her boyfriend Will, who returned to her by breaking out of Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital.   I have to say I love that the film acknowledges Westin Hills, as that is the same place that the kids in the third Nightmare on Elm Street film were patients in!   In all, we get the romance between Lori and Will, the reveal of her mother’s death at the hands of Freddy, and Lori getting to behead Freddy in a satisfying ending.   That is why I love this film and this Final Girl, in particular!  

Number 1:Nancy Thompson (A Nightmare on Elm Street 1984)

~No other Final Girl could outrank Lori Campbell for me, except the original Final Girl of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.    Nancy is smart, has a ton of ingenuity, is super brave, and is very willing to go against her parents’ overprotective natures to fight the Dream Demon Freddy Krueger himself!   She is an icon of a Final Girl, who gets to come back for the third film, and although she unfortunately died she did get to pass the Final Girl status onto the next Final Girl of the series, Kristen.   I love that she was able to grow and develop, learning about psychology and wanting to help other kids who are being tortured in the same way that she was!   That character development is what has her at number one on this list!

~I hope you have enjoyed this slasher Final Girl countdown.   Did I list your favorite Final Girl?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services!    I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon!  Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/  

Further Watching

• I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
• Scream (1996)
• Halloween (1978)
• Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)