Final Girls, Horror, and Escapism: How Modern Slasher Films Provide Comfort to the Viewer
- Mario Bishop
- Jul 7, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 3, 2023
Escapism is an activity that we all take part in. Your escapism of choice might be romcoms, superhero movies, or musicals. If none of those excite you, then you may prefer my kind of escapism; have some popcorn and watch characters get murdered in a slasher film.
To non-horror fans, calling slasher films escapism sounds insane. Due to American culture’s cheery disposition, most escapist media guarantees a happy ending. First and second installments in a trilogy often end on a dower note, but there’s still the promise that everything will work out in the end.
Horror rips apart that promise. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that everything will work out, or that everything will fall apart.
Slashers guarantee that at least one person will survive. It’s not hard to figure out who this person is. They’re typically known as the "final girl". The final girl trope is well known today and it's also well known for being problematic. In the most traditional sense, the final girl tends to be a virgin who doesn’t do drugs, unlike the other characters in the movie who all get killed off as punishment for their sins.
Friday the 13th. Image via Film Grab.
The trope has been criticized enough that it isn’t as common as it once was. Rather it has evolved into what I will call the final person trope. We’re getting to the point where anyone can be the final person of a slasher film. It’s still not without its problems, but compared to the earliest slasher films, it’s an improvement.
One of the major improvements is that the final person is now not only allowed to have sex and do drugs, but they're also allowed to be realistically flawed instead of a vessel of what society considers pure. This makes it easier for the viewer to imagine themselves in these situations, which adds to the immersion and the terror.
Barbarian. Image via Film Grab.
The benefit of having a final person is that the audience gets all the gruesome kills they want, but they also have someone to root for. It’s a simple formula that audiences love because it tells a story of a person who is forced to endure the most terrifying torment imaginable. Everyone this person loves is killed, but somehow they make it through to the end.
A great example of the modern final person trope that doesn’t fall into the final girl trope is X. X is about a group of adult filmmakers who make a porno on a farm owned by an elderly husband and wife who turn out to be murderers. Many have talked about how the protagonists are people who would be stereotypes in other slashers. Here they’re genuinely nice people who the audience feels sympathy for.
Cast of X. Image via La Times.
Maxine Minx (played by Mia Goth) ends up being the final person. She’s a porn actress who ran away from her oppressive evangelical family before the story begins. When the audience is introduced to Maxine, she’s snorting coke in the back of a strip club as the crew is preparing to head out for the shoot. All of them are unaware of the horrors they’re about to go through.
Maxine at the start of the film. Image via Film Grab.
Maxine’s still not in a good place when the film ends. All the other characters are dead and all she has left is the truck she escapes in. Despite this she keeps fighting even as the stakes rise. She’s also getting her own film next year called, Maxxxine, which will continue her story.
Maxine driving off Into the sunset. Image via Film Grab.
Although we don't know what will happen to Maxine in the next movie, her arch in X is inspiring. When rewatching X we know what happens to Maxine, but we always root for her. She’s a naive underdog who may be in over her head in most situations, but she makes her willpower clear in her actions and her repeated affirmation, “I will not accept a life I do not deserve.”
Maxine quote. Image via Twitter.
Maxine's greatest strength is her courage. She has the ability to do a task that frightens her. This is a trait that is commonly found in many of the best final people. This is why, even though slasher villains tend to be the most iconic characters in their stories, we root for the hero every time.
I consider X’s ending to be a happy ending. This may come as a shock, but Slasher movies have a low bar for a happy ending. We’ve all had bad days where just getting through the struggles of life is a win. It’s not a big triumph, but we can say that we’re still alive. Against all odds, we’re still alive. That alone should be celebrated.
Rewatching slasher movies is comforting. We know when the scares are going to happen, and we know that at least one of the characters will be ok. The slasher genre is a pure form of escapism that is brutally honest. It has the hope that we can overcome our challenges and succeed, while acknowledging that the challenges we face can be terrifying. It’s for this reason that I have a fondness for the final-person trope. It shows that horror can be a very optimistic genre when it wants to be.
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