How Final Girl Support Group Will Reinvent The Slasher Movie (Again)
The rights to Grady Hendrix's upcoming novel The Final Girl Support Group have been acquired by Annapurna pictures with a plot that will challenge slasher movies all over again. For the past several years, slasher flicks have been on the rise with the final girl as the epicenter of their storylines. Since Wes Craven's 1996 release of the meta movie Scream, the sub-genre has been under constant reinvention with new and veteran directors in the genre taking their turn. The Final Girl Support Group does something different than all of the rest and could reinvent slashers in a major way.
With major franchises bringing back iconic characters such as Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode from Halloween or Neve Campbell's Sidney Prescott of Scream, the final girls of horror are returning with all new vigor. The term "final girl" was coined by Carol J. Clover in her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. In it, she defined the character as the only woman left alive by the end of the movie and the only person left to tell the tales of terror they faced during their fight for survival. Nearly every horror movie has some semblance of a final girl, even if it's less obvious. For instance, Ari Aster's Midsommar technically has in Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh) who has also been regarded as a reinvention of the scream queen. The terms are nearly interchangeable due to Jamie Lee Curtis's status as the ultimate queen of screams as well as one of the original final girls of horror and their similarities as damsels in distress.
As the 21st century sought to reinvent the final girl, the damsel in distress elements of the character were mostly removed. For example, 2015's horror comedy, The Final Girls, showcases the power that the final girl has, and suggests it can be more powerful than just a sole survivor. With TV shows like Slasher, American Horror Story: 1984, and Scream: The TV Series, there are new renditions of the slasher sub-genre and the final girl trope all the time. However, when a group of final girls come together to support one another in Grady Hendrix's The Final Girl Support Group, the entire sub-genre is called out for its brutal treatment of these women and, subsequently, subverts the trope itself.
The women in the support group have been part of each other's lives for years. While their names aren't outwardly mentioned, likely due to copyright law, their origins are reminiscent of recognizable characters. They include Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), who survived The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Laurie Strode (Curtis), who is at constant battle with her brother/stalker, Michael Myers, in Halloween, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) of A Nightmare On Elm Street, and Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) who left Crystal Lake alive in Friday The 13th. Each final girl has their own unique story but they were all able to escape a slasher character, which brings them all together in a support group.
Rather than force them to face these villains all over again, Hendrix gives them backstories that are built around how they were able to survive. For instance, one has become a motivational speaker, others struggle with addiction, and all are impacted with post-traumatic stress disorder. When they mysteriously begin to die, a true crime element is implemented into the slasher story to uncover who could possibly take down some of horror's most powerful women. It will reinvent the slasher genre by growing the final girls beyond the simplistic identity of someone who lives to survive and survives merely to serve the purpose of expanding a franchise. While they appear to be symbols of hope, they are ultimately used in order to create a purpose for the killer to come back.
In The Final Girl Support Group, it is not alluded that their individual nightmares will come back to haunt them. When they killed the slasher, he remained dead, unlike their movie counterparts. This is a major reinvention of the sub-genre due to the fact that it erases the possibility for these women to continue to play the part of the final girl. Of course, some of them do die in their movie franchises, but are traditionally retconned by a new installment that creates a different timeline. Ultimately, The Final Girl Support Group will reinvent the slasher sub-genre by subverting its use of the final girl trope, implementing true crime elements, and giving realistic futures to women who faced an immense amount of trauma during their fight for survival.