The Killer Always Returns: Slasher Franchises & Final Girls as Unresolved Trauma
Trigger warnings: murder, survival, mental health, horror, scary, gendered violence, trauma, PTSD
Final girls have always been a big hit and for many decades. It feels like our society is starving for stories of post traumatic growth (psychological benefits after crisis and trauma). We see the best-selling books, games, shows, and films about support groups, revenge networks, and other interesting concepts. They’ve become part of the collective consciousness.
For those who don’t know, what is a final girl? According to Clover (Garner), a final girl is “a female who is the sole survivor of the group of young people.“ In more modern times this has shape shifted into more and sometimes less specific genres of empowerment, although some horror slashers opt out of anyone surviving.
So what do the final girls have in common?
Pure, innocent/not interested in sex, virginal (remember, virginity is a weird ass social construct from purity culture that refuses to die due to misinformation about how vagina’s function that get perpetuates in all forms of media and from misogynists that have no context of what pleasuring a vagina-haver actually looks like. PLEASE DIE ALREADY purity culture!) . There has been a shift towards less problematic horror movie roles and rules. Randy isn’t always right anymore!
Avoids vices
Related to the killer at times
The one who confronts the killer at the end
As we know, horror media can be helpful because we can control the factors around it by turning it off, pausing, usually having resolution at the end. There is often a formula that is predictable. Life, on the other hand is NOT so predictable. This is similar to how trauma operates. Some people develop PTSD in certain contexts, some don’t. And we should all hopefully know that the shame and guilt belongs to the perpetrator, not the victim. There is a thing called the Just World Fallacy that people often fall in with their “logic“ without thinking. That whomever was victimized must have done something to get to that point. WRONG! Bad things happen to good people and positive things happen to awful people. The universe is chaos, babes and there is never a justification for victim-blaming.
So who are they?! These are who are commonly thought of as final girls:
Sally Hardesty (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
Jess Bradford (Black Christmas)
Laurie Strode (Halloween) - widely considered to be the most resilient final girl
Nancy Thompson (Nightmare on Elm Street)
Ellen Ripley (Alien Series)
Sidney Prescott (Scream)
Dana Polk (Cabin in the Woods)
Victoria Heyes (Terrifier)
Harper (Haunt)
Maxine Minx (X, Maxxxine)
Sienna Shaw (Terrifier 2/3)
A lot of the finals girls also come back for sequels; hence the unresolved trauma. So what is trauma and how do we know it’s unresolved and how do we know when it’s resolved?
Trauma: According to Herman (1998) trauma “destroys the social systems of care, protection, and meaning that support human life.”
Unresolved Trauma (PTSD): When trauma gets stuck in our system and can’t be pushed through and resolved
Criteria for PTSD includes:
(A) Exposure to threat(s)
(B) Re-experiencing the threat(s) via flashbacks, nightmares, etc
(C) Avoidance of reminders of threat(s)
(D) Negative thoughts/feeling after threat(s)
(E) Trauma related arousal/reactivity
(F) Symptoms last longer than one month
(G) Symptoms create distress/impairment
(H) Symptoms not due to medical issues, medication, or illness
Resolution to trauma:
Judith Herman researches and studies trauma and divides trauma treatment into three phases:Phase I: Safety and Stabilization
Phase II: Remembrance and Mourning
Phase III: Reconnection and Integration
Works Cited:
“Chronology of Slasher Films.” Blogspot.com, 2017, lioncorn.blogspot.com/p/chronology-of-slasher-films.html. Accessed 4 May 2025.
Florentin, Groh. ““Experiencing Trauma”: Aesthetical, Sensational and Narratological Issues of Traumatic Representations in Slasher Horror Cinema.” Arts, vol. 12, no. 4, 28 June 2023, pp. 132–132, https://doi.org/10.3390/arts12040132.
Garner, Bianca ’Bee’. “Feminist Film Theory 101: Carol J. Clover’s “the Final Girl.”” In Their Own League, 3 Oct. 2019, intheirownleague.com/2019/10/03/feminist-film-theory-101-carol-j-clovers-the-final-girl/. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
Hart, Caitlin. “When Horror Was Cathartic.” Cooking for Other People, 22 Oct. 2022, caitlinhart.substack.com/p/when-horror-was-cathartic. Accessed 3 May 2025.
Herman, Judith L. “Recovery from Psychological Trauma.” Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, vol. 52, no. S1, Sept. 1998, pp. S98–S103, https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1440-1819.1998.0520s5s145.x.
Kinch, Erianne. “Scares and Skin: The Golden Age of Slashers.” Uen.pressbooks.pub, May 2022, uen.pressbooks.pub/voicesofusuvol16/chapter/scares-and-skin-the-golden-age-of-slashers/. Accessed 4 May 2025.
Krancer, Brooke. “Horror Cinema, Trauma, and the US in Crisis in the 1970s.” ArcGIS StoryMaps, 29 June 2021, storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/68defbc42de0437184087a4afd070ae3. Accessed 3 May 2025.
Lees, LCSW, Adena Bank. “Posttraumatic Growth.” Psychology Today, 2019, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/from-surviving-to-thriving/201904/posttraumatic-growth.
Liaguno, Vince. “Laurie Strode: An Exploration of Trauma in the Slasher Film - Horror Movie - Horror Homeroom.” Horror Homeroom, 2021, www.horrorhomeroom.com/laurie-strode-an-exploration-of-trauma-in-the-slasher-film/. Accessed 4 May 2025.
McRaney, David. “The Just-World Fallacy.” You Are Not so Smart, 7 June 2010, youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-fallacy/. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
Psychology Today. “Post-Traumatic Growth | Psychology Today.” Www.psychologytoday.com, www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/post-traumatic-growth. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
“Re-Imagining the Victim in Post-1970s Horror Media.” 2025. Amsterdam University Press EBooks, Amsterdam University Press, 9 Jan. 2024. Accessed 4 May 2025.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “PTSD: National Center for PTSD.” Va.gov, 2023, www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/treat/essentials/dsm5_ptsd.asp. Accessed 28 Apr. 2026.
