The document discusses Carol J. Clover's "Final Girl Theory" about horror film tropes. It notes that Clover identified viewers initially share perspectives of both the killer and victims but come to solely identify with the "final girl" - the last surviving female. The main plot of horror films involves a group of victims being hunted one by one by a killer until only one, a final girl, is left to kill the killer or escape. The final girl is often sexually unavailable and pursues the killer actively through curiosity and intelligence, taking on masculine traits like weapons. For a horror film to succeed, it needs the final girl to express abject terror, as viewers would reject this emotion coming from a male character.

1. The Final Girl Theory
Carol J. Clover

2. Clover
• Born July 31, 1940
• American Professor of Film Studies
• She identifies that at the start of the film the viewer shares both perspectives
on the killer and the victims but as the film progresses the audience
experience a “shift in identification” to the only perspective being the final
girl .

3. Concept
• Identifying the main plot in horror films:
• The main plot is a group of victims is hunted by one killer and each of the
victims die one by one until there is one left, therefore this increases the
terror as the audience are constantly suspecting the next death. In which the
last surviving girl or woman kills the killer or gets away.

4. Gores Description
• “In almost every horror film, one girl is always a wimp! And she’s the one
you know is going to survive! That’s in case any parents see the picture!
They’ll think it’s some sort of profound message!”
• This connotes that in some way horror films are trying to carry on a message
in which the people who deviate from the norms die but the one that is good
and does nothing wrong, survives! Connoting that this can only be a women
or a girl and not a man or a boy because women and girls are seen as pure in
mainstream society where as boys are more daring and deviant.

5. Characteristics
• She is usually “sexually unavailable” avoiding things like sex, illegal drugs and
a deviant lifestyle. She usually has a unisex name as well like Billie. The final
Girl is the person moving the story forward by actively seeking the “killer” in
which this shows curiosity and intelligence. Clover identifies horror to be a
male-orientated genre in which the final girl becomes masculinized by taking
up a weapon like a chainsaw. She also identifies for a horror film to be
successful there needs ot be “abject terror” from the final girl and this cant
be a man as “many viewers would reject a film that showed abject terror on
the part of a male.