Cinephile, MA student in Cinema Studies. Former manager and curator of “Documentary at Shapira” project.
The horror film’s heroine has changed over the years. The “final girl” archetype, the character that survives the deadly massacre, has previously been characterized by innocence, purity, and virginity that protected her and helped save her. Her character, which elicits empathy from the viewer, leads the plot to a climax where she becomes active and strong and defeats or escapes the killer. This characterization has been retroactively perceived as problematic and conservative, as the more sexual women in horror films were usually murdered early and “punished” for their deeds. The classic “final girl” model has gone through many incarnations throughout the years and evolved out of the classical framing of the pure innocent girl, with more and more female protagonists challenging the virginal ideal.
It’s interesting to examine the “final girl” in two recent slasher films – Dolly and Self-Help – screened at Utopia 2025. Both films offer a new incarnation of the “final girl”: young women who look completely normal and innocent, but something inside them is turbulent even before the external threat bursts onto the screen. They are unhappy with their ordinary life, and the assault against them becomes a means – perhaps even an opportunity – to step out of their limited path.
Dolly (2005, dir. Rod Blackhurst) opens with a young couple going on a forest hike where Chase proposes to his girlfriend, Macy (played by the excellent Fabianne Therese). At first glance the couple seems rather ordinary, even “square,” the kind that’s about to get married and live happily ever after. But Macy hesitates: Chase has a daughter and she never wanted to be a mother. The moment of proposal is imbued with unease and doubt. Does she really want this commitment forever? Is she interested in taking the standard path – getting married, being a mother, live in a nice suburban house? The proposal is cut off by stressful doll-like music, and Chase sets off to check where it’s coming from. Macy’s doubt and the actual assault arrive almost simultaneously – the external threat erupts just as she debates whether to stay in her reality.
In Self-Help (2025, dir. Erik Bloomquist), Olivia seems like a normal, even boring, college girl. Her mother falls in love with a charismatic cult leader, and Olivia joins her for the retreat he’s hosting. When she realizes what kind of place it is, Olivia tries to get her mother out of there. Despite her innocent image, Olivia has a dark past – as a child she killed her mother’s lover. The violence she is forced to inflict against the cult leader did not come to her from the outside – it was already there, bubbling under the surface. Olivia begins the film at a party, making out with a guy she doesn’t know, discovering her sexuality. The whole time she has an internal conflict: on one hand, not be sexual, not to stand out. On the other hand, express her urges, act violent, with the instincts of a killer.
Dolly and Self-Help are both “classic” horror films, gory, bloody. Viewing them is not recommended to anyone who cannot stomach seeing severed limbs or extreme torture. In that sense they harken back to the “classic” horror films that don’t belong to the currently popular “elevated horror” genre, such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, dir. Tobe Hooper), replete with blood and murder. But in going back to the classic genre, a new thing is revealed: there is a sense that American squareness, all those young women who “do everything right” are under attack – and something inside them is already ready to respond.
In contrast to the traditional “final girl” forced to become active by the harsh situation, with Olivia and Macy the defiance comes from within. They wanted more than their ordinary lives even before the psycho killers appeared in their lives. They want to love, they want to live, and they’re not sure they’re ready for the path expected of them. When the attack comes, it turns out to be a kind of opportunity – shocking and bloody – to break out. The girls turn out to be sharper and more skilled than even the most twisted killers.
These films can also be viewed in the context of the current American political climate. The cult in Self-Help connotes a world where any charlatan can become a leader simply due to his power of persuasion. Those “square” women, uninvolved, who continue to live their routine lives, find out that you can’t ignore danger when it comes knocking on their door. The denial and withdrawing don’t help. They need to act – and that action, as both films show, can be violent, bloody, and desperate. But also necessary.
Dolly and Self-Help offer a new version of the “final girl” – one that might look “square” on the outside, but contains internal rage and defiance. In an era where American politics threatens basic rights, and charlatans rise to the top strictly on charisma, the two films deal with women who need to get a slap from reality to realize they can’t stay quiet anymore. They realize the denial and clinging to routine won’t stop the threat – not the murderous doll, not the dangerous cult, and not the political powers that try to get them in line. Macy and Olivia discover they need to save themselves, even if it means being violent, unpleasant, and decidedly not “square”. Their internal disquiet, the doubt, the desire to step out of the predictable path – all turn out to be not a weakness but a strength that allows them to survive. The new “final girl” might need an external wake-up call to wake up from her coma, but when she does, she discovers she already has everything needed to fight back.