Journal of Popular Film and Television
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Final Girls and Terrible Youth: Transgression in 1980s Slasher Horror
Sarah Trencansky
To cite this article: Sarah Trencansky (2001) Final Girls and Terrible Youth: Transgression in 1980s Slasher Horror, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 29:2, 63-73, DOI: 10.1080/01956050109601010
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01956050109601010
Published online: 02 Apr 2010.
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64 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television consist of a monster or maniac stalking slashers fit that description perfectly. 17, and wimps,” the unprivileged andor killing a succession of people, Women are repeatedly killed, appar- “other” groups of society that are usually teenagers, are considered even ently in conformance to the monster’s excluded from Carpenter’s imaginary less deserving of study. They are “at the attempt at repressing the dangerous audience. bottom of the horror heap” (Clover 20) sexuality they exhibit (during the The most consistent element in critically, “the most disreputable form obligatory nude scene) or seek out slasher sequels is the Final Girl, the of the horror film” (Pinedo 71), and during the course of the film. Thus, the surviving female Carol J. Clover although a few slashers from the 197Os, Hellraiser series, in which a girl is speaks of in her examination of horror such as Halloween or The Texas Chain- stalked after finding a symbolic Pan- and gender Men, Women, and Chin- saw Massacre, have been examined for dora’s box, “share[s] with the slasher saws. After all her friends have been cultural significance, these are rare film the simple notion of adolescent eliminated by the film’s monster, this examples. The 1970s are considered a sexual curiosity deserving immediate, girl is the one who recognizes the hor- brief “renaissance” (Williams 164) in violent retribution” (Sharrett 261). ror surrounding her and fights back horror, where progressive films chal- This is the predominant opinion in against her attacker and defeats him, lenged societal norms and traditional horror film criticism and has produced typically single-handedly, She is the depictions of female subjectivity, yet the stereotypical reaction among both undisputed main character, both the late 1980s as an era are denied that filmmakers and critics of the John because of increased character devel- status. Carpenter opening quote: Horror opment afforded to her throughout the Late 1990s slashers like Scream are films, because of their seemingly anti- film and because of her early discov- lauded for taking horror in a new direc- woman stance, are no place for femi- ery of the killer, evident to the viewing tion of postmodernity, but this means nists to be. audience from the beginning of the that 1980s horror is still viewed as Female viewership of slashers is film. In this position, her “perspective “extremely disappointing” (Williams therefore considered problematic: approaches our own privileged under- 164), primarily consigned to the label Isabel Cristina Pinedo, in her discus- standing of the situation” (Clover 44): of “reductive exploitation films” sion of female horror film viewing, She knows what we know, and the (Williams 164). They are dismissed as details how for “the female viewer Final Girl becomes an “I” for the audi- “unartistic and reactionary generic accused of masochism or the female ence to identify with. manifestations” (Williams 166), their fan labeled an apologist for a woman- Clover describes how the genre has politics condemned and apologized for, hating genre, there is no room for plea- evolved, from the passive defense of even as they are grudgingly studied. sure’’ (69). A female horror viewer is a the surviving female of The Texas Yet the legacy of the three major hor- “sex traitor” (Pinedo 7 I), blindly per- Chainsaw Massacre (she eludes ror characters to emerge during the petuating oppressive norms, or else Leatherface until she is ultimately re+ 1980s, Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare misunderstanding what she is seeing. cued by a passing truck driver) lo the on Elm Street, Jason Voorhees of the The only “proper” response to these active defense of Laurie from Huf- Friday the 13th series, and Pinhead of films for a feminist is condemnation loween (37), who, in the last sequence Hellraiser, lives on as the virtual defin- and avoidance. of the film, ceases to run and retaliates ition of film horror today. These slasher Yet, although the statistical propor- against Michael Myers, matching him films, although “beyond the purview of tion of female to male viewers of hor- in violence. In the major 1980s slash- the respectable (middle-aged, middle- ror films is largely contested (Pinedo ers, this shift increases, and the Final class) audience” (Clover 21), have 144n), there is no denying that female Girl is depicted as more powerful than importance as cultural texts, both viewership of slashers exists. The ever before. Unlike the 1970s slasher because of their immense and enduring Nightmare on Elm Street series, in par- heroines, who usually survived seem- popularity with adolescents, and ticular, is noted by at least one critic ingly at random, based on their ability because of their firmly entrenched sta- for its increased viewership by adoles- to scream, run, and avoid the pursuing tus as “outsider” cinema, apart from cent girls, usually in groups (Clover monster, the new generation of Final more accepted forms of film and their 23). Dismissing these films without Girls is notable for its unflinching more acceptable mainstream messages. careful consideration is too simplistic, determination and strength. While The primary rationale for the slash- especially in light of their cultural their supposedly more progressive er film’s status as low culture within complexity. The “seemingly endless” 1970s ancestors are said to exude the academia is its consistent depiction of (Grant, Dreud of Difference 201) “qualities of character that enable her, targeted female victims: Even approv- sequels of the 1980s are not merely of all the characters, to survive what ing discussions of horror consistently exploitation. Rather, as texts they go has come to seem unsurvivable” bemoan the slasher as “explicitly surprisingly out of their way to present (Clover 39), the heroines of the 1980s about the destruction of women” images of women and youth that sub- series go much further than simply (Sharrett 254). Films that prominently vert mainstream expectations. In fact, defending themselves, matching or feature women victims are harmful to the people these films aim to speak to exceeding the powers of their mon- women, the argument states, and most are the “feminists, children under sters with their own. Final Girls and Terrible Youth 65
This is most pronounced in the NiRkrmare mi Elm Street series, begin- ning with the heroine of the first film, Nancv. Nancy recognizes early in the film that Freddy is responsible for the dentti\ of her peers, and she takes irnmcdiate action. Beyond merely haphamdly defending herself, Nancy draw up a precise plan of action, timed to the very minute. She reads manuds on home defense, and subse- quently rigs her house with traps, including a sledgehammer hung from a door, an exploding light, a tripwire, and it bottle of gas with matches with which she sets Freddy on fire. Most essential to Nancy’s survival, however. is the knowledge she obtains of Freddy’s past: He was a child molester and killer, freed on a techni- cality and burned alive by the parents of Elin Street. who now kills by enter- ing the dreams of teenagers. Of all his victims, Nancy is the only one to seek out his origins and the only one to realize that the way to subvert his powet is by controlling the dreams he appears in. Her “dream skills,” a method of drawing Freddy out of dreams and into reality, then taking away his energy, cement her status as heroine. Nancy describes herself as “into survival,” and like Ripley of the Alien films, this Final Girl survives by her ‘hbility to adapt to the new: to ne otiate change” (Hills 41). She must be fiese, quickly and without doubt, in the supernatural elements of Freddy’s An apple for the :Freddy (Robert Englund) impersonates a teacher in Night- origin. and transform her views of mare on Elm Street 4. reslit! and the adult world according- ly. Her survival hinges on these by ineffectively trying to suppress his allows all the film’s characters to unite effort\. and she alone makes it through emergence, Lisa succeeds because she in the realm of dreams and defeat a the film alive. has studied the monster: She is able to seemingly impossible force. When Freddy returns in Nightmare defeat Freddy herself. Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The on Elrii Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Nancy returns to instruct the hero- Dream Master features Alice, arguably there IS a new Final Girl waiting for ine of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: the most powerful Final Girl of the him. iha watches Freddy attempt to Dream Warriors as a psychiatrist sent series. Kristen of Nightmare 3 dies in possc~her boyfriend Jesse, who to aid Kristen, the girl next in line to this film, but not before passing on her becomes increasingly helpless against be Freddy’s adversary. Kristen has the gift of dreaming to Alice, saying, his attacks. and is once again expected singular power of drawing people into “You’ll need my power.” Alice now to “save the day,” by researching his her dreams, and Nancy instructs her possesses not only the power to draw origins, reading Nancy’s diary and how to harness this gift and help the people into her dreams, but the ability newspaper reports, and venturing into other teenagers in her psychiatric ward to take an aspect of each person as they thei boiler room Freddy used for his find their own individual “dream pow- die: She becomes a collection of other vic;tinrs.She voluntarily initiates battle ers” as a matter of survival. It is Kris- people’s powers. Like Ripley, who by entering the domain of the monster, ten’s power, and Nancy’s understand- merges with computers, technology, and as Jesse fails in combating Freddy ing of hypnosis and dream states, that and finally, the alien, Alice is “a net- 66 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television
The Hellruiser series is similarly focused on its own heroine, Kirsty. Drawn into danger by the fault of her stepmother and uncle, whose posses- sion of a supernatural puzzle box allows a demonlike “Cenobite” named Pinhead to stalk her, Kirsty ably rises to the challenge of accepting the unbe- lievable events around her and quickly discerns the workings of the mysteri- ous box. Cornered by Pinhead, she slyly bargains her way into convincing him to take her uncle instead, which he does, setting her free. In Hellraiser Il: Hellbound, she escapes his grasp again, offering knowledge of the Ceno- bites’ human histories in exchange for her freedom. Kirsty is completely bereft of aid throughout her ordeal; the love interest sent to “help” her fight proves ineffec- tual throughout the course of the movie and is barely developed at all as a character. At one point, Kirsty takes the puzzle box out of his inept hands to manipulate it herself. In Hellmiser I1 and ZII, Kirsty passes her knowledge
on, initiating both a young girl named Tiffany, who learns to defeat Pinhead herself, and a female reporter named Joey, who learns the history of Pin- head by watching videotapes of
- Kirsty’s psychiatric sessions. skills-to fight Freddyy Even the Friday the 13th series, notoriously dismissed as the most work of differences composed of what- and genre criticism. She kick-boxes, exploitative of slashers, has its own ever signs have been picked up and propels herself through a window with powerful Final Girls in most ot its reassembled into a new active-heroine supernatural strength to face Freddy, films: from the heroine of the second machine” (Hills 46). She is an assem- protects her helpless and unconscious film, who impersonates Jason’s dead blage of strengths: a fighter like her boyfriend Dan, and waggles her fin- mother to convince him to spare her, to brother. intelligent like her friend gers in sarcastic imitation of Freddy’s Tina, the heroine of Friday the I3rh Sheila, strong like her weight-lifting knife-fingered glove, unnerving him Part VZI: The New Blood. A telekinetic, triend Deb. Alice’s victory depends not with only the slightest effort. She Tina accesses and manipulates electri- only on her physical battle with Fred- eventually defeats him with her cal cords, lightbulbs, and furniture with dy, but with her ability to become grad- knowledge of dreams, and survives her mind, quickly overcoming any ter- ually more assertive as the film pro- through the next film in the series as ror she initially displays, and fighting gresses. Alice learns to confront the well. In the Nightmare series, the role Jason without moving a muscle. Her systems of authority she has previous- of heroine is a legacy, a passing of the psychic strength enables her to collapse ly unquestioningly obeyed: She knocks torch from Tina (the first girl to dream an entire house on his head, and she ii deadly syringe out of a doctor’s of Freddy and the first girl the viewer ultimately raises the dead with her hands when he ignores her warnings, sees who has knowledge of Freddy) to powers to send a spirit up from the bot- affirming, “Those are my rules.” Nancy, to Lisa, to Kristen, to Alice. tom of Crystal Lake, who pulls Jason Throughout her battle with Freddy, None of them dies without first train- back down into its depths. Alice tights with unwavering confi- ing a new girl to carry on the fight they These texts, each by different direc- dence, far from the concept of females have started. Each girl is worlds away tors and screenwriters, are remarkably as “ab.ject terror personitied” (Clover from the stereotypical victimized consistent in characterizing the hero- 35) that is stereotypical of the genre females of horror. ine’s battle as a fight for agcncy Final Girls and Terrible Youth 67 againbt a monster that inadvertently quer the monster as well, through begging for mercy belong to the provokes their independent transfor- identification with her. female” (51). The Final Girls, for her, mations: As their powers increase, so If anyone in the films is truly the are masculine projections, meant to does their questioning of the figures of object of the viewer’s gaze, it is the signify masochistic impulses: “To the authority that previously determined monsters. Their arresting figures are extent she means ‘girl’ at all, it is only their lives. Laura Mulvey speaks of the consistently “looked at and displayed for purposes of signifying female tradition in cinema of the “men’s role (Mulvey 162) throughout the narra- lack” (53). as thr active one of advancing the tives, as bodies of fascination in their In addition, much is made of the fact story, making things happen” (163). In deformities and wounds. Jason appears that Final Girls are usually desexual- these films, that role is systematically masked until his monstrous face is ized (Clover 39), either unavailable for reversed. If Freddy or Pinhead initiates revealed with fanfare at the climax of relationships or reluctant while in them, the films by representing the threat the films, the virtual equivalent of a which further subverts their femininity. that rcars its head, it is the female mainstream film’s nude scene. Pin- While this may be the case in Hul- heroines who decide how and when head’s and Freddy’s visages are evident loween and various other slashers, it is the story will end. Nancy and Alice throughout the films, and the camera not an issue in the Nightmare or Hell- control when Freddy can appear by pauses at length, allowing the viewers raiser series: Nancy, Lisa, and Kirsty withhr rlding sleep or ingesting sleep- to appreciate the make-up and prosthet- all have love interests in their lilms, as ing pills to initiate their final battle. ics that have created this “spectacle” does Kristen when she returns in Night- Nanc! leads Freddy around her house, (Mulvey 163) for their enjoyment. Like mare 4. Alice even becomes pregnant in baiting him to conform to her plan, the pin-up girl Mulvey describes who is Nighhnare on Elm Street 5: The Dream and hc obligingly steps into every trap reduced to the fetishistic display of Child, and her issues with motherhood she has set for him. Kirsty, through her body parts (Mulvey 164), the films give dominate the film. Further, the argu- possehsion of the puzzle box, limits great prominence to Freddy’s burnt ment of desexualization is surely beside Pinhead’s access to the real world: He skin and gloved hand, Pinhead and the the point; a heterosexual relationship must depend on her opening or closing other Cenobites’ pierced flesh, and cannot “prove” femininity for a female the door for him, and only she has the Jason’s increasingly deformed face, film character any more than a mean- power to do so. According to Mulvey, “improved’ in each film of the series. ingful relationship is expected to prove
the male film star eventually gains This gaze is extended on the posters a male action star’s masculine agency. “control and possession” ( 164) of the and promotional material for the films, Simultaneously, an opposing reac- femak lead of the plot, as she becomes which prominently feature the faces of tion exists that criticizes Hellruiser his “property” (164). This is reversed the monsters as an enticement to watch, because it “places particular emphasis in Hellruiser, in which Kirsty, by the to gaze on them like circus attractions. on the sexuality of the female, simul- film’s end, literally holds Pinhead in Their bodies are the perpetual subjects taneously exploiting and condemning the palm of her hand, trapped inside of scrutiny, much more so than any of it” (Sharrett 261). Horror is criticized the box she now owns. The Final Girls the films’ heroines, whose bodies are for its female nudity, even though it is are the “main controlling figure” by comparison inconsequential. hardly the only genre of film to (Mulvey 163) who can “make things This reversal of the gaze, along with include such scenes. Evincing too happen and control events” (Mulvey the focus on exclusively female hero- much or too little femininity, the hero- 164) ils much as any of the patriarchal ines, positions female agency as the ines are expected to conform to critical representatives Mulvey describes. most prominent concern of the 1980s definitions of the limits of “woman” These films invert Mulvey’s con- slashers. Yet, critical reception of hor- that are simply not a part of the 1980s cept 01’ the male gaze: The Final Girl, ror’s Final Girls has been mixed. slasher era’s concerns: These films are far from being viewed as a passive Clover sees the girls’ “masculine inter- more interested in stretching or eradi- sexual object, is instead the viewer’s ests’’ (48) as compromising their gen- cating those limits altogether. identifying connection to the film. The der, their “smartness,” “gravity,” and What these reactions overlook is vast majority of scenes are filmed “competence” (40) making them how, as a rule, horror “blurs bound- from her perspective (the killer’s “boyish, in a word” (40). Ripley of aries and mixes social categories that point-of-view camera technique of Alien becomes, similarly, the “mas- are usually regarded as discrete, Halloween is absent in the Nightmare culinized rejuvenator of the patriarchal including masculinity and femininity” and Hvllraiser films), and her agency. order” (Sharrett 270), not feminine (Pinedo 83). Rather than being “forced supernatural strength, and eventual enough to be female and fighting only to perform the role of lack which is victop embody the “more perfect. for her own subordination. Although necessary within this phallocentic more complete, more powerful ideal Clover admits that gender is typically framework” (Hills 44),the concept of ego” (Mulvey 163) a viewer seeks to fluid in these films, she emphasizes the Final Girl hinges on the fact that identify with vicariously. She is an that “angry displays of force may “if the surviving female can be aggres- active body, driving the narrative for- belong to the male, but crying, cower- sive and be really a woman [and not ward, and allowing the viewer to con- ing, screaming, fainting, trembling, merely a masculine projection). then 68 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television she subverts this binary notion of gen- privileged category of society that within. Both series emphasize this in der that buttresses male dominance” needs to be undermined in the slasher, the ubiquitous tagline spoken threaten- (Pinedo 83). These slasher series lest the ‘‘tennis pals” (Nightmare 3) of ingly to the Final Girls: “Come to specifically concern the boundaries Kristen’s mother, who produced Fred- Daddy” (Hellraiser I, 11, 111, Freddy ’s that exist between dominant society dy by killing him in a vigilante mob, Dead). Another 1980s horror film, The and its “others,” and their overt insis- continue to hail new members of white Stepfather, emphasizes this theme as tence on women heroines who encom- bourgeois culture to “be like them.” well, with its Final Girl Stephanie pass more than the usual category of The family becomes overwhelming- killing the insane and murderous infil- women is just one way that 1980s ly threatening to the female body in trator of her happy, mother-daughter slashers break down binary divisions. these films, oppressing the teenagers bonded family. This film goes even fur- Another consistent theme in these who are constantly presented as ther than the two slasher series’ implic- slashers is the depiction of youth sub- abused or ignored, even on Elm Street, it criticisms of male-ordered society, jugated to an adult community that the very vision of safe, suburban positing a “maternal order in opposition produces monsters. This specifically America. Tracy of Freddy ’s Dead was to the destructive elements of patri- concerns the “children under 17” who sexually abused by her father, and archy” (Erens 354) in its place. are considered too young, too easily Greta of Nightmare 5 is driven to eat- The Nightmare series presents an scared to be able to handle the themes ing disorders by her mother (who tells “unaware or ineffectual adult commu- of horror. Yet, adulthood and the patri- her, “that’s why we diet, dear, so we nity” (Heba 107), where parents archal constructions that it represents can eat at social events and not upset respond to their children’s grief over in the films are essential targets of the other guests”). Kirsty of Hellraiser multiple deaths with the rejoinder, 1980s horror, and adolescents are the is propositioned by her uncle (who is “You’re just tired” (Nightmare 4).The obvious audience for these films: In skinless at the time), and has a mur- faults of the fathers are passed to the their “liminal state between childhood derous stepmother and an ineffectual children: as Kristen realizes, “we’re and adulthood” (Pinedo 92), they father, who dies too early in the film to paying for their sins” (Nightmart 3). reflect in their own lives the Final aid in her fight. Kristen’s mother slips Youth suffer the revenge of Freddy, Girl‘s process toward independence. sleeping pills into her food, leading to who was raised to be a killer by his Foucault states how the family her death by Freddy in Nightmare 4. own abusive foster father (Freddy ’s
becomes “the privileged locus of emer- Kristen justifiably accuses her: “You Dead). Likewise, Pinhead is sum- gence for the disciplinary question of just murdered me.” Parents who are moned by the adulterous and murder- the normal and the abnormal” (87). alcoholics or simply uncaring in the ous excess of Kirsty’s stepmother and Implicit in this is the expectation that Nightmare series are too numerous to uncle, two adults so complacent in children, whose terrible “otherness” is count, and each Final Girl must learn their bourgeois lives that they seek out threatening, will be successfully assim- to rebel against these patriarchal fig- the “pleasure” promised them by the ilated, as we “mold them into replicas ures, as a kind of “ideological rite of box as one more capital attainment. of ourselves” (Wood 170). This is passage for the Elm Street youth” Their characters make Hellraiser, like xconiplished by Althusser’s stated Ide- (Heba 107), to survive. Alice learns to the Nightmare series, a “comment on ological State Apparatuses, which voice her private fantasies of con- the inability of the coherent dominant include the religious, the educational, fronting her negligent father. Nancy culture to protect its young from its and the family as agents of repression escapes the bars her parents have put own excesses and limitations” (Heba (50).Children are “recruited” to be pro- on her windows and calls for help, but 113). Freddy and Pinhead are the ductive members of society, and the even then she finds her father, who had Frankenstein-like result of society’s “family is a fundamental component of promised to keep watch over her, ideologically repressive norms and act social conditioning for capitalist suc- absent. She must renounce the figures as punishment for those “bad subjects” cess” (Williams 171). Thus, we have of authority that have endangered her (Althusser 56) of (female) youth who Spencer in Fredd.y’s Dead: The Final and fend for herself instead. refuse their assigned subordinate Nightmure, who says of his father: “All Trust in adult father figures, no mat- roles. The Final Girl’s victory over‘ he wants me to do now is grow up to be ter how much it is desired, is coded as them is a victory for the repressed sub- him. an exact copy.” Freddy torments dangerous: Kirsty confides her fears to jects and a “vicarious sense of empow- Spencer with a dream version of his her father only to find her evil uncle in erment for the young people who father, who wears tennis shorts and disguise, Nancy is stabbed by Freddy watch them” (Heba 109) as well. heats him over the head with a racket disguised as her recently dead father, Fittingly for figures of rebellion while chanting, “Be like me!” The and Pinhead invades the dreams of Joey against society, the heroine and other‘ choice is clear in these films: Either from Hellraiser III in the form of her characters in these series are firmly join the adult world, “playing football father to take the puzzle box away from entrenched as outsiders within their and date-raping coeds,” or rebel and her. In these films, the very possibility worlds, even among other adolescents. subvert its authority. The excessive cap- of compassionate adulthood is a lie, Tina of Friday the 13th Part VIt is an italism of the adult world is one more merely a ruse that reveals the monster outsider among the other teenagers at Final Girls and Terrible Youth 69
Cryst;rl Lake, just released from a psy- chiatric institution. Jesse, the boy Freddy attempts to possess in Night- mare 1)n Elm Street 2, is an outsider as well itnd becomes more exiled for his strange behavior as his exposure to Freddy increases. The parents of Nanc! ‘s boyfriend, Glen, forbid him to see her, labeling her as “some kinda lunatic” (Nightmare) for questioning the authority of adulthood. Alice is rejectt-d by her boyfriend Dan’s par- ents, ;IS well: They threaten to sue for custody of her baby when she uninten- tionally reveals her fears of Freddy to a doctor. Mentioning the repressed underside of society brands them in suburbia’s eyes as insane, and so the films’ characters must fight to under- mine this inequity. The heroines explicitly reject comfortable middle- class lives when they rebel against their parental figures. Therefore, the 1980s slashers consistently perform a class c”ritiqueinextricably tied to their rejection of typical female roles. ous uncle Hellraiser. Thc most obvious form of societal in
rejection for these teenagers, however, occurs in the form of their expulsion natural is dangerous because “nonra- who regulate and “fix” bad members from society and incarceration. Fou- tionality is not tolerated in the master of society, are two more areas perpetu- cault sees psychiatric asylums and narrative as a valid means of interpret- ating repression by suppressing penitentiaries as agents of control and ing events or solving problems” (Heba knowledge of the monsters: Nancy’s exclusion, a “whole set of techniques 110). This nonrationality, outside of cop father is presented as ineffective at and institutions for measuring, super- safe binary codes such as “madsane; stopping Freddy, and he places Nancy vising. and correcting the abnormal” dangerous/harmless; normal/abnor- in danger by ignoring her pleas. (84). Rod. an outsider “lunatic delin- mal” (Foucault 84) are traditionally Megan’s father in Friduy the 13th Part quent“ (Nightmure),is imprisoned for coded “feminine” and brand Kirsty as VZ: Jason Lives is similarly inclined: Freddy’s crimes despite Nancy’s testi- “other,” not fit for regular society. She He arrests the only character who mony. simply because he is a bad remains in confinement even as her knows how to stop Jason. Tina’s psy- member of society. The youth of Fred- boyfriend, presumably more accept- chiatrist in Friday the 13th Purl VII is dy’x Ikad are similarly shipped off to able to society, is quickly released. constructed as evil: He leads her to the “Recovery House Youth Shelter” The replacement families created by Crystal Lake, knowing of Jason’s pres- center for rehabilitation, picked up off these mutual exiles, complete with ence there, and pressures her to use her the street by the police or dropped off female companionship in the form of powers against her wishes, an act of by inconvenienced parents. Nightmare the young mute girl Tiffany for Kirsty subordination and control that ironi- on Elrri Street 3 and Hellraiser I1 both (Hellraiser II) and more benevolent cally revives Jason from his slumber take: place in the institutions to which father figures in the form of the psy- and gives Tina her own form of auton- the Filial Girls have been exiled: Kris- chiatrists Neil and Doc (Nightmare 3, omy to stop him. Education as an ide- ten’s inother sends her for psychiatric Freddy’s Dead), are more satisfying ological state apparatus of society is help alter a suicide attempt, which she and less oppressive than their patriar- embodied by the ignorant and auto- dismi5ses as Kristen “just trying to get chal alternatives, and yet they do not cratic teacher from Friday the 13th some attention,” and mentions that her last: Society kills teenagers in there as Part Vlll: Juson Takes Manhattan, nightmares “have gotten worse since 1 well. As long as the dominant culture who endangers the heroine and her took away her credit cards.” Authori- remains unexposed, youth will contin- entire class by keeping them on a ties also deem Kirsty’s supernatural ue to be sacrificed. cruise with Jason on board. School in explanations of Pinhead just cause for The ideological institutions of the Nightmare series is a place where confinement. Contact with the super- police and psychiatrists, as figures dead bodies appear in the halls (Night- 70 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television
force never let loose before” (1 54). The confrontation with the abject in these films becomes apocalyptic; if the monster is not recognized, it will destroy the entire known world with the force of its fury. Freddy rewinds time when he wants, making his vic- tims repeat the same truck ride ad infinitum (Nighrmare 4), and collapses the borders between dreams and reali- ty, appearing in both and confusing the viewer and the heroine as to where the “real” begins and ends. The films express a “world where safety in every sense of the term is a fiction” (Pinedo 65), where “the threat of violence is unremitting” (Pinedo 5) and will con- tinue to be until the threat of this “other” is dealt with. Freddy’s Deud states at the beginning of the film that “mysterious killings and suicides wipe out entire populations of children and teenagers” in Freddy’s hometown of Springwood. Pinhead destroys the entire youth culture of “The Boi iler Room” club in Hellruiser Ill, and J(’eY doesn’t truly acknowledge the extent
of his threat until she sees this absolute destruction. In each film, the monster threatens to annihilate anything and Ginny (Amy Steel) prepares herself to outfight Jason in Friday the 13th, Part ZI. everything in its path. Most characters in slashers aren’t even able to survive nztrrc.), a school bus is an instrument of chal structures that supposedly contain adolescence, “dropping like flies” death (Nightmare 2), and Freddy ap- those impulses, Freddy is “an example (Nightmare 4) until the heroine I\ pears as an imitation of a teacher, peel- of America’s political unconscious vio- alone or nearly alone at the end of the ing an apple while killing a student lently unleashed upon itself, manifest- film. Reality for youth is a daily life- (Nighrwrure 4). Summer camp is even ing everything that is unspeakable and or-death struggle, and the nihilism worse, as any viewer of Friday the repressed in the master narrative” inherent in these films is expressed by lSth knows. These children are in dan- (Heba 112). He is both murderer and the dark, gloom-filled dream worlds of ger of being molded into replicas of victim, the exiled source of rebellion Freddy, Jason, and Pinhead, border adults, but only if they live long against society and simultaneously the places where the threshold of reality is enough to survive the institutions product of that society’s repression. fluid and transgression is inevitable. where the adults have placed them. ‘Thus, he eliminates youth even as he The repetitive, oppressive music of As the films question the binaries forces the youthful heroines to the soundtrack in the background is a that privilege male over female and acknowledge his dreaded presence as a constant feature; each series has a par- adulthood over incomplete youth, they rite of passage into individuated self- ticular theme for its monster that also examine the boundaries that divide hood. As a reminder of the repressed expresses the terror in wait, even in the self from the abject, dreaded other, “from its place of banishment, scenes of apparent tranquility. Typical- ”other.” Freddy, Jason, and Pinhead are the abject does not cease challenging its ly, the films have an open ending, with the rejected, marginalized underbelly master” (Kristeva 2), just as Freddy, the monster lurking still, suppressed of society, the traits that suburban Jason, and Pinhead are not content to for now, but never gone. Freddy America represses and denies, that “lies fade into the background. warns, “I am eternal” (Nightmare 4), there, quite close, but it cannot be Helene Cixous writes that “when and so Elm Street will always have its assimilated” (Kristeva 1). As an exam- ‘The Repressed’ of their culture and repressed desires. None of these inon. ple of how suburban tranquility can their society come back, it is an explo- sters can be eliminated unless the very erupt at any moment into bloodthirsty sive return, which is absolutely shat- nature of society is transformed and revenge, exposing the lie of the patriar- tering, staggering, overturning, with a authority definitively undermined. Final Girls and Terrible Youth 71
In these postmodern horrors, as the the heroines encounter chalk houses repulsive parts of the personality divisions between reality and dreams drawn by white-clad children, houses which have been projected outside” are smashed open, and anarchy results, that, as the representative of the (Chaudhuri 183). Freddy finds another “institutions fall into question, En- changing I of the heroines, are washed possible protCgt in Maggie, the final lightenment narratives collapse, the away or exploded (Nightmare 4) when girl of Freddy’s Dead: The Final inevitability of progress crumbles, and Freddy arrives. In her psychiatric hos- Nightmare. She is revealed as Freddy’s the master status of the universal (read pital, Kristen obsessively constructs daughter, and as he tells her, “It’s in male, white, moneyed, heterosexual) Freddy’s Elm Street house from Popsi- your blood” (Freddy’s Dead); she is subject deteriorates” (Pinedo 11). For cle sticks, and Freddy’s spirit soon he, but she won’t admit it. the viewer, this fulfills the “need to inhabits and haunts it as a reminder of It is the paradox of these films that expre\s rage and terror in the midst of his presence (Nightmare 3). the heroines must recognize the source postmodern social upheaval” (Pinedo As in the Alien films, where through of the monster to defeat it-identify 48) and allows the films to question the course of time Ripley and the alien with it and accept its rebellion, but the riiiture of self altogether. As the are “increasingly coded as similar” realize that it too is a product of disci- heroines confront the legacy of the (Hills 46), eventually merging as one plinary power and must be defeated. monster, they open themselves to within Ripley’s DNA, the characters in Cixous writes that “there is no inven- exploring the depths of their own psy- the slasher films find the boundary tion possible . . . without there being in ches. .lason lurks as an abject presence between themselves and the monsters the inventing subject an abundance of of wasted youth (he died as a child) at becoming fluid: They confront the the other” (147). For the 1980s slash- the bottom of Crystal Lake; Pinhead wretched or repressed impulses within ers, the heroines cannot drive the nar- and Freddy display their fragmented themselves as the monster emerges. rative forward, or be the authors of bodies. serving as a reminder of the The films refute one of the most insis- their own fates, without recognizing “aggressive disintegration of the indi- tent divisions of parental, classed soci- the lack of boundary between them- vidual“ (Lacan 74), the rapidly trans- ety: the distance between upstanding selves and their monsters and their fomiing self-image the heroine under- society and its unprivileged monsters. own complicity, as part of society, in goes as she realizes the full scope of Pinhead promises Kirsty that he can its creation. This is Maggie’s responsi- societal repression. In both series, erase the boundaries between pain and bility: She must try Freddy’s glove on
when victims die, they are similarly pleasure (Hellraiser), and although for size, then defeat him with it. This transformed: torn by hooks, burned, or she denies any desire to enter the symbolic daughter kills her symbolic otherwise fragmented, until they world of the Cenobites, they remind father, effectively destroying parental reflect the monsters’ own transgressive her that they “do keep finding each structures even as she recognizes forms. The monsters in these films are other,” and she is already a part of their them, and the series comes to an end. living corpses, dead and buried by world, “so eager to play, so reluctant society, yet lingering, corpses that to admit it” (Hellraiser 10. Joey’s n the late 1990s, the slasher series ‘‘show . , . what [they] permanently friend Terry in Hellraiser 111 is not as Ihas in some senses made the leap thrust aside in order to live” (Kristeva strong: She submits to Pinhead’s from low culture to high culture. 3). In their scarred and deformed bod- temptation and kills for him, becom- Scream and its two sequels have had ies, evocative of the wounds and blood ing a part of his world and a Cenobite tremendous box office success and Kristeva recognizes as abject re- herself. The monsters are walking press attention, clearing the way for I minders. “the body’s inside. . . shows symbols of their most abject impulses: Know What You Did Last Summer and up in order to compensate for the col- Freddy may have slit Kristen’s wrists, I Still Know What You Did Last Sum- lapse of the border between inside and but when the dream ends, it is Kristen mer. Yet, the cultural message of these outside” (Kristeva 53). They are walk- holding the razor (Nightmare 3). new slashers is quite different from the ing syinbols of the repressed and Freddy seeks entrance into the one presented during the 1980s.’ denied. world by merging with his victims. He Scream, Wes Craven’s 1990s version Wood explains how “the ‘Terrible recruits Jesse as his protkgC, and Jesse of the slasher, reveals the ethos that
House‘ ” (188) typical of horror can must admit there is a “connection” would become the dominant slasher act as ?he dead weight of the past (Nightmare 2) between them. Freddy type for this decade. crushing the life of younger genera- becomes the image Jesse sees when he In the Scream and Summer series, tion” ( 188). Freddy’s suburban home, gazes into the mirror at one point, and the monster is changed from a super- symbol of bourgeois life, is ambiva- as Freddy lulls the school gym coach natural force to a resolutely ordinary lently internalized until crisis threatens who oppresses Jesse, the camera pulls person, human, personally troubled, the autonomy of this image. Lacan back to show Jesse wearing his and usually a member of the heroine’s explains how “the formation of the I is razored glove. Freddy is “an elsewhere close circle of friends. This monster can symbolized by a fortress” (74), a as tempting as it is condemned” (Kris- “pass” as a regular member of society, house representing the fragile state of teva l), killing for Jesse, fulfilling his and so the objective for the heroine the psyche. In the Nightmare series, denied desires, and “incarnating the becomes constant suspicion, a “who- 72 JPF&T-Journal of Popular Film and Television dunit” of sorts in which the only way to victim,” in the words of one character, is killed, but it is an empty one: She ih survive is to constantly suspect one’s manages to evade the villain in each alive and well (and presumably fellow youth. In Scream, the killer is Scream until she is cornered, at which unaware of her death) in the sequel. one of Sidney’s close friends and her point other characters step in repeated- Society is presented as functioning boyfriend. In Screum 2, it is another of ly to save her. In Scream 2, she is ren- well, in no need of change or transfor- Sidney’s close friends and the mother dered powerless, a knife held against mation. Authorities, like the sympa- of the first film’s villain. In I Still Know her throat, until she bargains her way thetic cop Dewey who stars in each Whut You Did Lust Summer, it is Julie’s into convincing another reluctant char- Scream and Sidney’s loving and atten- new love interest, revealed to be the son acter to save her by killing the villain. tive father, are likely to be blameless; of the first film’s villain. Urban Legend, Julie, too, is cornered, then repeatedly they too are on the side of the heroine another late 1990s slasher soon to rescued by Ray in both films. Each against the “other.” In these conserva- spawn a sequel, reveals the killer as the character unwittingly hands the tive storylines, it is the lone psychotic heroine’s best friend. weapons they have managed to pick killer, the “sick freak” (I Still Know) Far from the 1980s world view, in up to their killers: Sidney hands Billy who is the problem. which the only way for the “others” of her gun (Scream), and Julie hands Both of these patterns serve to sub- society to survive is to bond together Will, the killer, her axe (I Still Know). vert more progressive ideology ot the against their oppressors, the underly- The heroines symbolically relinquish 1980s films. The slashers of the late ing message in these films becomes any power they amass, and Julie, espe- 1990s resemble, in their insistence on one of uncovering the psychotic cially, is presented as the screaming, valuing normality to the extent that the “other’’ hidden in one’s peaceful cowering, nearly catatonic victim “happy ending” of these films signifies world: It is dangerous and must be more common to pre- 1980s slashers. “the restoration of repression” (Wood stopped. Nearly every conversation or If the 1980s Final Girls actively 171), the classic horror films of the discussion in these films becomes an invaded the monster’s private world of 1950s, in which the threat of commu- analysis of the other characters’ possi- Crystal Lake, dreams, and so forth, nism was symbolized by a world where ble guilt. Suspects become those who taking on the responsibility of their ‘lhe boundary between goad and evil. are even slightly different from the entire generation’s future, in the 1990s normal and abnormal . . . is as firrnlj well-adjusted group. The character it is the villains who stage their own drawn as the imperative that good must
Cotlon is a suspect in Scream 1 and 2 planned final showdowns, and the conquer evil” (Pinedo 15). There IS no because he is outside the heroine’s heroines stumble into their random recognition of oneself in the villain of tightly knit group, and Julie and her violence, the essentialized female vic- these films. As in Invasion of the B0ct.y friends suspect her boyfriend Ray in tim that is the stereotypical critical Snatchers, any one of the seemingly Simmer because he is poor: One image of the genre. What this suggests normal people around the heroine friend accuses him of “dogging us is that the individual (the female) is could be dangerous, infected by weird from the start . . . always wanting to be not strong enough to fight or face her aberrations from secure societal norms. our friend, always wanting to be one own repressed impulses: Agency is Like alien invasion films, the terror of us.’’ I Still Know What You Did Last reduced from resisting and challeng- comes from the fact that “our enemies Summer presents the viewer with a ing authority to depending on it for have infiltrated everywhere within- group of “exotic” islanders, each of rescue. Authority is revealed as right invisible, everyday passing for human“’ whom is under immediate suspicion. and good after all, a last line of (Chaudhuri 195). In the words of one The heroine’s agency is similarly defense against sick monsters. of the characters of Scream, “every- decreased. If “the quality of the Final These regressive films are not a body’s a suspect.” When Sidney, acting Girl’s fight” (Clover 39) determines process of emotional and physical as Final Girl as arbiter of normality, is how effective she is as a transgressive independence for the heroines; they are asked to choose which of her friends to character. these girls show no special brief interludes of senseless violence in trust when each claims the other is the skills or strengths that would typically otherwise relatively sunny, brightly lit, killer, she does the only thing proper in ensure victory; they become the last cleverly humorous lives. Transgression a film in which possible “others” could survivor almost at random. The 1980s is not valued, and capitalism happily be anywhere: She slams the door on slasher heroines as a whole literally thrives for youth (one character in I them both. embody Melissa Klein’s concept of Still Know happily brags of how much Despite the critical fuss over the feminisni: “We are not damsels in dis- she spent on her new bikini). The uni- Scream series’ pastiche of postmodern tress who stand idly by, hysterical, verse presented is not a nihilistic one; pop culture references, the world por- high-pitched screams issuing from our humanity is sure to survive, and the trayed is one of strict reactionary mouths while the knight in shining endings in all three Screams are satis- boundaries: normal/abnormal, killer/ armor slays the dragon. We want to be fying closed ones, the killers complete- victim, self/other. By reasserting the our own warriors” (218). Yet, the ly annihilated and expunged from soci- boundaries the 1980s films questioned, 1 990s slashers tell a different story. ety. I Know What You Did Last Summer the heroines and youth figures briefly Sidney, “everybody’s favorite little presents an open ending in which Julie exalted in those films become devalued Final Girls and Terrible Youth 73 once iiiore, pawns among the dominant NOTE da: Being Feminist. Doing Feminism. culture or psychotics in need of exile. 1. Wes Craven attempted to resume the Ed. Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake. Nightmare series in the mid-1990s with Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997. The nature of horror is cyclical, with 207-25. each ”newly transgressive incarnation New Nightmare. In this film, the mythology of Freddy is radically changed, and the open I Know What You Did Lust Summer. Dir. of thc genre” (Pinedo 109) replacing endings of the previous films are changed to Jim Gillespie. Columbi