If You're Going to be a Paranoid Final Girl, be Capital P Paranoid
This is the sequel or a crossover of 80s Slashers, or I don’t know what.
#FinalGirlSupportGroup #GradyHendrix #80sSlasher
Spoilers Tagged Below
Every year as Halloween approaches, movie compilation lists for fans of the horror genre begin to pop up with names like ‘The Ultimate October Watchlist’ or ‘31 in 31’. Classic horror movies may be streamed on TV or even available to view in theaters for the spooky season. Without fail, at least one of these offerings will be an 80s slasher movie. A slasher will follow a group of (usually American) teenagers as they explore a cemetery, or abandoned mine, or simply attend a college party. At some point, a killer, or group of killers, begins to stalk and murder the group one by one in horrifying and gory ways.
Traditionally, slashers are riddled with problematic gender stereotypes that strip women of their agency, epitomized by the use of the ‘final girl’. The ‘final girl’ is always a young (white) woman and lone survivor of a horror movie by the virtue of her purity (Clover 1992). Yet, the trope has undergone a transformation since its early formations in the 1960s. Towards the late 1980s and early 1990s, the final girl has been granted agency in her choices and actions. Nevertheless, while slasher films and their 'final girl' trope can incorporate moments of resistance to patriarchal norms, they commonly remain tethered to deeply entrenched gender roles (Almwaka 2021). As a result, they remain ambivalent spaces where patriarchy is both resisted and upheld.
The Final Girl Support Group, by Grady Hendrix, is both an homage and a critique of the slasher genre. Packed full of winks and nudges for genre superfans, Hendrix attempts to subvert the ‘final girl’ trope and build on the aftermath, exploring what happens after the movie ends. Set in 2010, the book follows a group of middle-aged women, all ‘final girls’, attending group therapy, and coping with their trauma in various ways: one became self-sufficient, one got into self-help, one married and buried her head in the sand, one got high, one went activist, and one became erratic and paranoid. After 16 years of group, the bonds that held the women together are fraying, when a new tragedy strikes.
Hendrix crafted an enjoyable, easy-to-read, and often thought-provoking book. However, not all of his commentary hit its mark. In some cases, he was actively perpetuating harmful cliches. Once again, let’s take a look at what was done well, what was done, and what should’ve gotten a second edit.
Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, Book Cover of the 3rd Edition
They turn into women. And they live.
Even without catching every easter egg pointing to a different slasher movie, the story is fast-paced and intriguing. The main character, Lynnette Tarkington, clearly suffers from CPTSD and struggles with being stuck in a stress response, but she’s funny and completely unreliable. Despite all this and her voluntary agoraphobia, Lynnette keeps the reader on their toes with her wild accusations and improvised planning. The book has its flaws, much like Lynnette, but that doesn’t stop the journey from being a good one.
In between chapters, Hendrix has crafted various artifacts such as police reports, emails, counseling notes, book extracts, diary entries, newspaper articles, and more. Each artifact builds on his world where ‘final girls’ not only exist, but have become a cultural phenomenon. They often further the reader's understanding of a particular ‘final girl’, offering insight into the aftermath of how they became part of the eighties zeitgeist. These breaks between chapters are an excellent way to enrich the characters, without dragging the action of the current story down by inserting long flashbacks.
The book also provides diverse insights into how survivors of violent crimes navigate and overcome harms. Notably, Adrienne channeled her experiences by opening a camp to support other women who faced violence, offering a space for collective healing and rebuilding their lives. Julia became a feminist activist and advocated for cultural changes and women’s rights. Dani opened a farm and sought healing through connecting with nature. Each of these ‘final girls’ showed how the violence they experienced became a catalyst for seeking change for both themselves, their communities, and wider society to ultimately seek justice through restitution and prevention.
If you are a big fan of the slasher genre, the book is full of easter eggs and references to big name hits. Each ‘final girl’ is from a fictional version of a real slasher movie, the book’s locations echo the movies’ backdrops, and there are references to actors and characters from each movie in character names. The book could be best described as Hendrix’s 80s slasher fan fiction, set in a shared universe of his own making.
What does it say about us that so much of the entertainment we consume is about killing women? I want you to think about that. How is the murder of women fun?
Across chapters and scattered throughout some of the artifacts, the book offers insights into how our own culture speaks about women and victims (or survivors) of violent crimes. Yet, it does not go far enough to genuinely provide meaningful discussions. Despite frequently calling out men’s violence against women, the ultimate takeaway is still a typecasting of ‘the monster’ being a woman’s worst enemy. For example, Lynnette describes how the person hunting them must be ‘the most organized, highest-functioning sociopath in existence’. The book, thus, perpetuates the idea that there is a stereotypical outlier amongst the collection of men, and this outlier is the one who is violent against women. In reality, most women are harmed by a man they know, such as a partner, a friend, a family member, or a colleague.
On the same note, rather than recognizing the events experienced by ‘final girls’ as acts of domestic terrorism, Hendrix depicts them as isolated, sporadic events, diminishing the broader societal impact. This is reflected towards the end of the book when the real killer’s lawyer attempts to cast the perpetrator as a victim of feminist conspiracies. Yet, Henrdix falls just short of meaningfully engaging with such implications. It was just one line, maybe a paragraph if you’re being generous. Despite attempting to explore the complexity of violence against women, the book nevertheless fails to follow these thoughts through to their end, often leaving ideas hanging immediately after mentioning them.
The book does a fair job acknowledging that experiences of violence can be long-lasting. However, it fails to consider that this is only the case for some victims. Instead, it frames the harms of violence against women as permanent for all and that women merely engage in unhealthy coping mechanisms to numb their pains – self-harm, suicides, substance abuse, marrying abusive husbands. But this is reductivist; victims can find or build resilience and reclaim agency over their lives. Some move on. The book unfairly weighs the women that do not regain this control as more prevalent.
Hendrix repeatedly scratches the surface of multiple issues, any of which could have transformed this book from entertaining into a more thought-provoking and engaging narrative, but his lack of follow-through diminishes meaningful discourse on the overarching theme of violence against women. Unlike (spoiler one), Lynnette falls short of understanding her experiences with the dipshit of a police officer, Garrett P. Cannon, as the same dynamic. There were several moments when Lynnette could have come to that conclusion, but Hendrix stopped short of letting her genuinely recognize her situation and potentially regain control over that aspect of her life.
Once we’ve arrived at the end, Hendrix bails ship and leaves us all hanging with a weak, slightly preachy quote to remember the victims and not the perpetrator. The execution was poor, to say the least, on what could have been a powerful sentiment. Much like the other moments throughout that hold lost potential, the lack of commitment leaves the reader with numerous threads all leading back to violence against women that lack any coherent argument. Even the dedication mentions potential manslaughter against ‘Amanda’. Hendrix seems to leave all the work to the reader to untangle these threads, but fails to provide the tools to do so.
Perhaps most ironically, in one artifact we are faced with a speech by one of the ‘final girls’ showcasing how violence against women has been turned into entertainment. Yet, this is exactly what the book does. It stinks of left-reading your own media, much like our friend over in TLOU (link here).
I was wrong about everything. And now I’m going to die.
Lynnette’s attempts to protect herself and the other ‘final girls’ lead her all over California and the western United States. While this is a parallel to Lynnette’s mental state and potentially a physical manifestation of her paranoia, plot-wise not much is actually happening and it does impede the momentum of the story. There is a long section in a police station where Lynnette is actually being tortured by the whole department without good reason. The resolution is nonsensical and even the grounds for her arrest are probably unlawful. It is another example of violence against women being used for entertainment.
At one point, another ‘final girl’ and an exploitative reporter find Lynnette’s apartment. A few pages later, that reporter dies. He did not need to be a part of this interaction, and was not brought up again until the last page, where he is listed as the first victim, instead of the ‘final girl’ whose death kicked off the story.
One of the biggest plot holes remains how long the killer was trailing the ‘final girls’. The killer had to stalk six different women for a long enough period of time to know their routines well enough to plot their downfall. For most of the ‘final girls’, this would not have been such a difficult task, but Lynnette takes a different 3 hour route home from group therapy. She has multiple escape plans in case of emergency scattered across the city. Yet somehow, the killer is able to discover them and ruin every route she prepared. This makes no sense and is never explained.
As the book is written from Lynnette’s perspective, we are subject to her constant paranoia about everyone she interacts with, everywhere she goes, and any actions she takes. However, during crucial moments, she suddenly respects other’s privacy. For a ‘final girl’ that erratic, snooping should be a must. When the reader steps back from the plot, these inconsistencies feel like plot devices rather than character development.
The book is also riddled with several unnecessary and problematic stereotypes about women. One of the ‘final girls’ is typecast as the traumatized woman going crazy. The only black character is murdered first and off screen, just to return as the mythical guide to aid the protagonist’s quest. Additionally, Dr Carol is (spoiler two). Hendrix failed again to tell a story about women without falling into the same tropes and stereotypes that he set out to defy.
The monster is coming from inside the house.
Despite all these drawbacks and could-have-beens, the book is still an enjoyable read, if you don’t read too closely. Much like its parent media, the story perpetuates the core ideas it attempts to subvert. Ultimately, the narrative reinforces harmful stereotypes, highlighting the persistent influences of patriarchal norms. In the end, it leaves the reader questioning whether the true underlying themes were ever meaningfully considered.
To us, it seems that Hendrix started by researching the book Psycho was based on, while listening to the speech from the Prime Minister of New Zealand on the Christchurch shooting and her refusal to say the shooter's name. Then he took a shower and had one of those epiphanies that only come when you have no paper to write them down about how women give birth and therefore men must equal death. He combined all this with his love of 80s movies, put everything in a blender, and poured out this book. Also, let’s get over the 80s. We get it, move on.
P.S., this book could have really benefited from being told from multiple perspectives.
Sources
Almwaka, M. (2021) Complex Female Agency, the “Final Girl” trope, and the Subversion and Reaffirmation of Patriarchy: The Cases of Western & MENA Horror Films. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 24(3), https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol24/iss3/5/.
Clover, C. (1992) Men, women, and chainsaws: Gender in the modern horror film. Princeton University Press.
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Lynnette recognises that Stephanie has been groomed by Skye.
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Dr Carol is held responsible for the actions of her son, Skye, who is a murderous child groomer echoing Charles Murray’s poorly evidenced ideas around lone mothers inability to properly socialize their sons.