Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the Resurgence of the OG Final Girl
- Beanie White
- Feb 21, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 22, 2022
Caked in fresh gleaming blood… Giggling and screaming with manic abandon as she clutches at the sides of a Chevrolet, speeding away from the terror that lies behind her. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 1974) is the perfect picture of an OG Final Girl, a definitive horror icon, she trailblazed the route for an entire collective of smart, beautiful, kickass women to fight their way to the end credits of countless horror movies.
What is a Final Girl?
There are a great many ideas as to the origination of the Final Girl concept, but it is widely acknowledged that Sally Hardesty is one of the earliest examples of the famous trope. A “Final Girl” is young, she is most often conventionally attractive, perhaps the audience are almost encouraged not to expect much from her. Initially she appears to cater to the male gaze, but today she is reclaimed by a sisterhood of female horror fans who find feminism in her fight and spirit against (usually) male antagonists. The Final Girl subverts the idea of a weak woman waiting to be saved, she is strong and resourceful, fighting for her life long after the rest of her party have already been primed and slaughtered… After Sally came Laurie (Halloween, 1978), Ripley (Alien, 1979), Alice (Friday the 13th, 1980) to name but a few. The Final Girls of today include Erin (You’re Next, 2013), Grace (Ready or Not, 2019) and Dani (Midsommar, 2019).
The Resurgence of the OG Final Girl
In 2018, the release of a new sequel to the original Halloween (1978) gave new depth to an iconic Final Girl, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). In January of this year we were treated to a new addition to the Scream franchise featuring the definitive 90s Final Girl, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). We now we look forward to the imminent Netflix drop of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) with the return of perhaps the OG Final Girl: Sally Hardesty, this time portrayed by Olwen Fouéré (if you’ve not seen her wonderful performance in Mandy do yourself a favour and check it out) due to the death of Marilyn Burns in 2014. The common denominator in these “requels”/sequels/revamps is that our beloved Final Girl is haunted by the killer whose clutches she has escaped many years before. She is now reclusive and more visibly badass; she knows how to handle a weapon ("I'm Sidney Prescott. "Of course I have a gun.”) and her connection to her equally iconic monstrous antagonist is the driving force of the movie, in Laurie’s words: “He's waited for this night... he's waited for me... I've waited for him...” In the trailer for the upcoming Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) reboot we get a first look at the return of Sally. She stands in a slaughterhouse, her white hair bedraggled, covered in sweat as she takes the phone call that will spur her on to Final Girl status once more: “Sally, your old friend is back…” Becoming the focal point of the latter half of the trailer, we watch in awe as she loads her weapons into the trunk of her car claiming that she has been waiting “50 years (…) just to see him again.” There is something so chilling about the prospect of two old foes reuniting to hunt one another down and that is just what this wave of OG Final Girl resurgence movies seeks to address. She bested Leatherface all the way back in 1974, can she do it again?
What Makes Sally Special?
In anticipation of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022), I rewatched the OG movie, Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) to refresh the plot and with the idea of analysing Sally Hardesty as a Final Girl. The plot follows a group of teens on a road trip to visit an old family dwelling, along the way they run out of gas and have to face the prospect of being stuck in rural Texas with a family of cannibals on the prowl for fresh meat… Initially, it is natural to connect Sally to the male gaze theory, she is youthful and beautiful, with long blonde hair and a semi-see-through vest (what is it with Final Girls and nipple outlines?). It is easy to reduce her to an outward appearance, to think of her as a damsel in distress, but OH BOY does she prove us wrong… As her friend group is picked off one by one, Sally waits until nightfall with her brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain) before setting off to look for her boyfriend and their friends.
What follows is a masterclass in Final Girl horror, Sally subverts all predisposed ideas about her character as she fights with every fibre of her being to survive Leatherface and his family of creeps. She jumps through second-storey windows… She survives a battle through a thicket, clawing branches and bushes from her face whilst Leatherface uses his chainsaw to cheat his way towards her. She flails her way to freedom, using pure and utter will to survive against the family as they attempt to slaughter her over a bucket like a helpless animal. But Sally Hardesty is no lamb, she is a fighter, a symbol of strength and the (perhaps unwitting) spearhead for the Final Girl trope.
For me, a woman working and writing in the horror industry, the Final Girl concept will never outstay its welcome. There is nothing quite like watching a woman smash through preconceived notions to escape her male monster, and with these Final Girl resurgence movies we get to bear witness to these iconic female characters owning their trauma and wreaking brutal vengeance on the “Leatherfaced”, William Shatner-masked, Ghostface Killer curators of their pasts. Perhaps your childhood heroes are Superman? Batman? Spider-Man? Mine? Mine are the Final Girls. Come on Sally let’s kick some leathery ass…
Do you have a favourite Final Girl? Are you looking forward to watching Netflix’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Let us know in the comments below!
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