Horror short of the week: Final Girls by Michelle Hanson

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We've been poking around YouTube trying to find the best horror short films so you don't have to. This week: Final Girls by Michelle Hanson

Synopsis: Jessica (Anna Leeper) and Courtney (Cat McApline) are a lesbian couple hiding out in a tent after their friends have been dispatched by a crazed masked killer. Courtney, like the cast of Scream, is clearly a horror nerd and has realised that only one of them can survive and become The Final Girl.

Background: The horror genre has a bad rep for its handling of female characters, particularly the "final girl" trope. This slasher flick cliche has a lone women – who is typically presented as less sexual and more intelligent than the other female characters – surviving the carnage.

Think Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th. The trope is still going strong with modern slashers like You're Next or even Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead remake.

Michelle Hanson has tackled this horror trope along with horror's poor track record with LGBTQ+ characters in this entertaining parody of Friday the 13th. The short film premiered this year, and was originally a short play at MadLab Theatre.



Pros: The hilarious dialogue. At one point the girls hear a mysterious noise. Jessica thinks it might be their friend Paul. “The last time I saw Paul he had a pitchfork in his face," Courtney shoots back. "And not a single prong. The entire pitchfork.”

It also rightly calls out some sexist tendencies in horror. “Typically the Final Girl is the only girl with any intelligence," Courtney explains, "but we are both smart, independent women. We should both get to survive.”

Cons: Though the simple set-up is surprisingly tense, some slip-ups in the acting and sound design detract from the experience. The film's theatre origins perhaps explain a certain wordiness and the slightly static scenes. There are also some jumps in logic and tone which are perhaps inevitable given the short runtime.

Digging deeper: Where are our queer horror movies? The only one that springs to mind for me is the excellent Thelma (essentially a lesbian Carrie). “What I’ve realized is that lesbianism in horror films is there to keep straight male viewers watching,” Hanson said in an interview with iHorror. “There’s nothing there that really even hints at what it’s like to actually be a lesbian.”

Verdict: Treads similar ground to Scream and The Cabin in the Woods, but the sharp dialogue makes it tremendous fun.

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