By: Riley Sager
“I was friendly but friendless. Approachable yet purposefully aloof. I saw no point in getting too close with anyone.”
Riley Sager, Final Girls
*This post contains spoilers
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of a Final Girl, they are usually used to describe the one girl who makes it to the end of the horror movie. Often these girls are considered the most innocent and worthy of being spared because they don’t take part in any debauchery that others are so eager to. They also almost always are the ones to finally bring down the killer… that is until the inevitable sequel.
Overview:
Ten years ago, Quincy Carpenter was the only survivor of a murder who brutally slayed all of her friends during a trip to a remote cabin. However, Quincy can’t remember any of the events before she was saved by a local Police officer and the killer was shot dead.
The media began to lump Quincy with out survivors of horrible tragedies, dubbing them, The Final Girls.
Wanting nothing to do with the notoriety, Quincy tries to move on with her life, until one of the Final Girls is found dead and another shows up at her doorstep.
My thoughts:
I thought that I had this book figured out by page 20. It seemed so obvious to me where we would end up. Clearly, this is a story about people who get away with murder by posing as the sole survivor. I mean, all the women having a dead killer who can’t defend himself looked pretty bad for the Final Girls in my eyes.
…I was wrong
Still, I’m not convinced that either Lisa or Sam weren’t the real killers in their murders. It seems too sketchy that in both instances a single killer would have been able to go in so prepared yet be over powered by one person. Think about the time line. It would take a significant amount of time to kill all those people then tear the house/motel apart just to make sure you didn’t miss anyone. Not to mention the fact that sorority houses and hotels are set up very similarly. There are usually hallways where the sleeping quarters are specifically, away from common areas, with each individual room having there own locking mechanism and multiple ways of egress in an emergency.
The likelihood of someone unfamiliar to the victims being able to have access to all those rooms without drawing suspicion is low. It would make much more sense if the killer was someone who had a master key card to enter each hotel room or someone you felt comfortable letting into your room to hide from all the chaos.
Just so happens that the “murders” all ended up dying on the scene and can’t defend themselves. Case closed, no need to look into it because the “survivor” told them everything that happened.
We know what happened with Quincy but it would be interested to see if she truly was the final girl by being the only one who actually survived an attack.
However, this uncertainty (probably only on my part) didn’t take away from the fact that this was a very strong story that explored common slasher movie themes in a new medium.
Each women’s tragedy is based off of commonly used horror cliches. The cabin in the woods next to the asylum. College students go to underage drink and do drugs while a mental patient lurks among them waiting to strike. A sorority house terrorized in the middle of the night by a man punishing the girls for not liking him. Lastly, a motel where a deranged, over religious handyman must punish the guests for their sins including the night housekeeper who is just trying to make money to get out of her small town.
Each of these scenarios have easily found parallels to popular horror movies and some true crime stories. This makes it natural for the reader to be engrossed in the story because it is all too familiar in the movies that are enjoyed in our society.
Overall,
Based on reading other books by Sager, he is clearly a fan of taking common horror troupes and using them to create something unique. It’s kind of genius to take something that is all too familiar with audiences and get them to consider “what’s next?”. “What happens after the movie credits role and the characters have to go back to their regular lives”.
If you are a fan of classic, horror, slasher movies, this book will be worth the read.
Rating: 5/5 stars
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