By Honora Quinn ’27
Staff Writer
I’ve never been a fan of the things that go bump in the night. I’m a scaredy cat, you could say, always looking over my shoulder for the Jason Voorhees of the world. I’d never have what it takes to be a “final girl.”
But luckily with books like “Final Cut” — the latest young adult thriller from Olivia Worley out Oct. 28 from Wednesday Books — I can imagine what it would be like to be the girl that fights back and wins.
“Final Cut” follows Hazel “Haze” Lejeune, a recent high school graduate and aspiring actress. A major fan of horror films and the final girls that outlive them, it’s her dream to be in a slasher. So imagine her delight when, with just a few student films to her name, she gets cast in “Swamp Creatures,” an indie horror film set and filmed in Pine Springs, Louisiana. The film, at first glance, seems to be loosely based on the Pine Springs Slasher case in which several teens were viciously slain by their beloved high school teacher.
It’s about at this point in the novel that things begin to go awry in Pine Springs, revolving around the often mentioned but never seen screenwriter who's still finalizing the script in the first days of production, Haze’s charming southern co-star Cameron, and the mysteries of the town itself.
It’s not Haze’s first time in Pine Spring, though it’s been well over a decade since she’s last shown her face. Her father, Cal Dupre, is the Pine Springs Slasher, as far as the public is concerned. In the 15 years that followed, Haze and her mother have been on the move, skipping town whenever a new job appears for her mother and whenever the gruesome shadow of the slasher begins to barge into their attempt at a fresh start. But no one knows Haze’s story or her connection to the case. Not her high-strung director, and certainly not Cameron, whose eyes seem to linger a little longer after each stolen glance. And things of course only get more complicated when the bodies start dropping.
The “final girl” as a concept is one that has been loved by audiences for decades. We revel in their screams, in the defiant look in their eyes as they stand — more likely than not — bloodied, yet not beaten. And over the past few years we have seen a subgenre emerging within literature focusing on these stories. From Stephen Graham Jones’ 2012 “The Last Final Girl,” to Grady Hendrix “The Final Girl Support Group” and even looking into the future with Andrea Mosqueda’s 2026 release “Revenge of The Final Girl,” it’s safe to say that we have an abundance of bloody and rich revenge tales. Most of these final girls of the modern age are aware of their position and what it means to be the last one standing. They know all the ins and outs of horror like the back of their hand, and in this capacity, Haze fits right in with the crew. She listens to horror movie soundtracks to unwind during her down time off-set; as a kid, she viewed horror movies as a way to process the legacy passed down by her father, which circulates through her own blood.
So Haze knows the signs to look for, what to read into from a suspicious quirk of an eyebrow or how to track down the monsters that dwell in the shadows. The final girl on film, while portrayed as victorious, is just as often a victim of the plot. She’s thrust into her heroism by default, as the last one standing. Someone must defeat the killer stalking through her small town, college campus, summer camp, resort etc., and there is nothing unique to her character making her more suited to the role than someone else. But this new era of the final girl, which Haze embodies, is less about reluctant ascendance to being the hero and rather a sense of agency and awareness that she’s the best candidate in the first place.
Remember how it felt when you first watched “Scream,” when the killer was unmasked and everything fell into place? That’s how reading “Final Cut” felt. It left me questioning and questioning with each new turn, flying through the pages until the bitter, bloody and glorious end. I’ve only begun to dip my toe into horror, and I still fear the odd bumps and grumbles that lurk in the night, but books like “Final Cut” make me excited to traverse further into the genre. They give me the courage to imagine what it would be like to be the girl that unabashedly survives.
Karishma Ramkarran ’27 contributed fact-checking.