[Pride 2023] Finding Adult Identity in Trauma with 'The Final Girl Support Group'

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She’s a fighter. She’s a survivor. She’s the final girl, forever seventeen and covered in blood.

We are drawn to the final girls of horror for many reasons. Their resilience, their quick thinking, and for those of us who still know what a landline is, their ability to run like a teenager. When I picked up Grady Hendrix’s The Final Girl Support Group I was expecting trope jokes and bloody good fun. What I received was a wonderfully reframed insight into adulthood in the wake of trauma. These girls we admired so much growing up, overcoming their obstacles and surviving some of the worst the world has to offer. We never really think about what kind of lives they live when the credits roll. They’re given a blanket by an EMT as their tear stained faces simply emote one thing: they are alive, but at what cost? The Final Girl Support Group provides a space that is not often seen in the genre and one certainly worth visiting. It allows for final girls to evolve into traumatized, flawed adults.

The victim and sole survivor of a brutal Christmas massacre, Lynette Tarkington has spent 16 years in a support group with five other women whose fantastical encounters with manic murders have turned them into media sensations. Adrienne, a summer camp counselor, defeated a killer who was seeking revenge for their (nonexistent) son. Dani’s brother escaped incarceration and slaughtered everyone between him and her on Halloween. Julia was a pre-planned final girl, selected by her boyfriend and his friend to live out their own fantasy. Marylin escaped the cannibalistic Hansen family, and Heather survived the mysterious Nightmare King. With the help of their ambitious therapist they have tried for over a decade to move forward. But when Adrienne is murdered on the anniversary of her camp’s massacre and Lynette is attacked in her home, the group struggles to come to terms with a collective worst fear. The pieces of agency they have struggled for is a myth - someone still wants them dead. 

Lynette who suffers from a type of survivors guilt associated with the fact that she is merely a surviving victim of two holiday massacres, not the defiant teen who fought her monster to the death. As a result she is a slave to extreme paranoia and a rigorously demanding routine to stay “final girl ready”. Because of and in spite of this, she is actually a very capable woman. Following Lynette throughout the story is like following a well practiced spy who knows more than every Home Depot employee she has ever encountered. But the extreme fear that has become so persistent in her life has shaped how she lives her life every day. Lynette’s BFF is a houseplant and she likes to have her panic attacks before her coffee. When her routine is shattered (by murder and attempted murder) she is finally forced to use her skills to move forward and to solve her problems, rather than hide from them in her apartment. 

In fact, the way that all these women have coped with their trauma becomes their largest asset. They could not survive without utilizing the tools they have cultivated over the years, and like their younger selves they must shake off the dust and utilize these tools together. 

Julia’s encounter left her a wheelchair. After her physiotherapist-turned-husband left her financially decimated, Julia’s sense of what survival meant changed. She went on to get multiple degrees and write a book about her journey of recovery. Despite her air of superiority in group sessions, she is very smart and takes on the role of detective, pointing Lynette on the path to uncover their would-be killer when Julia reveals that she believes someone is trying to write a book about the support group.  

Marylin’s experience with the press after her encounter led her to choose to marry a mega-rich prison owner from a political Republican family. Now she can invite the press to her; throwing lavish parties where she controls the guest list and how she is perceived within the walls of her own home. What has been judged by the group as her being a rich bitch actually provides respite for them on their journey when Marylin is able to open her heavily protected guest house to them, complete with cameras, security guards, and champagne.

Dani tries to leave the support group at the beginning of the book to dedicate herself to looking after her dying wife on their farm. As the eldest of the group, age has given her a lot of perspective about her own happiness and needs. Despite choosing a level of isolation she has carved out a life for herself that is centered around her happiness. Dani not only has a love worth surviving for, but her farm girl lifestyle has turned her into the kind of tank her brother was. She is a force to be reckoned with; no matter how many times she’s hit, she keeps getting right back up. 

The only victim of a supernatural murder spree in a world grounded in reality, Heather turns to drugs. Often homeless and financially unstable, her story is often dismissed because while the trauma is apparent, her behavior often takes a front seat in discussion in group between hitting them up for money, franchise opportunities, or a place to crash between rehabs. But Heather’s supernatural trauma is something that she acknowledges as real, leading to a supernatural moment of her own with the help of Lynette. 

But for some, growing up means you just got tall. The story progressively alludes to a mysterious seventh banished member of the Final Girl Support Group, Chrissy Mercer. Branded a traitor for shacking up with her killer, she is what happens when you let trauma become your entire personality. 

When we finally meet Chrissy she is the HBIC of her own active-slasher love nest/murder museum. Constantly watching her husband kill (witnessing her own experience from the other side) she has taken to collecting murder memorabilia from all of her former support group members’ lives and franchises, displaying them in her own makeshift art gallery of the grotesque. She believes that she is part of the eternal tapestry of good and evil, helping to foster one so that the other may exist. It is because of Chrissy’s unflinching detachment to the horror of what she has become that Lynette is able to glimpse at a room commissioned by the Nightmare King, alluding that Heather might have had it worst of all of them. Even Chrissy’s lack of progress provides a truth. It is her desensitization and detachment to the horror that has allowed her to become its expert. Unfortunately it is also why she’s super chill with murder.  

Trauma, especially at a young age, can hold resonating effects that we’re not always taught how to cope with as adults. Or even if we begin those journeys  to work on ourselves, join a support group or get a therapist, we can’t always see how far we’ve come from something unless those skills we’ve developed are put to the test. And who wants to test trauma? Grady Hendrix’s The Final Girl Support Group tells a continuing story that is key to the heart of all  final girls. You have to evolve, to survive and to live. It’s hard, and messy, and sometimes it’s super painful. Your trauma doesn’t have to be a caged apartment, it can be a well guarded mansion. Being happy, even just for a little while, can make you invincible. You’ve seen some crazy shit, maybe you can do something crazy with it! You keep evolving, even when life decides to chase you down with knives to finish the job. Flawed adults and do more than survive. They are no longer bound by the tropes of their youth. They can become whatever they want.

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the Transgender Law Center here