Final Girls Week: Riley Stone, Black Christmas

The trope of the final girl has survived within horror cinema since the phrase was coined in the early 1990s. Traditionally women in horror are picked off one by one, generally starting with the most sexualised, sexually liberated or otherwise unconservative with the most virginal or conservative girl being saved by a heroic man; although the final girl’s survival does not always equal safety, justice or victory for her.

This narrative structure, however, is flipped on its head in Sophie Takal’s 2019 reboot of Black Christmas. Riley (Imogen Poots), the protagonist and final girl, is dealing with the trauma of being sexually assaulted by another student at Hawthorne College during the lead up to Christmas when girls who also attend the campus start to be murdered one by one by a mysterious villain.

Imogen Poots as Riley Stone in Black Christmas (2019)

With this being the third reboot of the Black Christmas story, it was bound to pick up some negativity. A lot of people found the film too on the nose in its vocal critique of campus rape culture and feminist tone, but personally the ‘Up in the Frat House’ scene, in which Riley and her friends perform an edited version of ‘Up on the Housetop’, calling out her attacker, was one of the most memorable scenes I have seen in a horror film in a long time. The group of friends are clad in Santa’s helper outfits, much like the iconic scene in Mean Girls (Waters, 2004), but this rendition has a very different message.

Despite the anger the protagonists cause with their performance, they all remain a team, including Kris (Aleyse Shannon), who is passionate about ending the misogyny on campus from the male professors and students. In other horrors, you might have expected this character to be alienated from the group and picked off for her strong opinions and views, however, she too is a final girl.

Black Christmas has multiple final girls including Riley; and the group of women not only defeat the group of misogynist frat boys but also the trope of the sole surviving final girl, turning it on its head. Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes) proclaims that ‘woman is inextricably tied to man’, but Riley and her friends prove that their ties are to themselves and their sorority sisters.