Women in Slashers Then and Now: Survival, Trauma, and the Diminishing Power of the Close-Up

This thesis will reconsider the role of the Final Girl in slasher cinema throughout time, disproving popular notions of her as either a teenage boy incarnate or a triumphant heroine. Instead, an examination of her facial close-ups will make evident that despite her ability to survive, the formal structure of the film emphasizes her ultimate destruction, positioning her instead as a traumatized survivor, specifically of male violence. My research will therefore use close film analysis and feminist film theory to ask how the close-ups develop character as well as narrative, what significance they hold in relation to the structure of the slasher, and most importantly, how they both speak to and challenge gender stereotypes. My methodology will include the comparative analysis of older films to their recent remakes.