We’re Not Dying Yet – Review of Final Girls. Last Survivors”

It’s all true

Grady Hendrix writes great, can create a suggestive mood, and his horrors are not overly camouflaged analysis, or even social criticism. We saw this most clearly in We Sold Souls , but also The Vampire Slayers Handbook . Final Girlsyou will surely associate it with the latter title, because it starts again with a group of women dealing with typically American problems together. After all, the slasher was born in the USA, and it is in this country that most outbreaks of deadly violence between teenagers occur, even if they usually choose firearms that are not very popular in the genre. So now imagine that all these massacres, hunting for kids gathered on remote campsites, camps or schools actually took place. And the famous films generating sequels and spin-offs are (para)documentary cinema. In the book you will even find thanks to those responsible for the creation of The Summer Massacre or The Babysitter Murderer— works recreating the tragedies of these few (already adult and neurotic) “last survivors”. This book is the most immersive of Hendrix’s novels out there – you’ll google hard to make sure it’s not itself fictionalized reportage. Be warned, the author did it right, you will check it several times, the truth is skillfully mixed with easter eggs from the history of horror and the life of Hendrix, his family and friends.

So it’s all true, and the “final girls” meet from time to time for group therapy. It is not without conflicts, because each of them deals with trauma a little differently – for example, by organizing camps for people with similar problems … Sounds like a recipe for a problem? Let’s not get accidents, but the principle of Chekhov’s pistol works flawlessly in Final Girls , because like Scream , the book plays with conventions, using them to the fullest. The heroines and heroes are also aware of certain rules governing the slasher hunt, but unlike the one shown in Splat! FilmFest 2022 of the film You Can Be a Killer here is not very funny. Immersion, remember?

Always prepared

Hendrix focuses on the perspective of Lynn Tarkington, one of the survivors, who throughout her post-traumatic life struggled not only with anxiety, but also with imposter syndrome. She is supposedly the only one who survived “her” massacre, she had her sequel after the prescribed two years, the girls accepted her into the group, but … Gradually you will find out what doubts she has and why they made the slasher never end for her.

A large part of Final Girls is a typical action hero with escapes and hiding, as well as the effective use of prepared or casual means for self-defence. Lynn is almost a prepper, but instead of a shelter, she always has an escape bag with her. The girl knows everything about the fight against a psychopathic murderer, she trusts no one, she still calculates in her head who could have organized a new campaign against her friends. Apparently, this someone has a powerful ambition and a sense of superiority, since he decided to finish off all the famous survivors.

Read and bite your nails

Did I mention this is a truly immersive book? It pulls you in, and really convinces the reader that the world described in it is real. In addition to the acknowledgments I mentioned, you will also find additions in the form of documentation – interviews, conversations with therapists, fragments of studies on the phenomenon of the last survivors and their testimonies that have developed into thriving film franchises.

So far, we’re used to Hendrix being published by Vesper – and I’m a bit sorry that this time he went to Zysk. We were not left with the original cover, instead we were given “something like”. The Polish translation of the title omits the “support group”, and yet faithful to the author’s version “book club from the south” somehow did not spoil the reception of the novel about vampires. What’s more, Agnieszka Brodzik’s translation is not bad at all, only the title glitches. Final Girls. The last survivors will get lost on the shelf among the multitude of crime and thrillers from which they are indistinguishable in this version. I hope Vesper has not been disappointed by this author after Horrorstör and Hendrix comes home.