The Final Girl is a staple of thehorror genre. Most women who have played an iconic character in horror cinema own it; heck,Jamie Lee Curtis has even thanked her genre movie fansin her most recent Oscar speech. However, there are a lot of overlooked women who have appeared in horror films who deserve more praise for outsmarting the vicious antagonist.
And outside of that, there has also been the occasional Final Boy, a male lead in a horror film who has had a showdown with a monster or a masked murderer. And within the world of Final Boys there have even been some overlooked actors who have held their own on screen. Here are seven each in both categories that make up the most overlooked final girls and boys in horror movies.
Let’s start things off with the fellas. One of the biggest heartthrobs of the 2000s was an integral part of the cast of 2005’sHouse of Wax.Chad Michael Murrayplays Nick Jones, a wrong-side-of-the-tracks kind of guy who gets stuck in a hairy situation with him and his friends as they find themselves in the middle of nowhere with some car trouble. The only place to ask for help is a nearby wax museum in a ghost town. One by one, the gang starts to get picked off by a pair of murderous twin brothers who run the museum.
Chad Michael Murray could have had a role catering to his sex-symbol appearance at the time, but he actually plays the brother to Elisha Cuthbert’s character, Carly. It’s a different approach than expected, but it works. Chad has a lot of heroic moments in the film’s final act, and the film as a whole has garnered new appreciation over the years.
13Lisa Wilcox as Alice - A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
Most of the protagonists of theA Nightmare on Elm Streetfilms are adored by fans. But a few of them don’t get the love that Heather Langenkamp and Patricia Arquette get. EnterLisa Wilcox, who plays Alice Johnson in the fourth installment.A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Masterpicks up a little bit where Part 3 left off. Alice inherits powers from the previous final girl, Kristen Parker. With the power to now draw other people into her dreams. But with this power, Freddy tries to take advantage of it and pull a new batch of teenagers into his world.
It’s up to Alice to save the day. Wilcox is overlooked by many in the franchise, but she holds her own against Freddy. If only she had shown up earlier in the franchise as maybe a supporting role that grew into a lead character, something for fans to be invested in more. Lisa would also return for Part 5 of the franchise,The Dream Child.She got the unfortunate end of the stick for being in the fourth installment of a franchise that was starting to feel like a gimmick now.
Related:Elm Street 4 Actress Lisa Wilcox Revisits Dream Master Locations
12Jennifer Cooke as Megan - Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives,knows the kind of audience it’s catering to. We’re in the full swing of the 1980s by now; MTV is big; let’s get some rock music in this franchise; and let’s have a final girl who is down to assist the film’s final boy in killing a masked murderer who is back for the dead.Jennifer Cookeis that girl, and in the film, she plays Megan. She’s here for a good time. It’s hard to even remember if she even looks afraid in any of her scenes. She goes against final girl tropes and goes out for what she wants as she openly flirts with Tommy Jarvis multiple times, and although she seems like a bit of a bad girl, she makes the safety of children at the camp a priority. More love needs to be thrown her way.
11Brian Matthews as Todd - The Burning (1981)
Tall and handsome with dark hair, and respectful to ladies.Brian Matthewsstood out in this early 1980s slasher classic that also starred a young Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander.The Burningis about a murderous burnt-to-a crisp serial killer who is back to hunt the kids of a local camp where years earlier a prank gone wrong left him for dead, but now he’s back. It’s a clearFriday the 13thrip-off, but a good one at that. Brain Matthews plays Todd. When it comes to slashers, if you look back at the list of movies that fit the bill of those horror sub-genres, Brian Matthews actually plays one of the first final boys of all time.
10Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss as Brody and Hooper - Jaws (1975)
Speaking of the original final boys, we often times forget, due to it being theoriginal summer blockbuster,thatRoy ScheiderandRichard Dreyfusstake it to a giant killer shark inJaws.And they survive it, thus making them both final boys. When a police chief (Scheider) clashes with a town mayor about closing a beach due to shark attacks, he teams up with an ichthyologist to investigate the shark attacks. The pairing of these actors was a superb casting choice, as their on-screen chemistry shines as two men on a mission to keep a small New England town safe. One is bronze, the other is brains. And they both find themselves in the middle of the ocean by the third act as the target of the shark they are hunting.
Related:Jaws is Coming to Broadway (Sort Of) in The Shark is Broken
9Angela Goethals as Taylor - Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernonwas a new twist on the slasher genre. By the mid-2000s, the torture porn sub-genre was prevalent in theaters nationwide. But on the indie circuit, there were some really great takes on already-established tropes in the genre. We didn’t know how good we had it with indie horror during this time. In the middle of it all, you have this film and its final girl, Taylor Gentry, played byAngela Goethals.
She’s a documentary filmmaker who is following serial killer Leslie Vernon, who is trying to live up to the hype of his heroes, Jason, Michael Myers, Freddy, and Leatherface. The mockumentary style of the film switches at the midway point and turns into a full-on slasher, with Taylor’s documentary crew right in Vernon’s crosshairs. Angela is brilliant in the role; the cult following around this film helps get her the respect she deserves as a final girl. It’s a shame this film wasn’t seen by a wider audience at the time.
8Paul Rudd as Tommy - Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Yes,Paul Rudd.The MCU’s Ant-Man, the ageless wonder, who is also the main focus of the new season ofOnly Murders in the Building. In 1995, Rudd had two big movies out: the iconicClueless,where he plays opposite his love interest/step-sister Alicia Silverstone. And a couple of months later, he would play Tommy Doyle, one of the survivors ofthe night He came homein 1978, and is now all grown up inHalloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.Paul Rudd’s performance is honestly pretty flat in the film.
It’s hard to decide if that is his talent at the time or the direction because, let’s be honest,Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myersisn’t widely known as the best in the franchise. But a lot was left on the cutting room floor, as aproducer’s cutis floating around out there with more scenes that fill the strange nonsense of the theatrical cut. Seeing Rudd in this is cool because we’ve all seen what he’s evolved into. One can wonder if he’d ever sign a DVD copy of the film.
7Josh Hartnett as John - Halloween: H20 (1998)
Continuing with the Halloween films that were ignored due to Blumhouse’s David Gordon Greene trilogy comesHalloween: H20.Josh Hartnettplays opposite his mom, Laurie Strode. The two make for a great mother-son pair who are under different names and live in California. Laurie is a teacher at a private school that her son John attends. And of course, Michael treks halfway across the country in a few days to find them and kill them.H20 is the twentieth anniversary film,and in 1998, this may have been the closest to the original we had at that time.
Hartnett delivers a great performance as he battles his serial killer uncle and sticks out in a cast that stars Adam Arkin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Janet Leigh, LL Cool J, and future Academy Award-nominated actress, Michelle Williams.
Related:How Halloween H20 Became Horror’s First Successful Legacy Sequel
6Shauna Macdonald as Sarah - The Descent (2005)
Shauna Macdonaldis a name we often forget about in a film we can’t remember because it kept us up at night back in 2005.The Descentis a film about a group of girls who go on a cave-dwelling trip that takes them underground. Macdonald plays Sarah, a woman recovering from an emotional trauma who tags along with a set of girlfriends on this trip. As they make their way down into the underground caves and travel through claustrophobic passages, they learn that they are not alone.
There are these odd, repulsive-looking creatures down there that are hunting them. Sarah goes from being the fragile, sensitive one and descends into darkness to fight back against these evil beings. There is actually a strongsense of empowermentin this underrated horror gem.
5Eliza Dushku as Jessie - Wrong Turn (2003)
In the golden age of slashers (the 1980s), some actors and actresses got their big break in movies where they were either killed off or the last ones standing at the end of the film. In the late ’90s and the early 2000s, it seemed like Hollywood was taking established young actors and putting them in a string of horror films.Eliza Dushkuhad already been a recognizable face for nearly a decade. And she had co-starred in a few comedies in the years leading up toWrong Turn. By 2003, she was battling backwoods cannibals in Virginia in the slasher film.
A film that takes the typical trope of having car trouble in a no-nothing town and something sinister stalks you. Eliza Dushku doesn’t get enough credit for putting this film on her back, as she puts in a lot of work to survive the evil cannibal rednecks. It worked so well that the film led to it becominga series of sequels, and a few of them aren’t even that bad.
