I’m back with the most under-appreciated final girls in the horror genre! Due to their movies either receiving poor reviews, or just falling under the radar, these final girls never got the recognition they deserved. They were brave, intelligent, tough, and today I’m giving them their due. I hope you enjoy and let me know which final girl you think deserves to be in this series! (SPOILER ALERT!!!)

Suzy Bannion – Suspiria (1977)

Suzy (Jessica Harper) was an innocent American girl who was accepted into one of the most prestigious German ballet academies. What should’ve been a dream quickly turned into a nightmare when she uncovered the secret that the school was run by ruthless witches who killed any student (or blind piano player) that got in their way. What I really love is that these witches have been tormenting and killing in their favor for who knows how long, and they greatly underestimated Suzy. Even when they cast spells on her and kept her drugged a good chunk of the time, she still figured out not only what they were up to, but how to stop them all. She had some help from her one friend Sara (Stefania Casini), but after she was murdered, Suzy was all by herself to finish the last pieces of the puzzle. All alone in the face of danger, she found their secret hideout, slaughtered the mother witch, and finally brought down the entire school’s tyranny.

Rowan – Jason X

Rowan (Lexa Doig) was truly one of the smartest people in the entire Friday The 13th franchise. After realizing that Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder) couldn’t be killed by anything, she decided the best thing to do would be to cryogenically freeze him and keep him stowed away from society forever. Unfortunately, people went against her wishes in an effort to study him more. After his latest escape from captivity, he killed everyone around Rowan. She was able to cleverly lure him to the freezing chamber, but he stabbed a whole through the chamber and she ended up getting frozen as well. Luckily, she was found and brought back to life centuries later… but so was Jason. With everything she knew about Jason, she did her best to help the group who found her from being slaughtered. She fought her very best, and using her knowledge of Jason, she helped distract him long enough for her and the other survivors to escape to a rescue ship.

Ashley – Disturbia

Ashley (Sarah Roemer) seemed like the typical girl next door. Tired of her parents’ disdain for each other, she did everything she could to stay away from her parents, including getting involved with her next door neighbor, Kale (Shia LaBeouf), who was under house arrest for punching his teacher. Bored with house arrest, Kale started to stalk his neighbors, and he suspected that one of them, Robert Turner (David Morse) was a serial killer. Ashley loved the idea of solving the mystery behind Turner, but once he set his sites on them, she realized quickly that it was no joking matter. Turned out Kale was right all along and Turner was set to keep his murders a secret. His plan was to frame Kale for killing his mother and best friend to keep all the attention off of him, but Ashley foiled everything. She put up a hell of a fight against Turner and helped set Kale free. She was a lot tougher than people anticipated and she was certainly not someone to be messed with.

Maddie Curtis – Night Of The Demons (2009)

Judy from the original Night Of The Demons played the damsel-in-distress role to a T. One good thing the remake did was give us a final girl worth rooting for. Maddie (Monica Keena) and her friends were invited to the party of the year on Halloween. The party took place at an abandoned mansion, where a brutal demonic possession and massacre occurred many years before. After her friends and ex-boyfriend became possessed and bloodthirsty, it was up to Maddie to make sure they didn’t possess her and end the world. She had quite a head on her shoulders. She did her best to save them, but when she became all alone, she knew her friends were long gone and she didn’t hesitate to fight for her life. She came up with weapons that would help her defeat her enemies, and when she ran out of materials, she faked suicide until the sun came up and the demons were forced back into Hell.

Rose – Victor Crowley

For ten years after the triple-massacre at Honey Island Swamp, Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder) seemed to finally be laid to rest and peace was restored. Unfortunately, aspiring filmmaker Chloe (Katie Booth) was obsessed with the Crowley story and dreamed of creating her own film based on it. Making sure she had the most authenticity in her film, she dragged her boyfriend Alex (Chase Williamson) and her best friend Rose (Laura Ortiz) to Honey Island Swamp, where they researched the actual curse that caused Victor Crowley to haunt the swamp all those years ago. Little did they know by playing the actual curse words, they resurrected the brutal killer once more. Crowley quickly and brutally killed Alex and Chloe while Rose was off trying to help a group of people whose plane crashed nearby. One thing that earned my respect for Rose was that when everyone was calling each other out in the plane, she put everyone in their place, and when she realized it was her and her friends who brought Crowley back, she took responsibility which I consider gutsy and mature. She was selfless, tough, and in my opinion, she deserves a lot more recognition!