For my 3rd post for Women In Horror Month, I’m sharing part 4 of the most under-appreciated final girls in the horror genre! These women haven’t gotten the recognition that they deserve with their strength, intelligence, and refusal to give up. I hope you enjoy and let me know which final girls you feel should be in this series! (MAJOR SPOILERS!!!)

Mary Heller – Dracula 2000

Mary Heller (Justine Waddell) spent her whole life in the dark about her father and his dark past. Her father was Abraham Van Helsing (Christopher Plummer), a legendary monster hunter who took down the powerful vampire, Dracula (Gerard Butler). In his pursuit of Dracula, he became infected with the vampire’s blood, which he passed onto his daughter. Since then, Dracula and Mary became linked and after he was set free many years later, his search for her began. She had nightmares about him long before she met him and when they finally united, she made him believe she’d join him. She successfully tricked Dracula and his brides, and she was able to do what her father spent years trying to do: kill Dracula once and for all!

Maureen Epps – Ghost Ship

Maureen Epps (Julianna Margulies) was part of a salvage crew who was approached with a too-good-to-be-true opportunity to salvage a cruise ship that disappeared in 1962. As they explored the ship, they began to piece together that the passengers and crew were all massacred for gold that was brought aboard, and they were the next targets. With the help of one of the spirits on the ship, Maureen realized that the man who approached them about the ship was a soul collector who needed them to fix the ship. Once the ship was fixed, the collector was almost done collecting the souls of Maureen’s crew. With Maureen all by herself, she realized she could blow up the ship and set all of the trapped souls free. When she was approached with an offer from the collector, she didn’t take the bait and she successfully set everyone free. She was a very tough and strong-willed woman who didn’t let supernatural forces take her down!

Vicki Maloney – Hounds Of Love

Vicki Maloney (Ashleigh Cummings) was a teenager who had trouble coping with her parents’ divorce. When she went to stay with her mother at her knew place, she snuck out to go to a friend’s party. On her way there, she was stopped by John (Stephen Curry) and Evelyn (Emma Booth) White, a psychotic couple who kidnapped and assaulted young girls. From the beginning of her abduction, she tried to figure out how to escape. She realized that her best bet was to drive a wedge between the toxic couple. She noticed how poorly Evelyn was treated by John and tried to convince her to let her go. It unfortunately didn’t work fast enough as she was savagely hurt and almost forced to give up hope. However, she outsmarted her captors and sent a secret code to her family and Evelyn finally got rid of her abusive husband and let Vicki go. Poor Vicki suffered a lot, but she proved she was stronger, smarter, and that they picked the wrong girl.

Zoey Davis – Escape Room (2019)

After being the sole survivor of a plane crash, Zoey Davis (Taylor Russell) had a difficult time thriving in life. Soon, an opportunity arose as she was invited to participate in an escape room challenge that offered $10,000 to those able to finish it. With her fellow puzzle solvers, Zoey realized that the dangers in each room were real, and that everyone in the group was chosen for a reason. As they got through the rooms and lost people on the way, Zoey figured out that the game was rigged so there would be a sole survivor in the end. She refused to play along further and when everyone thought she was just another dead body, they learned the hard way that she wouldn’t go down so easily. She survived, killed their sadistic games master and saved her fellow player, Ben (Logan Miller). She was intelligent, strong, and highly underestimated.

Crystal May Creasey – The Hunt

After a group of wealthy friends joked about hunting people in a group chat, the chat leaked out and conspiracy theorists ran with it, causing them to all lose their jobs and good reputations. In a fit of revenge, they decided to pick 12 of the rumor spreaders to hunt them down for real. Among the 12 was Crystal May Creasey (Betty Gilpin), a highly underestimated fighter. She rightfully suspected everyone and everything around her. She racked up her own body count and killed almost all of the hunters. When she reached the leader of the group, Athena (Hilary Swank), she realized she was picked because the hunters mistook her for a different Crystal Mae Creasey on the internet. She was dragged into this whole sh*t-show for no reason, and she ended it like a boss!