This is the End, So We Begin Again

Horror movie franchises are often recognized by their iconic villains — Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Ghostface, Pinhead, and many other often-masked and often-men baddies who are easily recognizable as a Halloween costume. However, they are not always the core of the series; more often, the heart and soul of a horror franchise is its survivor — the Final Girl (or Guy), who finds herself hunted all over again in the next film, who must learn to survive and survive again as she continuously stares down the ever-looming presence of the monster in the dark.

Bearing the wounds and scars granted by their roles as would-be-victims turned fighters, these Final Girls find themselves perpetually trapped in a limbo of trauma, dragging themselves through the mud and blood in the hopes of coming through the other side alive. This article will present an overview of a number of survivors, who have each appeared in at least three films within their franchise — and who each have their own journeys of coming to terms with their dark worlds.

I learned that it was possible to feel what one could not otherwise know. And that I could transmit feeling where rational explanation failed, by using poetry like a lyre — plucking invisible energetic strings. I discovered that where no one would cry for me, my poetry could conjure easy tears. And when my spirit could not represent itself in mundane gesture, it could rise up and shout in verse.

There is a time and place for the poetry of comfort and contentment, the poem that pleases aesthetically even if the subject is difficult. Beyond that, I think my poetry goal is to break something. Not in the sense of something broken in my interior, a confession and healing, but instead a methodical attempt to

break certain aspects of

this world.

Rilke says, "Every angel is terrifying." But what if you are the angel? What if the power you are afraid to call upon and know is your own power? Consider the possibility that the outward address of poetry as prayer was actually an inner invocation, a tapping into our own divine and enlightened self.

Lady Macbeth is monstrous in spirit, but to identify with culture’s literal monsters is also to identify with—and learn to embrace—the grotesque. For all her murder, Lady Macbeth is primarily still a queen, envisioned in actresses like Marion Cotillard and Florence Pugh. Google images of the pontianak, however, show snarling, red-eyed, clawed nightmares. Beauty standards and gender norms go hand in neat hand. I had harmed myself for them as a child, struggled to embody things that didn’t actually feel right for me. Yet to let go of that is terrifying, and so perhaps it takes a terrifying thing to represent it. I wouldn’t go around looking for actual pontianaks—I didn’t let go of common sense. But as a symbol, a myth through which to filter the world, identifying with my culture’s most monstrous woman somehow brought me closer to a healthier version of myself, and one more rooted in my own folklore. One might call it self-possession.