OMG Horror

The female character has long been an integral staple of horror film lore.  From Janet Leigh in Psycho (or any of the multitude of blondes Hitchcock employed – by the way it’s Hitch’s birthday today, or would have been – so big ups to Al!) to any of the female leads in 80s slasher films, hell, even to Rose McGowan in Planet Terror.  Female characters are vulnerability personified and that makes for some damn interesting horror scenarios.  Well, we at OMGHorror.com have decided to compile a list of what we deem the top ten horror heroines of all time (by alphabetic surname).  Enjoy!

#1. Sarah Connor – T-2: Judgment Day (1991) – Save for maybe Ripley of Alien fame, Sarah Connor may just be the most badass, take no shit heroines ever committed to celluloid.  Sure T-2: Judgment Day is hardly codified as horror proper, but there’s no denying some of the horrific facets James Cameron imbues his film with.  After all, the man did make Piranha 2: The Spawning.  And Linda Hamilton’s turn as Connor is one of steely brawn, of physical dominance.  The scene where she liberates from a mental hospital, only to drop and dismiss a gaggle of security in the halls, is downright kick-ass.  Sure she’s unhinged mentally at times.  But so what, with arms like those, who needs lucid thinking?!? 

#2. Sally Hardesty – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) – Sally is a survivor!  Out of all on our list, she just may endure more physical mayhem and psychological detriment than anyone.  For those who’ve witnessed some of the behind the scenes documentaries on Tobe Hooper’s classic, you know that actress Marilyn Burns actually experienced her share of exhaustive torture.  No stunt doubles or trick photography, green screens and the like here – this is the real deal, and it shows.  And Sally has the impressive distinction of not only subjugating one assailant, she has to quell and evade a whole family of them.  Just think of that grueling dinner table scene, for starters.  For my money though, it’s the two windows she unflinchingly leaps out of to ensure the safety of her own life.    

#3. Jennifer Hills – I Spit on Your Grave (1978) – Here’s a horror heroine you can genuinely root for.  In the first two thirds of the film, Jennifer Hills, played with great aplomb by Camille Keaton, is subjected to the most foul and repulsive physical-sexual torture to the point where we actually want to see the poor girl get her bloody revenge.  And just that she does.  Gorily so.  What marks Jennifer apart from others may be her sheer bravado.  After being raped many times over, she doesn’t even flee the scene.  She nurses her wounds (mental and physical) and concocts a vicious plan of payback, casually carrying her plan out to homicidal fruition.  How she can get up in the morning after such bodily violation is beyond us, but damn this girl is a true fighter. 

#4. Sidney Prescott– Scream (1996) – Well here’s your postmodern horror heroine if we’ve ever seen one.  Sidney isn’t of the ditzy, trip over a branch in the woods persuasion, she’s not one of these girls who inadvertently scuffle their way to the finish line and luckily fell a foe.  No.  Sidney is a smart, no-nonsense girl of resource.  She immediately jeers horror convention, she’s highly aware of female ineptitude portrayed in the genre, and throughout circumstantial peril, she demonstrates both mental and physical prowess en-route to survival.  She’s indubitably tough, and through the course of three films (albeit less in the last), Sidney splays her grit time and time again.  Too bad producers have failed to lock her down for an apparent 4^th Scream film (or a 5^th and 6^th at that).  

#5. Ellen Ripley – Alien (1979) – Probably the easiest and most obvious choice when conducting the list, Sigourney Weaver’s iconic gun-toting badass is not only a trailblazing figure in American cinema, but one that has been shamelessly cribbed and imitated over the generations.  Ripley is everything a man dreams of (both having and being): she’s tough, smart, beautiful, capable, in command, bossy, and sure as hell knows how to protect herself.  In fact, the original conception of the movie had a male Ripley as the lead, and when Veronica Cartwright (who played Lambert in the final film) was originally slated to play Ripley, producers went to bat for Weaver, as they thought she brought more of an edge, and she ultimately got the part.  We can’t eve think of anyone else playing the role.    

#6. Claire Spencer – What Lies Beneath (2000) – Any avid reader of this site should know a thing or two about my penchant for all things Michelle Pfeiffer.  So naturally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t find someway to include her on the list of all time horror heroines.  And while Bob Zemeckis’ in many ways by the numbers haunted house story isn’t the best film on our list, it’s the work of Pfeiffer alongside Harry Ford that is truly remarkable.  First of all, she has a back-story, one of grief, longing, uncertainty.  This gives the actress an emotional pallet to work with, and throughout the course of the picture, Claire runs the gamut of feeling.  Happy, sad, angry, terrified, self-righteous, Claire feels it all and Pfeiffer works subtle wonders with the material.  Did I mention I love this woman?!?   

#7. Clarice Starling – Silence of the Lambs (1991) – The cool thing about FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling is that she trades overbearing physical prowess for astute reasoning and an ability to mentally break a crime scene down.  She’s tough, sure – but she’s shrewd beyond her years.  And instead of merely surviving an onslaught of attacks, Clarice is more or less able to map and plot her own line of destiny.  Her chummy relationship with Dr. Hannibal Lecter proves invaluable later in life, and the way she conducts herself in front of the demented silver tongued doc is a testament to her character and inner strength.  It’s her vulnerability that defenses her as much as any physical attribute she harbors.      

#8. Laurie Strode – Halloween (1978) – Perhaps the quintessential slasher heroine, Jaime Lee Curtis in effect started the empowered depiction of otherwise innocuous teenage girls in horror films.  And she not only saves herself, she maintains her babysitting responsibilities by ensuring the survival of the young tykes she’s agreed to look after.  Instead of garnering a brash, tough as nails exterior we might assume a character of strength to behold, Lee Curtis turned a polite girl-next-door type into something more formidable and not to be taken lightly.  She’s also the only on our list with the distinction of being tormented to the point where killing your own brother isn’t out of the realm of possibility.            

#9. Nancy Thompson – A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) – It’s a bit ironic that our first major Reagan-era horror heroine is named Nancy.  Or is it?  Played with great effectiveness by a 20 year old Heather Langenkamp (portraying a 15 year old), Nancy Thompson relies on her independent wiles to ultimately bring Fred Krueger to his knees.  Even Nancy’s parents don’t believe or aide her, they just leer at her askance as if an otherwise troubled adolescent.  But Nancy’s wit, unbridled strength and attention to detail are some of the things that pull her through to the end relatively unscathed.  She faces Krueger head on, knows to transfer him from dream world to reality in order to kill the fucker for good.  Too bad she only had a few subsequent cameos until 1994 where she took a lead in New Nightmare.    

#10. Carrie White – Carrie (1976) – Carrie White is certainly, as far as heroines go, a horse of a different color.  She starts off as a shy, withdrawn, fragile little girl in throes of puberty.  She’s a quiet, unassuming mouse of a teen that in no way resembles the bulk of hardened horror heroines we’ve seen throughout the years.  That is of course until she’s been brought to the brink of adolescent torment and is able to channel her telekinetic powers into something much more vengeful and sinister in nature.  She essentially fights fire with fire, and we not only root for her to serve comeuppance, we totally forgive any avenue she travels to do so.  It’s not hard to see why Sissy Spacek earned an Oscar nod for her work here.       

HONORABLE MENTION: The following addendum of horror heroines were excluded from our official list because, as great as the performers are, we feel that the characters are in far better films than any specific trait they have as a heroine: Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow – Rosemary’s Baby), Wendy Torrance (Shelly Duvall – The Shining), Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn – The Exorcist), Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper – Suspiria)