From badass “final girls” in the mold of Laurie Strode and Sally Hardesty to relatable everymen confronted with monsters like Chief Brody and The Mist’s David Drayton, the archetypes of horror movie protagonists are pretty rigidly defined. Horror filmmakers have spent decades shaping specific conventions in each of the genre’s formulaic subcategories: slashers, “found footage,” zombie movies, etc.
But the 2010s gave way to the rise of so-called “elevated horror.” The decade was filled with self-aware scary movies like Midsommar. These elevated horror films gave audiences such subversive protagonists as a cannibalistic college student, the burglar in a home invasion movie, and a slasher victim stuck in a time loop.
Tree Gelbman (Happy Death Day)
Christopher Landon’s first of several genre-bending slashers, Scream.” Jessica Rothe stars as college student Theresa “Tree” Gelbman, who finds herself reliving the same day over and over again.
But unlike Bill Murray’s Phil Connors, at the end of every day in Tree’s interminable time loop, she’s murdered by a masked killer.
Rocky (Don’t Breathe)
Fede Álvarez’s Don’t Breathe subverts the usual home invasion thriller formula. Usually, the unsuspecting homeowners are the protagonists and the people who break into their home in the middle of the night are the bad guys.
In Don’t Breathe, the burglars are presented as the protagonists and the homeowner they target is presented as the villain. Jane Levy’s Rocky needs some quick cash to escape to a better life; the man she chooses to rob, unfortunately, turns out to be a violent sadist with a dark secret lurking in his basement.
Jessie Burlingame (Gerald’s Game)
Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game has a unique setup to get its protagonist Jessie Burlingame stranded in the middle of nowhere. Played by Carla Gugino in Mike Flanagan’s Netflix-exclusive film adaptation, Jessie travels to a cabin in the woods with her husband to spice up their marriage, then he dies of a heart attack right after handcuffing her to the bed.
Throughout the movie, the audience is endeared to Jessie as she faces literal monsters and confronts the demons of her past with little hope of salvation.
Dani Ardor (Midsommar)
Ari Aster’s follow-up to his breathtaking debut feature Hereditary proved he wasn’t a one-trick pony. After Hereditary used the terror of a pagan cult to explore the terror of grief and dysfunctional families, Midsommar used the terror of a pagan cult to explore the terror of toxic relationships.
Florence Pugh gives an incredibly moving performance as Dani, who finds herself trapped in both an unhealthy relationship and a bloodthirsty Swedish commune while mourning the murder-suicide that killed her entire family.
The Abbotts (A Quiet Place)
Like all the best actor-directors, John Krasinski put the needs of the story first in A Quiet Place. Krasinski frames himself as a ing player and tells the story largely through the eyes of Lee and Evelyn’s kids, played brilliantly by the prodigious Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe. Lee’s heartbreaking climactic sacrifice makes the family’s survival possible and Evelyn is the gun-toting hero at the end of the movie.
The success of A Quiet Place is that it’s not a straightforward horror film; it’s a family drama disguised as a horror movie. The Abbotts ring true as a real family with their own internal conflicts and emotional baggage (and plenty of love) – they just happen to be living in a post-apocalyptic world.
Thomasin (The Witch)
One of the cornerstones of the “elevated horror” movement, Robert Eggers’ Anya Taylor-Joy got her star-making role in this movie as Thomasin.
As the movie goes on, the family is relentlessly terrorized by a witch, but it ends on a surprisingly optimistic note as Thomasin eventually finds hope and agency and a new family by ing the coven.
Erin (You’re Next)
Adam Wingard’s You’re Next is a cross between a slasher and a home invasion thriller, but it starts out as a fun satire of the social elite. Sharni Vinson’s Erin is the most relatable character in the movie. She’s not a part of the rich family gathered at their stately vacation home in the middle of nowhere; she’s an outsider accompanying her boyfriend to the event.
After masked killers break into the house, Erin becomes a grisly subversion of the “final girl” trope. You’re Next is a full-blown slasher in its final act, but the ruthless killer is the hero picking off the villains.
Justine (Raw)
Julia Ducournau’s Raw is a scathing satire anchored by a relatable lead character. Garance Marillier’s Justine is a vegetarian college student who’s forced to eat raw meat as part of a horrifying hazing ritual in the first week of school.
After that, she develops a taste for flesh and even nibbles on her sister’s severed finger after a waxing gone wrong. Marillier managed to make a budding cannibal a sympathetic lead.
Annie Graham (Hereditary)
Toni Collette gave an Oscar-caliber dramatic performance in the context of supernatural horror in Ari Aster’s astounding debut Hereditary. The Grahams are targeted by a sinister pagan cult, but the real villain is grief.
Collette’s Annie – snubbed for a Best Actress nomination – is simultaneously a mourning daughter and a mourning mother. She loses her mother and shortly thereafter loses her daughter (in truly horrifying fashion), tearing the family apart. Collette plays this complicated emotional journey with a brutal rawness.
Chris Washington (Get Out)
Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning horror masterpiece anchored by Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris Washington, a photographer who’s invited up to his white girlfriend’s parents’ gated community. As it turns out, they want to give his eyes to a white man.
Chris subverts the usual hopelessness of horror protagonists by turning the tables on his abductors in the finale. In the movie’s much-deserved happy ending, Chris manages to escape from the Armitages’ sadistic experiment with the help of his best friend, “TS-motherf**kin’-A” agent Rod.
