Since it was coined by Carol J. Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film<\/em>, the term \u201cfinal girl\u201d has become ubiquitous. Many essays, retrospectives, and listicles have been written about the pantheon of Final Girls, with Halloween<\/i>\u2019s Laurie Strode, A Nightmare On Elm Street<\/i>\u2019s Nancy Thompson, and Scream<\/i>\u2019s Sidney Prescott emerging as the most popular. Even characters who only have one film to their name, like Jess in Black Christmas<\/i> (1974) and Erin in You\u2019re Next<\/i> (2011), have been given the spotlight. <\/span><\/p>\n One curious omission is Hellraiser<\/i>\u2019s Kirsty Cotton, played by Ashley Lawrence. To be fair, the Hellraiser<\/i> films are an odd fit into any category, blending as they do elements of visceral gore, sadomasochism, lurid sexuality, dark fantasy, and Lovecraftian sci-fi. The series is not a simple \u201cslasher\u201d franchise, and that\u2019s why Kirsty is not a typical final girl. Her place in the group is as underrated and unique as the films she\u2019s from, and invites comparison to not just other horror film heroines but other cinematic and literary sources. <\/span><\/p>\n One reason Kirsty isn\u2019t a typical final girl is that the movie in which she originated, Hellraiser<\/i> (1987), isn\u2019t a slasher film. Based on Clive Barker\u2019s novella \u201cThe Hellbound Heart,\u201d the story revolves around a washed-up husband, his unfulfilled wife, and the husband\u2019s deviant brother, who is also the wife\u2019s secret lover. When that man, Frank, escapes a group of extra-dimensional beings known as Cenobites (who are called via a puzzle box that promises the user ultimate sensation), he requires blood to be restored, and makes his lover, Julia, provide victims for him. In Barker\u2019s novella, Kirsty is a friend of the sad-sack husband and secretly harbors a crush on him. When Barker adapted his story into a film, Kirsty became the man\u2019s daughter, allowing for a teen to be the heroine and making the movie more marketable while also making the love triangle less complex. The change also sharpened the focus of Hellraiser<\/i>\u2019s story, making it unmistakably a family drama in the vein of Chekhov or Ibsen. Unlike most final girls, who must deal with a threat from without, Kirsty\u2019s primary threats come from within, in the form of her own family and her inner desires.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s this tension \u2014 between outward vulnerability and inner strength \u2014 that makes Kirsty a well-rounded and compelling character. Throughout the film, Kirsty is shown to be a competent, independent young woman. She\u2019s capable of finding her own job and residence in a new city, not dependent on her father or family members for help, and even picks up a boy she likes, meaning she certainly does not belong to the \u201cvirginal\u201d final girl character trope. Yet she\u2019s deeply emotional: she openly mistrusts her stepmother Julia, and is genuinely fearful for her father, Larry, even calling him in the middle of the night after a nightmare worries her. When she confronts the horror that is her Uncle Frank, a skinless ghoul who wastes no time in coming on to his niece, Kirsty is at first an emotional wreck. Seizing the puzzle box (known as the Lament Configuration), though, and seeing Frank\u2019s reaction to it, she turns vicious, tossing it out a window and then absconding with it altogether. Kept at a hospital for observation after being picked up on the street, Kirsty\u2019s not-so-innocent curiosity allows the box to open, and the Cenobites come for her. In order to escape her fate, she cleverly makes a deal with them (through tears, realistically terrified by the Cenobites\u2019 bizarre appearance) to trade Frank\u2019s soul for hers. When, after Frank is captured, the Cenobites break their bargain and attempt to take Kirsty, she finds a way to banish them back to Hell using the box with no assistance from her boyfriend, making the male character in the story functionally useless in a fantastic way that emphasizes Kirsty\u2019s importance. <\/span><\/p>\n In her mixture of vulnerability, innocence, worldliness, and cunning, Kirsty recalls the heroines of Italian horror director Dario Argento\u2019s work, specifically Suzy in Suspiria<\/i> (1977), Jennifer in Phenomena<\/i> (1985), and Betty in Opera<\/i>\u2019s (1987). It\u2019s a more European approach to characterization than the American \u201cgirl next door\u201d archetype, and Barker\u2019s very English background (as well as his stated love of Argento\u2019s work on the DVD commentary track) is likely a large contributor to that, as is Lawrence\u2019s perfectly pitched performance.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the other elements that makes Kirsty unique in the final girls\u2019 club is the fact that her main homicidal adversary isn\u2019t a man but a woman. Kirsty and her stepmother, Julia (played with regal cunning by Clare Higgins), begin as secret rivals for Larry\u2019s affections, but after Julia turns murderous to help her lover Frank, she becomes a real physical threat to Kirsty. In the second film, Hellbound: Hellraiser II<\/i> (1988), Julia is resurrected just like Frank had been, brought back to life via victims provided by a twisted psychologist. During the course of the film, Kirsty and Julia venture into Hell for disparate reasons (Julia to bring the soul of the psychologist to sacrifice to the god of Hell, and Kirsty to confront Frank, who had tricked her into believing her father was trapped in Hell) yet meet again, continuing their struggle. Kirsty emerges as victor, tearing Julia\u2019s new skin off and sending the skinless woman away into the bowels of Hell. <\/span><\/p>\n That is far from all she accomplishes in Hellbound<\/i>, however: she also burns Frank alive, frees the human soul of the lead Cenobite, Pinhead, and helps kill the Cenobitic form of the psychologist by wearing Julia\u2019s discarded skin to distract him, a feat that visually represents the ultimate defeat of her foe. <\/span><\/p>\n Kirsty\u2019s role in the story is made clear by screenwriter Peter Atkins\u2019 dialogue. When she and Julia first re-encounter each other, Julia exclaims, \u201cThey\u2019ve changed the rules of the fairy tale. I\u2019m no longer just the wicked stepmother. Now I\u2019m the evil queen. So come on \u2026 take your best shot, Snow White!\u201d This pointed invocation of fairy tales makes Kirsty\u2019s status as a heroine in fairy tale tradition much easier to appreciate. And it fits: according to writer Theodora Goss\u2019 analysis<\/span><\/a> of fairy tale heroines, Kirsty fulfills nearly all the steps of the journey, including receiving gifts, losing her home, entering the dark forest (Hell), finding friends, enduring temptations, wearing a disguise, and having her tormentor(s) punished. Seen in this way, Kirsty\u2019s character feels much more rich and literary, tied to classical traditions and tropes that make her stand out.<\/span><\/p>\n While she has a brief cameo in Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth<\/i> (1992), Kirsty\u2019s next proper (and, to date, final) onscreen appearance comes in the seventh installment, Hellraiser:<\/i> Hellseeker<\/i> (2002). One of the numerous direct-to-video sequels produced by Dimension Films, Hellseeker<\/i> began as a spec script unrelated to the Hellraiser<\/i> series. When the story was retrofitted into the franchise, one of the elements screenwriters Carl Dupre and Tim Day got right was Kirsty\u2019s character. At first, it doesn\u2019t seem to be the case, as Kirsty is shown to not only be married to a wooden bore of a guy named Trevor, but is unceremoniously killed off in a car accident at the beginning of the film. An hour and ten minutes later, however, it is revealed that it is Trevor, not Kirsty, who has been dead and in Hell the whole time. When Trevor\u2019s marriage to Kirsty soured (a falling out that included Trevor taking several lovers as well as tracking down a Lament Configuration to kill Kirsty with in order to inherit her family\u2019s money), Kirsty made another deal with Pinhead to bring him five souls in exchange for hers, including Trevor\u2019s. <\/span><\/p>\n As a movie, Hellseeker<\/i> is a letdown, especially as Kirstynonly has about twenty minutes of total screentime. As a story, however, it manages to fulfill a few more elements of Kirsty\u2019s fairy tale journey (she finds a temporary home, receives another gift, and \u201cdies\u201d only to be resurrected) as well as highlighting the darkness within her, implicitly revealing her to be a willing murderer, albeit of people who may have deserved it. It leaves the character on a compelling note, as she is given the Lament Configuration to keep by the authorities at the end, implying that she is now one of the mortal keepers (and thus \u201cpushers\u201d) of the box.<\/span><\/p>\n Sadly, none of the subsequent Hellraiser<\/i> films picked up on this thread, failing to involve either Lawrence or Kirsty in any way. Instead, they followed a different path, ending up at a new direct-to-video film<\/a> being released this month, complete with a new actor playing the iconic Pinhead. But Kirsty has carried on in the realm of comic books, where in the Boom! Studios publications from 2011-2015 (written by Barker himself along with Christopher Monfette) she underwent many new developments, including becoming a Cenobite herself, and Pinhead\u2019s successor. The fact that this is a logical destination for her character speaks volumes about her uniqueness as a Final Girl. Hopefully we\u2019ll be able to see her do battle with (or perhaps join) the forces of Hell on screen one more time in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/hellraiser-2-julia-channard-cenobite-kiss.jpg\")
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