Grady Hendrix reimagines the horror movie sequel in 'Final Girl Support Group'

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Grady Hendrix loves horror movies, especially those old 80s slashers. And his new book is a tribute to that "final girl" at the end of so many of them: The one who doesn't necessarily survive by being smarter or stronger, but simply makes it to the end alive by not giving up. NPR's Audie Cornish interviewed him about his novel Final Girl Support Group, which is about exactly what it sounds like, a support group for women who survived psycho murderers — except it seems like someone's starting to hunt them down – again. As Hendrix says, what's the scariest thing for a "Final Girl?" A sequel.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong.
0:06.3	Okay, did you see the trailer for Scream 5? It is absolutely bonkers.
0:11.4	When do you like to play a game, Tara?
0:14.4	In it, Neff Campbell is back as Sidney Prescott, and she has to tell whoever the new
0:20.1	main girl is, everything she's learned,
0:22.6	you know, having lived through screams one through four. It's something I thought about while
0:27.9	listening to this interview with author Grady Hendrix. His novel, The Final Girl Support Group,
0:33.9	imagines the survivors of different horror movies coming together and comparing notes on
0:38.9	everything from survival strategies to lingering unease. And Hendrik says something like,
0:45.1	the only thing a so-called final girl can't escape is a sequel. The book goes deep into his
0:51.4	horror film fandom and he talks about it with NPR's Audie Cornish.
0:55.2	A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story.
0:59.4	But right now, you probably need more.
1:02.2	On Up First from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every day in under 15 minutes.
1:09.0	Because no one's story can capture all that's happening in this big,
1:13.5	crazy world of ours on any given morning. Listen now to the Up First podcast from NPR.
1:20.0	I'm going to start this segment with a few names you might recognize. Michael, Freddie, Jason,
1:25.2	the classic horror movie killers.
1:32.4	Now, how about Lori Strode, Nancy Thompson, Alice Hardy?
1:38.2	Well, these are the names of the women, the fictional characters, who are targeted in those films.
1:43.9	Lori Strode is the main character played by Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween franchise. Nancy Thompson is the
1:46.3	teenager haunted by Freddie Krueger in her dreams in Nightmare on Elm Street. And Alice Hardy
	...

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