X-Ray (1981), the Final Woman, and the Medical Slasher Film

This essay discusses the declining academic and continued popular currency of Carol J. Clover's concept of the Final Girl, and examines the term through X-Ray or Hospital Massacre (1981), a film of the first slasher cycle with a more mature protagonist than most. It extends Clover's ideas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPostmodern culture Vol. 28; no. 1
Main Author Leeder, Murray
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.09.2017
Subjects
Characters (Roles)
Clover, Carol J
Davidson, Boaz
Girls
Horror films
Interiority
Plot (Narrative)
Popular culture
Women
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Summary:This essay discusses the declining academic and continued popular currency of Carol J. Clover's concept of the Final Girl, and examines the term through X-Ray or Hospital Massacre (1981), a film of the first slasher cycle with a more mature protagonist than most. It extends Clover's ideas by showing how X-Ray is heavily concerned with medical issues, in particular the Foucauldian "medical gaze." The titular X-ray becomes a structural model for the invasive, destructive gazes deployed throughout the film, both by its villain and by the medical environment itself.
ISSN:1053-1920
1053-1920
DOI:10.1353/pmc.2017.0011