In the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, chainsaw-toting crazy Leatherface kills every one of Sally's friends, but not her. For being the lone survivor, she is a heroine to us.
Curtis plays babysitter Laurie Strode in Halloween and faces every babysitter's worst nightmare: a psycho killer on the loose. Classic horror film lesson: The virgin always wins.
Wes Craven's Scream franchise would not be a successful franchise if not for Campbell's character Sydney. Her endless battle against a masked psycho is now an iconic part of pop-culture. Plus, if you make it through four movies, you have to be doing something right.
In The Shining, Wendy appears to be weak and frail at first, but when her husband slowly loses his mind and tries to murder her and their son, she shows what she's really made of. She manages to save her son, get them out of that creepy hotel with those freaky twins, and not get murdered. You go girl!
Foster plays Agent Starling in one of the scariest and well-known films ever made, Silence of the Lamb. She takes on crazy Dr. Hannibal Lecter and tries to get him to stop eating people's brains with a side of fava beans. It is her intellectual strength that helps her win this battle.
When Alein debuted in 1979, female heroes were rarely seen in movies. Ellen Ripley changed that when she took on a giant alien using her strength AND her brains.
Before we met Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien in 1979, the concept of a woman who fought her own battles without the help of a magic lasso (sorry Wonder Woman) or a costume (Catwoman), or who was fighting while sporting perfectly feathered hair and in a bikini (Charlie’s Angels) or a very strong man standing next to her (every woman in every action movie ever), was downright foreign to audiences. But director Ridley Scott changed that and he showed studios that women could also save the day.
Even though Weathers seemed like just a fame-mongering reporter who wanted the story at any cost, she turned out to be an ass-kicking heroine. Although she and Sydney were not the best of friends through out the franchise, they did team up to kick some major masked butt.
Many people may not think birds are that scary, but watch Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and you will be forever convinced. Hedren's character is not as ass-kicking as the other ladies on the list, but she does fight a whole bunch of feathered demons to be with her man.
Okay, so maybe she is more of an anti-hero than a heroine, but she is still awesome. Carrie tells the story of a girl who doesn't quite fit in with her peers and has a crazy mother. Even though she eventually ends up burning down her school's gymnasium and killing most of her peers, they kind of deserved it. She's a heroine in my book. The lesson is, don't make fun of the weird quiet girl because you may be killed at prom.
In What Lies Beneath, Pfeiffer plays a well-to-do woman living in Vermont with her husband. It turns out her husband murdered a woman he was having an affair with and she was haunting their house. No biggie. Claire remained strong throughout the ordeal however, and came out as the movie's hero.
In the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, chainsaw-toting crazy Leatherface kills every one of Sally's friends, but not her. For being the lone survivor, she is a heroine to us.
