The Final Girl Support Group

The Final Girl Support Group (2021) is Grady Hendrix’s sixth book and fifth horror novel. Hendrix is most known for his 2014 bestselling novel Horrorstör about a night of terror that plays out in an IKEA-like store. He also penned Paperbacks from Hell, a nonfiction examination of horror fiction from the 1970s and 1980s. The Final Girl Support Group centers on a group of women who have lived through horrific incidents of violence which evoke familiar horror genre tropes from the 1970s and 1980s, “final girls” who once again become prey for an unknown murderer.

The production company Annapurna bought the rights to adapt the novel into a series, which is billed as both a tribute to and subversion of 1980s slasher films.

This study guide refers to the 2021 hardcover edition from Berkley Books.

Content Warning: The source material includes depictions of mass murders, depictions of graphic violence, references to violence against women, and ableist tropes and language.

Plot Summary

Narrator Lynnette Tarkington is part of the Final Girls support group, which has six members: Heather DeLuca, Marilyn Torres, Dani Shipman, Julia Campbell, and Lynnette. There used to be seven, but Chrissy Mercer is no longer with them because she was a traitor.

As the novel opens, Lynnette sees images from a mass murder at Camp Red Lake, the retreat for survivors of violence that Adrienne Butler runs. There is only one survivor: Stephanie Fugate.

At group, Dani announces she’s leaving to spend more time with her wife Michelle, who is dying of cancer. Heather accuses Lynnette of not being a real Final Girl. Marilyn answers her phone, and they learn Adrienne has been found dead, killed at Camp Red Lake. Adrienne’s story was the basis for the movie franchise Summer Slaughter: When she was a teenage camp counselor at Camp Red Lake, someone murdered her fellow counselors.

Later, Lynnette is in her apartment when there’s a knock at the door: It’s Julia and a reporter called Russell. Lynnette is spooked by their arrival and fires a shot toward them, but Julia manages to calm her down. Julia’s high school and college boyfriends went on murder sprees, but she survived. The movie franchise based on Julia’s story is Slay. Julia thinks someone is writing a book about the support group. The police arrive, having been alerted to sounds of gunshots at Lynnette’s property. The police open fire on Lynnette’s apartment and bullets fly through the window. Lynnette flees, ashamed to run just like she did during the murders she survived. Lynnette never killed her monster—that’s why she might not be a real Final Girl.

Lynnette goes to Dr. Carol Elliott’s house for help and meets Pax, Dr. Carol’s obnoxious eight-year-old son. Skye, Dr. Carol’s older son who’s in his early twenties, asks to see Lynnette’s scars.

Dani is in custody because she shot at the police, who came to find her when someone confessed to what Dani had thought were her brother’s crimes. Dani’s older brother Nick hurt animals and people, so he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. When the inmates escaped years later, Nick murdered people on his way to Dani, who eventually killed him. The franchise based on her story is The Babysitter Murders.

Lynnette asks Skye to take her to her apartment so she can get her hard drive—she’s the one who’s been writing a book about the support group. Skye drops Lynnette off at Marilyn’s. When she was younger, Marilyn went to check on her grandfather’s grave, and ran into the Hansens, a family of murderous cannibals. Marilyn survived, but a year later they came after her again, and this time she killed the remaining Hansens. Now Marilyn is married to a wealthy owner of prisons. The movie franchise based on her story is Panhandle Meathook.

Marilyn, Lynnette, and Heather retrieve Michelle, Dani’s dying wife, from the hospice. They want to take her to Dani’s ranch, but Michelle is too far gone to tell them where it is, so they bring her to a park, where she dies.

Heather calls the cops on Lynnette. Letters have surfaced that suggest Lynnette had sex with Ricky Walker before he murdered Lynnette’s family on Christmas Eve when she was a teenager. Lynnette survived by playing dead, and police officer Garrett P. Cannon killed Ricky and saved her. Then, the next Christmas Eve, Ricky’s brother Billy came to avenge his brother’s death at Lynnette’s foster parents’ house. He killed everyone and smashed her skull, but she survived again by playing dead, and again Garrett saved her. Her franchise is Slay Bells.

When Dr. Carol visits Lynnette in jail, Lynnette becomes suspicious that Dr. Carol is the killer after the Final Girls. Suddenly, the police officer who brings Lynnette food tries to kill her because he’s a crazed fan. Garrett saves her again, and then lets her escape. She takes his car and goes to find Stephanie Fugate to keep her safe from whoever is killing the Final Girls.

Lynnette gets to Stephanie just as Dr. Carol shows up to Stephanie’s house. Lynnette coerces Stephanie to leave with her, and they go to Chrissy’s house in the woods. There, Chrissy’s murderous boyfriend Keith tries to hurt Lynnette, until Chrissy tells him to back off. Chrissy runs a museum full of “murderabilia,” with rooms for each Final Girl—the reason the support group considers her a traitor. Heather’s room is terrifying: Hers is the only story that includes the supernatural—she is the Dream King’s Final Girl. Her franchise is Deadly Dreams. While Chrissy shows Lynnette emails seemingly proving that Dr. Carol is the killer, Keith captures Stephanie. To save Stephanie, Lynnette drives the car into the side of the house and unintentionally kills Chrissy. She gets Stephanie in the car, and they take off.

At a motel, Lynnette feels devastated that she killed someone. She vows to never kill again. Then, Lynnette looks at a comic book Pax drew—it’s full of drawings of “Sky Man” decapitating the Final Girls. Lynnette realizes their monster is Skye.

Stephanie suggests they go see Dani, who tells them everyone is going to Camp Red Lake. Lynnette explains that Skye is going to kill the Final Girls. They drive Dani’s truck to Camp Red Lake. Suddenly, Stephanie hits Lynnette in the head with a sledgehammer. Stephanie is another murderer. Before Lynnette can warn Dani, Stephanie runs Dani’s truck over Lynnette’s legs and backs hard into Dani, who flies back into the bushes, but gets away. Stephanie thinks Lynnette is dead, so she takes off to the camp.

Adrienne’s ghost urges Lynnette to keep going. She and Julia get Dani and the others into a “panic cabin” Lynnette knows about from Adrienne. Lynnette goes out an escape hatch to find Stephanie, but runs into Skye, who almost kills her until Heather knocks him out. Stephanie arrives and threatens to shoot them. She and Skye want to get famous for killing the Final Girls. Lynnette tells Stephanie that Skye has been grooming and manipulating her: Skye will be glorified for the murders, and the Final Girls will be considered posthumous heroes, while Stephanie will be a footnote, hardly remembered. Lynnette tackles Stephanie and knocks the gun away. The police arrive and take Skye and Stephanie.

When the Final Girls visit Stephanie in prison, Lynnette invites her to a Final Girl support club meeting because, as someone who was manipulated by Skye, Stephanie was a survivor of Skye’s abuse and manipulation.