boooooooom!

Can you sense the waves of electric excitement emanating from your computer monitor as you read this? Can you feel those waves burning your eyes with awesome? I bet you can! No, it's not late-season allergies making your eyes well up with tears...why, that's just the supreme power of this, Final Girl's

500th POST!

You're damn right it is, Charles Nelson Reilly. As the kids today might say, OMG! My Two-Year Anniversary Spectacular was decidedly less than spectacular, so I figured I'd take the opportunity presented by this milestone post to embark upon a little journey down memory lane. Grab a beer or a fruit smoothie and feel free to join me as I reminisce, and be sure to add some sweet, sweet reminiscin's of your own.

People ask me all the time*, "Stacie how in the world did Final Girl ever get its start? Did the idea come to you in a fever dream? Did you see the words "START A HORROR BLOG" spelled out in a tortilla? It's hard to believe that such a blog didn't simply fall from the heavens in a rainbow shower of sparkles, but please, tell me- I must know! "

At that point in the conversation, the inquiring mind is usually on the ground clutching at the hem of my beautiful velvet robes. I free myself, insult them somehow in a clipped British accent- I tend to use some variation on the old "unwashed masses" line- and then I get back to playing video games. Yes, in beautiful velvet robes- sitting on one's couch playing Cooking Mama** is not an excuse for unglamourousness.

Anyway, as in most things in life, the primordial ooze from whence Final Girl eventually crawled was, of all things, a comic book message board. Yes, I hung from time to time out on a comic message board...in my capacity as a "comic book inker", it was all but essential to my work. One fateful afternoon, I noticed that one of my cyberpals was displaying a link to something called Dark, But Shining. I followed the link only to discover that my cyberpal had co-founded this...website- a blog, I think they call it?...about horror movies and stuff. I was intrigued, and I became a daily reader. Eventually I noticed that Dark, But Shining had links to other sites- other blogs where people were talking about horror movies and stuff. I was yet more intrigued! "Hmm," I thought. "Hmm. Hmm, indeed." Then I thought about something else, most likely about pizza or kittens.

After a few days of "Hmm"-ing, it came to me. Pointing my finger to the sky, I proclaimed loudly "Why yes! I, too, will start one of these so-called "horror" "blogs", for I, too, love horror movies and stuff! It will be remarkable and glorious...or at least, something to do!"

I studied what all the other bloggers were doing in order to come up with my niche, if you will- say, no one was writing about slasher films! I love 'em, so I figured I'd make 'em my 'thing'. Then it was onto a name, a process which set many of my brain cells on fire. I came up with an extremely short list of possibilities and settled on Final Girl. I think it's a pretty fucking rad name, although the runner-up, Stacie Magorium's Macabre Emporium of Horror Films and Pizza, Though Not Necessarily Together! would have been swell also.

All that was left was actually publishing the damn blog, and on June 11, 2005 I did just that, jumping tentatively into the horror blog community. Though today it seems as if everyone and their mother (and perhaps even their mother's mother and her favorite afghan) are blogging about horror, it was a small circle way back when, consisting primarily of Dark, But Shining, Warrenzone, The Groovy Age of Horror, M Valdemar, Mystery of the Haunted Vampire, and Corpse Eaters; to the best of my knowledge, I may have been the only female horror blogger at the time, although I know not the secrets of my peers. Some of these blogs have gone off to that big server in the sky, whilst others have changed throughout the years- Warrenzone is now forever trapped in 150 Days of Sodom (ouch!), whilst Curt and Co. have gone Beyond the Groovy Age.

This picture has nothing to do with anything, and it's only here to break up all the text. Oh, how I've gone on!

My early posts were pretty bad- not so bad that I want to delete them, but certainly bad enough that I cringe a little and think about re-writing them. What amazed me, though- and still does, truth be told- is that people were reading my crap and commenting on it. People I didn't even know! It's quite remarkable and it's one of the things I love about writing in a blog format...I really dig the interactivity of the whole process, even when you're being a jerk- or is that especially when you're being a jerk? But seriously, Final Girl has changed my life- yes, changed my life- in ways you wouldn't believe. I've made some very, very dear friends all because of this little site, and I literally have Final Girl to thank for the direction my life has taken. I've got Major Nefarious Plans That Have Yet to be Revealed, but it's nothing like what I expected when I clicked "select your template!" a couple of years ago. Altogether now...

AWWW!

Okay, enough of the mush...let's get down to brass tacks here. You there! Take my hand and let's remember together!

I love to swear. It's true. Now, I'm not one of those people who blurt out "fuck" every other word...oh my, no. Though I may completely wrong, I like to think that I swear creatively and use blue language for emphasis and the such. It's in my blood- really, you should hear my grandmother...she'd make a sailor explode in flames from the blushin'. I agonized for approximately 15 seconds as to whether or not to use foul language here at FG, but I came to a decision on this blog's second day, wherein I discussed The Ring and how it made me realize ghosts could be scary: "That image of ghosts- that just has every hooker has a heart of gold, every ghost has a heart like Casper- was shattered when the weird kid in The Ring turned to Naomi Watts and said, "You didn't help her, did you?" What the fuck?! Samara was pure evil? Oh. Oh, no. That's not playing by the rules. That's not cool at all."

I love stunts. My first event occurred rather early on in Final Girl's lifespan: SHOCKtober! I noticed that all the other horror bloggers were doing something special during the month of October, and I so desperately wanted to be a cool kid that I figured I should do something special as well. What's that? Why yes, I'd love to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge!

I had two marathons during that inaugural SHOCKtober: I watched all of the Friday the 13th films in one sitting, and a week later or so later I did the same with the Halloween films. A few highlights:

"My God, I lost an entire day of my life to the Friday the 13th films."

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

"My eyes were filled with tears of hatred and anger, and they burned...they burrrrrrned...."

"No no no no no no no no no. No no no nonononononononoNO! NO!"

I'm kinda surprised I'm still around to talk about it.

My love for events could not be restrained, however, and I soon began exploring the mysterious realm known as "not October". I've had Supernatural '70s Week, Ghost Week, Children Hate You Week, Animals Run Amok Week (twice, even!), Hello, Dolly! Week, and of course, Amicus Week. Actually, I used my first theme week (Supernatural '70s) as an excuse to talk about something besides slasher films. Though my focus remains on that subgenre, I think it's okay to branch out a little, right? RIGHT?! Tell me you still love me! It's obvious, looking back, that the word "week" means nothing to me; some "weeks" are only a couple of days, while others reach the double digits. The lesson here is, I cannot be restrained by society's meanings and definitions. Don't tread on me!

I love stunts...and you! In an attempt to meld my love of the themes and my love of the FG commenters, I began the Final Girl Film Club.

Okay, I say it was attempt to meld my love of the themes and my love of the FG commenters, but we all know it's really a small part of my ongoing bid for world domination...today, I make people watch horror movies...tomorrow, I will rule the universe! If there's one thing we all know by now, it's that I'm a power monger.

Anyway, the first Film Club post wasn't really a Film Club post at all- I synched up for a flick with my pal Brennon...err, John Barleycorn...of Look Back in Anger. We both watched Strange Behavior and wrote about it on the same day, with hilarious results ensuing...as well as the idea to do it again, with more people:

I really dig this concept of synchronized reviews of movies we've not seen before, and if anyone else out there wants to join in the fun, just drop me a line. GASP! I'll call it The Final Girl Film Club! Yeah! I'll be like Oprah and her Book Club! Except, of course, I'll be cooler than she is because...again, well, who isn't. I'll be sadder, though, because I'm not a powerful billionaire who knows the cast of Friends.

In other news, I loathe that show Friends.

Begin a Film Club I did on April 2, 2006, selecting Bloody Murder...a real stinker, to put it kindly.

I must say, though, after sitting through it and ruminating upon it, I could really only think of 5 things that were really wrong with it:

1. The plot
2. The dialogue
3. The acting
4. The directing
5. The fact that it was a horror movie, yet it was never, ever even a little bit scary

We Film Clubbers have chugged our way through 12 selections, and there's no end in sight. The universe is within my grasp!

I love the funny. Sometimes, I write some funny stuff. I think this stuff is funny:

Night of Bloody Horror: "Having Gerald McRaney of television's Major Dad in a movie is one thing...having Gerald McRaney of television's Major Dad in a movie humping someone is quite another. "

Trick or Treat: "So I was like 'Umm…are you threatening me, Trick or Treat? Are you fucking threatening ME in MY house? Because I will totally whale on you like you’ve never—' but then I stopped. Trick or Treat had started to cry softly."

The Final Girl Hall of Infamy: "He looks like Gene Shalit!"

Kingdom of the Spiders: "I thought it was a nice unexpected twist when the hot entomologist finds a spider in a drawer and, instead of shrieking, calmly picks it up and puts it outside...then again, she was an entomologist, so I guess she wouldn't flip out because she saw a spider. Never mind."

Hellraiser: Deader: "I mean, tacking Jason Voorhees into the last fifteen minutes of The Trip to Bountiful and changing the title to Jason vs Gramma doesn’t properly make it Friday the 13th Part 18, you know?

On the other hand, it would make it a film I’d very much like to see."

Frogs: "To prove once and for all that there no dignity in death nor in the late career of an aged Hollywood actor, we're treated to a shot of frogs climbing all over Ray Milland's ass."

Hitcher II: "Hitcher II is pretty much the same as The Hitcher, except instead of Rutger Hauer as the psycho bad guy hitchhiker, this time around it's Jake Busey as the psycho bad guy hitchhiker. To me, this is the equivalent of going to a strip club once and seeing Angelina Jolie do a routine and then you return the following week and you see the same routine but it's performed by the mom from Growing Pains. She’s lovely and all, but the effect isn’t quite the same, now is it?"

And so on and so on. I'm gonna keep on keepin' on, because shucks, I really do love this stupid blog.

I just want to say thanks to everyone who reads this site, everyone who's commented or dropped me a line, everyone who's linked to me, and everyone who's sent me money and prezzies***. Thanks to the community of film bloggers for putting out such kick-ass content that continues to inspire me.

Yay, Final Girl! Yay, 500 posts!

But enough about me...what do YOU think about me?


Oh, that Charles Nelson Reilly. Always keepin' it real!



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* no one ever asks me
** I have never actually played Cooking Mama, but I think we can all agree that it's the best videogame name ever.
***no one has ever sent me money or prezzies! What the eff?