If there are two things you need to know about Zandor, they are: 1) he is enthralled by anything and everything related to 1980’s horror, and 2) he speaks exclusively in the third person. 

So, when Zandor first heard the title of Grady Hendrix’s most recent horror novel, The Final Girl Support Group, he was immediately intrigued. Based on the title alone the book promised to be an innovative take on the classic final girl trope of ‘80s and ‘90s horror films. It begs the question, “what exactly would a therapy group for PTSD-addled femmes look like, and who the fuck thought gathering these women together would be a good idea?” 

Within the first five pages two things became apparent. The concept that Hendrix created for this book is not as innovative as the title suggests, and the main character / narrator is fucking insufferable. I mean, seriously, by page three Zandor was wishing that she had been another one of Tom Savini’s masterpieces. 

The book takes place in an alternate reality where the final girls of schlocky horror stardom are based on real-life women and their brushes with homicidal maniacs. The book follows these ‘real-life’ final girls as they gather for therapy with their psychiatrist and bicker with each other before all hell breaks loose and they’re forced to confront another killer, each other, and themselves. Now I expect that you’re reading this and saying to your screen, “wait, didn’t the Scream movies do exactly that with their in-universe “Stab” films?” Zandor’s answer to that, dear reader, is yes, yes they did. Did Hendrix also name his in-universe Scream analogue “Stab”? Yes, yes he did. Does this all feel kind of stupid? Yes, yes it does.

The main characters are all based on final girls of famous horror franchises. We have Marilyn Torres (Sally from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Adrienne Butler (Alice from Friday the 13^th), Dani Shipman (Laurie Strode from Halloween), Heather DeLuca (Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street), Julia Campbell (Sidney Prescott from Scream), and the main character Lynette Tarkington (Denise from Silent Night Deadly Night). Cleverly, Hendrix based his characters names on the real names of the actresses who starred in these films.  Like all of Hendrix’s female protagonists, these women are authentic, complex, and strong in their various ways. However, as admirable as many of them are, Zandor really only liked one of them, but we’ll talk about her later. Right now, we need to talk about the glaring problems with this book.

This book is too 2022 for its own good. Hendrix leans way too hard into the man-hating feminist trope and by page 50 Zandor literally said, “oh come on” and put the book down to let his T-levels recover. I mean, seriously, at one point Lynette essentially describes her therapist’s eight-year-old son as a chauvinist pig and ponders whether he’ll become a problem for her in the future. That same eight-year-old then tells her she has a nice rack, vocabulary that Zandor seriously doubts any eight-year-olds actually possess (if they do it’s a result of societal conditioning, which the book doesn’t even think about covering). Lynette continually refers to her friend Marilyn’s private security team as her “goons” which is an objectively shitty way to describe men who are risking their lives to protect you and your friend. Lynette investigates her therapist’s other son and upon seeing absolutely no red flags in his past, declares him “as clean as a man can be.” [emphasis Zandor’s]. Not to mention that every single named male character in the book is either trying to kill or exploit the protagonists. By this point in the book, Zandor has completely had it with Lynette; her PTSD-OCD-radical feminist combo is so over-the-top it’s not the slightest bit believable. Safe to say, Zandor would rather watch a 24-hour loop of Vladimir Putin riding a Sybian than read another book starring Lynette. 

There are two characters that almost make up for Lynette. Heather, the poly-drug addict and survivor of a Freddy Krueger analogue, and Marilyn the Uber-wealthy recovering alcoholic socialite. Heather is tenacious and wary and at the end of the day just wants to escape the pain of her trauma through copious use of heavy drugs. This tracks. Modern research on drug addiction has shown an extremely strong correlation with childhood sexual and physical abuse. Additionally, the way Hendrix portrays the addict’s erratic behavior and untrustworthiness makes me think he too has personal experience with one. Marilyn, on the other hand, is the motherfucking GOAT. She survives not one, but three, Texas chainsaw massacres, goes on to marry into Old Hollywood money, lives in a fortress in Bel Air with her Blackwater-esque private army and armored vehicles, and throws lavish fundraisers to save endangered lions. Plus, she drinks Vodka so casually the other characters mistake it for water. 

This review is threatening to turn into a treatise, so in the interest of brevity and in an attempt to avoid sounding like Zandor hated every minute of this book, let Zandor list some of the good bits:

1. The action was really well done.
2. Certain locations have a strong sense of place
3. There was a twist that Zandor did not see coming
4. Zandor gets wet over armored vehicles
5. The pages in between chapters do some excellent world building

Rating: 3.5/5 Solid book. Zandor will continue to read Grady Hendrix’s work.