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Friday the 13th Has a Lot of Final Girls, but Only One Is the Absolute Worst
Slashers are known for having a predictable formula so well known that the Scream franchise has spent three decades mocking them. One of the most used tropes is that of the final girl. She’s often book smart and shy, the type of young woman who notices everything around her while her friends are too busy partying and having sex. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in Halloween is the epitome of this. The Friday the 13th series, with 12 movies and counting, has a plethora of final girls too, with none saving the day in multiple movies. Some have been great, like Ginny (Amy Steele) in Friday the 13th Part 2. Others, not so much. The worst, by far, shows up in the movie Jason Voorhees isn’t even part of. Sorry, Pam Roberts (Melanie Kinnaman) from Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, but your final girl character is just awful.
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In 1984’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Jason Voorhees dies. No, really. In the film’s conclusion, young Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) decimates him with a machete, finally ending his reign of terror. Still, the franchise was too profitable to be put to rest, so the next year it returned with Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Jason might be dead and buried, but a new killer emerges, wearing a familiar hockey mask, to hack up teens around the Pinehurst Halfway House.
This is the home of troubled teens, including a teenage Tommy, now played by John Shepherd, who is so disturbed that we’re led to wonder if he could be the killer. A New Beginning is a flawed sequel and is seen by many as the worst of them all, yet it tries to do something different by examining the trauma of a male survivor after he takes out a mass killer. At the same time, it’s a murder mystery. Could it be Tommy? Is it someone at the halfway house? Or is Jason, somehow, back from the dead?
Pam Roberts Starts Off Being an Interesting Character
Running the home is Dr. Matt Letter (Richard Young) and the woman assisting him, Pam Roberts. She’s another in a long line of pretty young blondes, but Pam is different from the usual slasher fodder. She’s a kind soul who is genuinely interested in people and wants to help those who need it the most. That is shown several times, with Pam consoling a struggling patient or volunteering her time to take another, Reggie (Shavar Ross), to visit his family.
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Pam also takes an interest in helping Tommy, who often sits quietly by himself, only to fly off the handle in a fit of rage in other moments. She feels like she could be the continuation of Ginny from Friday the 13th Part 2, the camp counselor studying to be a child psychologist. Rather than hating Jason, Ginny feels sorry for the boy he used to be. Is Pam who Ginny would aim to be like?
Pam Fails as a Final Girl in the Last Act of ‘Friday the 13th: A New Beginning’
Ginny is regarded by many as the best final girl because of her compassion, combined with her strength. When Jason Voorhees shows up in Friday the 13th Part 2, even though she’s scared, she takes the fight to him. This is where Pam Roberts falters badly. She’s not a coward who flees the scene per se, but she adds so little. Pam will investigate, and she makes it her mission to protect young Reggie, which is of course commendable. Yet scene after scene has Pam on the defense with her screaming, falling in the mud, or having to be saved by Reggie. She’s reactionary when the final girl role requires a forward thinker. It’s quite obvious that the filmmakers didn’t know what to do with her, because the best they could come up with was to put Pam in a thin, tight, white shirt, then turn on the rain sprinklers and send her running (and bouncing) through the third act.
Pam Roberts does get a few moments, like when she grabs a chainsaw and goes after “Jason”, or in the last scene in the barn loft, when she fights back again. After the nightmare ends, we see her in shock at a hospital cradling a sleeping Reggie in her lap. She is by no means a bad person. The fault is that Pam’s inclusion in the film feels like a narrative device. Someone needs to find the victims, so make it Pam. Someone has to run away from the killer, so make it Pam. Someone has to fight him and fail, so make it Pam.
Pam Roberts exists in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning to move the story along, a story that’s not about her. Tommy Jarvis is the final boy. This is his movie. He’ll get the kill and save everyone in the end. Pam is there because the formula requires that a female character must live. With everyone else dead, it had to be her. She makes it to the end by sheer luck of a thin script and nothing else.
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning is available to rent or buy on VOD services.
- Release Date
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March 22, 1985
- Runtime
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92 minutes
- Director
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Danny Steinmann
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John Shepherd
Tommy Jarvis
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Melanie Kinnaman
Pam Roberts
