Last Girl Standing Ending Explained

Here’s what the ending of indie horror Last Girl Standing is all about. Since the dawn of the slasher in the 1970s, the final girl trope has been a staple of the genre. The term refers to the last female character left alive in the wake of a horror villain’s rampage. Some notable final girls like Halloween’s Laurie Strode and Scream’s Sidney Prescott have gotten sequels that sort of explore the aftermath of the trope, but all too often see the battle-hardened heroine repeat the formula that worked the first time around. It’s relatively rare, however, for the horror genre to delve deeply into the psychological trauma of being the sole survivor of a massacre.

Benjamin R. Moody’s feature debut Last Girl Standing does exactly that and poses the question of what happens to the final girl once the credits roll. As such, the film begins where most horror movies end with final girl Camryn (Akasha Villalobos) emerging as the sole survivor of a bloodbath committed by a deer mask-wearing serial killer later dubbed “The Hunter,” who has butchered all her friends. After Camryn kills The Hunter, Last Girl Standing picks up five years later where she’s leading a lonely life largely cut off from the world apart from her job at a laundromat and constantly haunted by nightmares of her traumatic past.

Things start looking up for Camryn when a romance blossoms between her and co-worker Nick (Brian Villalobos) and she begins to bond with his friends. Just as the traumatized final girl starts coming out of her shell, however, she starts seeing The Hunter and becomes convinced he’s back from the dead to repeat history. However, Camryn seems to eventually accept her visions of The Hunter are PTSD-induced hallucinations with encouragement from new confidant Danielle (Danielle Evon Ploeger) who helps her get closure by visiting the killer’s grave.

Accepting that The Hunter is indeed dead, Camryn and Danielle head off to a private exhibit held by one of Nick’s artist friends at a trendy studio. There, Camryn finally acts on her attraction to Nick but just as the two are getting it on The Hunter reappears. She grabs a weapon and hacks away at The Hunter, only for the camera to pan away and reveal she’s actually hacked Nick to death. A clearly unhinged Camryn starts seeing all of Nick’s friends as The Hunter and murders them one-by-one until just Danielle remains.

Camryn is about to kill Danielle but luckily a few cops show up and take her down in a shower of bullets, leaving Danielle as Last Girl Standing’s new final girl. The cops lead a distraught Danielle to their cruiser where she hallucinates the now dead Camryn sitting in the backseat – just as Camryn did with The Hunter. The ending of Last Girl Standing implies the psychological trauma Camryn experienced after the death of her friends in the opening is about to repeat itself with Danielle. Unlike Laurie or Sidney, the final girls in Last Girl Standing don’t get a sequel in which they’ll outwit the killer again. Rather, they’re left so damaged and haunted by the experience that – at least in Camryn’s case, and possibly Danielle’s too – they turn into killers themselves.