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The slasher genre is notable for a lot of clichés and tropes, most recognizably the one of “the final girl” — a role personified by Jamie Lee Curtis‘ Laurie Strode, who managed to to survive her brother Michael Myers’ desperate attempts to kill her in at least three films in the Halloween franchise (ultimately succumbing to him in Halloween: Resurrection, the eighth and final installment of the original franchise before director Rob Zombie rebooted the series with his own remake of John Carpenter‘s 1978 classic). Many consider Curtis to be the ultimate scream queen, having survived plenty of mysterious serial killers in a variety of slasher flicks, and her association with the genre is indeed important, especially considering her tendency to be the first female character to outwit a slow-moving, typically bumbling masked killer. And while the final girl trope offers an attempt at producing a feminist statement in the genre (even though the character is typically saved by her own moral, virginal qualities), there’s another character trope that barely gets any credit: the first girl.

It’s apt that Curtis is known as the quintessential final girl, especially considering her mother Janet Leigh‘s status as the first protagonist to be unceremoniously offed in the first act of a film. Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho sees its gorgeous leading lady murdered in the shower, setting off a creepy string of events that unravels the mystery of Norman Bates’ strange home life. It also surprised the hell out of audience members who didn’t expect Leigh’s demise to come so quickly in the film (or at all!). And while Psycho isn’t a true slasher flick compared to the genre’s heyday in the late ’70s and early ’80s, it certainly set a standard for plot twists and turns, as well as solidifying the necessary character who must perish in order to set a slasher film’s plot in motion.

Jamie Lee Curtis is definitely the star of Halloween, but her co-stars P.J. Soles and Nancy Loomis shine as Laurie’s friends Lydia and Annie — both of whom perish at Michael Myers’ hands. But don’t forget Myers’ first victim: his older sister Judith Myers, played by Sandy Johnson. Johnson, who was a Playboy Playmate of the Month in June 1974, didn’t have the illustrious career of her first-girl predecessor Janet Leigh; her only other film roles include those in sexploitation movies with titles like Gas Pump Girls and H.O.T.S. And while you barely see Johnson’s face (as the POV-shots of her murder are shown through young Michael’s disorienting Halloween mask), her role in the film is a crucial one: it serves as the first shocking moment in which we understand that the villain who will haunt our nightmares from then-on is a true example of unmitigated evil.

The first girl, of course, is never the hero, nor does she get much of a chance to make her mark on an audience. Friday the 13th‘s first victims are a pair of horny teens, and I bet you couldn’t come up with their characters’ names — much less name the actors who played them. Similar, even, for A Nightmare on Elm Street‘s first girl: Tina Grey, played by Amanda Wyss, whose first-act murder, while certainly memorable for its cinematic inventiveness, pales in comparison to the onslaught of terror thrown at Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy Thompson. Jog your memory and see if you can think of who perished first in Prom Night, Terror Train, or any of the Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street films. Unless you’re a slasher genre obsessive, the odds are that you can’t.

Being the first girl is a thankless job, but that doesn’t mean some films have turned the trope on its head. There is, of course, the original first girl in Psycho‘s Janet Leigh. But Wes Craven, who practically elevated the genre to an inventive peak with the first Nightmare on Elm Street, also made the first girl into a character as important as her final counterpart with Drew Barrymore’s brief role in Scream, his post-modern ode to the horror genre. Thirty-six years after audiences first saw Marion Crane stabbed repeatedly in the Bates Motel shower, Barrymore’s Casey Becker is stalked, terrorized, and brutally murdered in Scream‘s 12-minute opening sequence (certainly rivaling Leigh’s 45 minutes of screen time). It remains one of the most memorable moments of the film, and it was replicated in each of the film’s three sequels — and subverted, introducing the concept of “the first guy” in parts two and three.

For the most part, an actor gets the most notice when their character manages to survive a psychopath’s murderous ways. They don’t control their fate — it’s up to the screenwriter (and, in part, a casting director) to decide when they’ll take their final bow. The first girl is always the unluckiest member of the troupe, which is a shame. Without her, we wouldn’t really know what we’re up against.

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Photos: Everett Collection