This paper presents a case study of how female protagonists (or so-called 'final girls') in horror films, particularly in slasher films, use language compared to their male counterparts. The study investigates semantics, lexical choices (such as expressions of pleading and bargaining), orthographic prosody and swear words in a corpus of horror films using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The results show that there are differences and similarities between female and male protagonists, with certain stereotypes about gendered language confirmed but others rejected. Overall, the paper is a first step towards the investigation of horror from a (corpus)linguistic perspective.