Horror movies frequently feature a "final girl," a female character who survives to the end of the movie when most--or all--of the other characters do not. Stephen Graham Jones, author of My Heart Is a Chainsaw, is a big fan of the final girl trope. "The final girl is to the slasher as the silver bullet is to the werewolf, as daylight is to the vampire, as a headshot is to the zombie," Jones says in Episode 482 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Geek's Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley says that final girls tap into our natural tendency to root for the underdog. "It's more of an accomplishment for a young woman to defeat the bad guy than if it's some experienced, buff soldier," he says.

Hollywood movies usually depict the suburbs as a place of conformity and dark secrets. Horror author Grady Hendrix says this is particularly true of 1980s films like Poltergeist and A Nightmare on Elm Street, which critique the idea of the suburbs as being clean and new. "I think Poltergeist and Nightmare on Elm Street are both movies that say, 'No, history doesn't begin where you say it begins. There are crimes in the past that have been buried,'" Hendrix says in Episode 428 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Science fiction professor Lisa Yaszek says that suburban life has always been a particular source of anxiety for women. "I know from my own research that in the 1950s, women who were writing science fiction, absolutely one of their favorite topics was the horror of suburban life for women," she says.

AMC's new show The Terror presents a fictional retelling of the doomed Franklin expedition, which set off for the Arctic in 1845 and never returned. Horror author Grady Hendrix enjoyed the show's take on real-life characters like John Franklin and Francis Crozier. "This fits into my favorite genre out there," Hendrix says in Episode 314 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast, "which is good people trying to survive in a really horrible situation that is a crucible for their character." The show, based on a popular novel by Dan Simmons, imagines that Franklin's men were hunted by a bear-like monster called the Tuunbaq. Fantasy author Erin Lindsey says that blend of real history and supernatural horror works extremely well.