Women in Horror: Top 30 Female Horror Movie Characters

Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) in Hellraiser (New World Pictures)

27. Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence, Hellraiser series)

The “final girl” of the first Hellraiser movie by Clive Barker is Kirsty Cotton. A teenage girl, she ends up losing her parents before barely surviving her encounter with the Cenobites. Ashley Laurence does a great job playing Kirsty, making her both likeable and sympathetic, yet tough at the same time.

Kirsty returns in Hellraiser 2, as the nightmare isn’t over just yet. Locked up in a mental asylum, she winds up terrorized by Pinhead once again. She is even taken to the Cenobites’ realm, but manages to find a way to escape back to Earth. Anyone who can come face to face with Pinhead so much, even falling into his seemingly inescapable otherworld and still surviving, is obviously a legitimate badass.

Kirsty returns to the film series again in the sixth movie, Hellraiser: Hellseeker. This surprisingly enjoyable sequel stands out as one of the better follow-ups in the series. Set some time after Kirsty’s last appearance, it seems she is moving on with a new fiance, Trevor (Dean Winters of Oz fame). When the two crash their car into a river, Kirsty turns up missing as Trevor tries to find her. I won’t spoil it, but Kirsty’s involvement in the ending is awesomely unexpected.