My Heart Is a Chainsaw

Jade Daniels attempts to leave her house on March 13, the Friday before Spring Break, after accidentally dying her hair orange. Jade is obsessed with slasher movies and constantly references them. She is part Indigenous American and the daughter of Tab Daniels, who has an alcohol addiction and was severely injured in a car accident. Jade wishes that she could live with her white mother, Kimmy, but Kimmy left the family six years ago, and though she works in town Jade only sees her in passing, and they do not speak. Jade, tired of enduring her father’s mockery and abuse, tries to hit him unsuccessfully. Jade then knees him in the testicles and leaves, even though it is freezing cold, and she only has her work coveralls, which she was wearing when she came home from school that day after working as a janitor to help support herself and her father, to wear.

Jade goes to the construction staging sight for a new, wealthy development called Terra Nova, which is being built in the national forest across the lake. Nearby are the ruins of Camp Blood, an old summer camp that was once the location of a murder 50 years ago. At the construction site, she finds several construction workers burning trash and she stands next to the fire to keep warm. The construction workers tell her that they are in a somber mood because something bad happened to their co-worker, Greyson Brust. Jade mentions that his name sounds like a killer from a slasher movie and then recounts the story of Cropsy, the villain of the slasher movie The Burning. Jade compares herself to the groundskeeper who, after being cruelly pranked and burned by kids at a summer camp, returns to attack the campers with hedge clippers. Jade sees herself as someone on the edge of snapping and returning to attack the town as well. As she speaks, she begins to cry and shiver, worrying the construction workers.

One of the workers, referred to as Shooting Glasses because of his yellow aviators, tries to drive her somewhere warmer using a car that he found on the edge of the lake. Jade notices a glittery pink shirt in the car. Jade cannot stand the judgment and pity that she feels from everyone in the town and so she runs away from the car. She jumps off the edge of the dock and lands in the canoe tied up there. In the canoe, she cuts her wrist in an attempted suicide. 

An interlude, written as a history paper by Jade to her high school teacher Mr. Holmes, explains the history and themes of slasher movies. Jade argues that revenge is the central idea of a slasher film, and that the villains are always attempting to punish those who have committed previous wrongs.

Sheriff Hardy drives Jade to school once she returns from an eight-week stay in a psychiatric hospital after her suicide attempt. There are only a few weeks left to finish her senior year of high school. Jade has been given community service for “unauthorized use of the town canoe” (36). She worries about getting a lot of attention at school because of her suicide attempt. Sheriff Hardy gives her an envelope containing her possessions. At school, she opens the envelope to find her nametag, her earrings, and a pink cellphone in a plastic bag. Jade knows that the phone is not hers and sees that it has a sticker on the back with a phone number beginning with the country code to the Netherlands.

Jade goes to the bathroom to put on eyeliner and encounters Rica Lawless and Greta Dimmons, who remark that there will be 32 seniors graduating after all. In the bathroom, Jade encounters a new student named Letha Mondragon. Letha is beautiful and has perfect hair and clothes. She is also Black, which is unusual in Idaho. Jade is stunned by Letha’s pristine appearance and realizes that she is the embodiment of the “final girl” trope from horror movies. Letha reveals that she is from Terra Nova, the new housing development across the lake, and invites Jade to hang out once her house is finished.

Another interlude written as a paper to Mr. Holmes explains the concept of the “final girl.” Jade suggests that final girls always have the coolest names and that they are the most traditionally “virtuous” and good characters in horror movies. She writes that the final girl is the only one capable of escaping and defeating the killer, providing the only hope for the audience. Jade describes one particular final girl, Constance from the film Just Before Dawn, who kills the murderer in a fight. She admires Constance for her power and ability to defeat a bad guy.

During history class, Mr. Holmes shows them footage he captured when flying an ultralight airplane around the shores of the lake. Jade is distracted, trying to identify if a slasher movie is starting now that Letha, the final girl, has arrived. She notes the signs of vice in the students, and debates whether the killer’s motivation will be due to a prank pulled in her parent’s generation or trespassing around Camp Blood. Mr. Holmes’s footage reveals a large group of dead, butchered elk. He suspects that they were attacked by bears, interpreting this as a warning against building Terra Nova in the national forest. The aircraft footage shifts to a yacht where a blonde woman is sunbathing, whom Letha reveals to be her stepmother, Tiara. This confirms Jade’s theory that Letha is a final girl, because the final girl is often coping with an issue in her past.

After class, Jade goes to the school’s supply closet to find new coveralls for her job as a janitor. She charges the pink phone but cannot figure out the passcode to open it. Her dad’s friend and fellow janitor, Rexall, offers to help her break into it in exchange for cash. He flirts with her even though she is underage, and she threatens to report him for that unless he helps her. She knows that he keeps spy cams around the school to watch girls changing. They manage to open the phone, and Jade finds the video of Sven and Lotte in the canoe. She hears them screaming but feels excited that this means a slasher movie is really happening in her town. When she leaves the building, however, she accidentally drops the phone in a puddle. Two fourth-grade girls try to help her pick it up and are nearly hit by the bus, but Jade pulls them back and saves them. As the children’s mother, Misty Christy, hugs her, Jade feels miscast in the role of the hero, and leaves.

Jade describes the plot elements necessary for a slasher movie in her essay to Mr. Holmes. She identifies that every slasher movie must have an initial blood sacrifice, adults in positions of authority becoming incompetent, a single night event like a party, a signature weapon for the killer, a murderer, and a final girl. Jade also mentions that slasher movies always have a sequel, which involves masks and a SlasherCam, but she claims that she will write about that next semester to pass history.