Girl Has to Kill Everyone
A horror genre. Primary title: Martyrs (2008), dir. Pascal Laugier (and the 2016 American remake).
The heart of the genre is trafficking and captivity: she has to get through a whole operation — the handlers, the buyers, the guards, the ring — and "everyone" is plural on purpose. One girl against one attacker, and home or work invasion, fit the genre, but they are not primary to it, and they are much slower to watch.
The two tests
- If she stops killing, does she die? → the Martyrs wing.
- Is the film watching her be the monster, with or without a snapping point? → the Eyes of My Mother wing.
- Neither → adjacent, or pass.
The core wing — she has to kill everyone to survive or escape
Captivity & Escape
She is taken, caged, or locked in; the only door out is through every captor. Ordered by closeness to Martyrs — the top entries share its brutality and its bleakness, the lower ones trade some of that for stylization.
| Title (year) | Setup |
|---|---|
| Martyrs (2016) | The American remake of the primary title: the same captivity, the same way out |
| Caged / Captifs (2010) | Held by organ traffickers; kills the surgeon, the handlers, and the dogs on the way out |
| Even Lambs Have Teeth (2015) | Two women escape holding cells in a town the captor family owns |
| Bound to Vengeance (2015) | Escaped captive forces her abductor to lead her through the whole trafficking ring |
| Raze (2013) | Abducted into a bunker; 50 women forced to fight to the death, snipers on their loved ones |
| Carnage Park (2016) | Dumped in a sniper's electric-fenced desert compound |
| The Furies (2019) | Wakes in a box in the woods; kill-or-be-killed game with masked assassins |
| Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973) | Trafficked and mute; trains in secret, then executes every handler |
| Black Rock (2012) | Three women hunted on a remote island; the only way off is through the hunters |
| Would You Rather (2013) | Deadly parlor game in a mansion; leaving alive means no one else does |
| Fresh (2022) | Locked basement; freedom means killing everyone upstairs |
| The Princess (2022) | Locked in a tower; fights down through a castle of soldiers |
Siege fits · not primary · slower
She is cornered in one location and the killers come to her. Home and work invasion fit the genre, but are not primary to it and are slower to watch. Ordered by closeness to Martyrs.
| Title (year) | Setup |
|---|---|
| Hunt Her, Kill Her (2023) | Night-shift janitor alone in a factory vs. masked intruders |
| While She Was Out (2008) | Christmas Eve; four attackers, one toolbox, no survivors |
| Intruders / Shut In (2015) | Agoraphobic woman can't chase the burglars out — so she locks them in with her |
| You're Next (2011) | Family estate ambushed by masked killers; survivalist upbringing kicks in |
| Everly (2014) | Four-year captive in an apartment fends off waves of assassins |
| Till Death (2021) | Handcuffed to her dead husband as hired killers arrive |
| Becky / The Wrath of Becky (2020, 2023) | 13-year-old vs. escaped convicts at a lake house |
| The Owners (2020) | Trapped inside a house with a sadistic older couple |
| Wait Until Dark (1967) | Blind woman kills the lights and fights three invaders on her terms — the grandmother of the genre |
| Kimi (2022) | Agoraphobic tech worker who can't leave her apartment; the men come for her and the apartment becomes the weapon |
| Run Hide Fight (2020) | Trapped in a school under attack; hunts the shooters one by one |
Backwoods & Hunted
Rural isolation; she is hunted like an animal and has to hunt back to get out alive. Ordered by closeness to Martyrs. The one-girl-one-attacker setups here fit, but are slower and not the heart of the genre.
| Title (year) | Setup |
|---|---|
| I Spit on Your Grave / Deja Vu (2010, 2019) | Cornered at a remote cabin; engineers traps to eliminate every attacker |
| Eden Lake (2008) | Hunted through the woods by a teen gang; pure ugly desperation |
| The Last House on the Left (2009) | The gang shelters in the victim's family home; the family executes them all |
| Ravage (2019) | Photographer witnesses a crime, gets taken; survivalist skills, one by one |
| Avenged (2015) | Mute woman taken by a backwoods gang; supernatural twist on the same mechanics |
| Final Girl (2015) | Boys who hunt women for sport pick the one trained for exactly this |
Urban & Stylized Necessity
Same no-exit logic, city streets or heightened action styling.
| Title (year) | Setup |
|---|---|
| Ms .45 (1981) | Attacked twice in one day in NYC; the .45 becomes her only functional option |
| Freeway (1996) | Teen trapped with a serial killer; shoots her way through a corrupt landscape |
| We Will Not Die Tonight (2018) | Manila stuntwoman crosses a crime boss; fights her way to safety |
Secondary genre: she is the monster
Primary title: The Eyes of My Mother (2016), dir. Nicolas Pesce. She is the monster. Sometimes there is a snapping point and sometimes there never was one — the films sit together either way, because what the movie is watching is her, not her escape.
With a snapping point — an ordinary girl and then a clear before and after
| Title (year) | Setup |
|---|---|
| Carrie (1976, 2013) | Bullied telekinetic; the prom doors close and the pressure gives |
| Pearl (2022) | Trapped farm life and a dead dream; the axe comes after the audition |
| Bedevilled (2010) | Island drudge abused by everyone until the scythe comes out |
| American Mary (2012) | Med student assaulted; the scalpel turns outward |
| Thelma (2017) | Repression lifts and the power comes up with it |
| Ginger Snaps (2000) | Adolescence as the trigger; the change arrives monthly |
| Ms .45 (1981) | Also in the core — mute garment worker turns the city into a range |
Without one — no break, no trigger, this is simply who she is
| Title (year) | Setup |
|---|---|
| Audition (1999) | The quiet woman was always the horror; the date was the hunt |
| May (2002) | Builds the friend she wants out of the people who disappoint her |
| Excision (2012) | Surgical fantasies that were never a phase |
| The Love Witch (2016) | Enchants men to death and feels no conflict about it |
| Raw (2016) | Discovers what she already was, and doesn't turn back |
| Trouble Every Day (2001) | Appetite as condition, not choice |
| In My Skin (2002) | Turns the compulsion inward and keeps going |
Adjacent genres
| Title (year) | Setup |
|---|---|
| Revenge (2017) | Retribution, not escape — she hunts them after surviving |
| Peppermint (2018) | Years-later vigilante revenge |
| Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) | Revenge list, stylized to the ceiling |
| Kill List / Inside / Frontier(s) / A Dark Song (2011, 2007, 2007, 2016) | Martyrs tone-and-dread cousins — atmosphere, not mechanics |
Near the genre, but not in it
These have the premise, but nobody is a girl who has to kill everyone.
| Title (year) | Setup |
|---|---|
| The Liability (2012) | Almost on genre: the trafficking premise is there, but it is not the girl killing everyone |
| Taken (2008) | Almost on genre: a trafficking ring, but the film is about her father doing the killing, not her |
Where to watch
As of 29 Sep 2026 (checked against JustWatch, Reelgood and the services' own pages). Free catalogues rotate monthly — treat as leads, not guarantees.
Free on Tubi: Martyrs, Even Lambs Have Teeth, Hunt Her Kill Her, While She Was Out, Final Girl, Ravage, Avenged, Black Rock, I Spit on Your Grave (2010) + Deja Vu, Revenge, Ms .45, American Mary, Eden Lake
Free elsewhere: Raze and Would You Rather (Kanopy, with a library card); The Furies (Hoopla); Carnage Park (Roku Channel, Plex, Kanopy); Freeway (Roku Channel, Plex, YouTube Free — Tubi has Spanish audio only); Hunt Her Kill Her and I Spit on Your Grave also on the Roku Channel
Not free anywhere right now: Caged (rent), Bound to Vengeance (AMC+, Sundance Now). Usually on subscription: Fresh / The Princess / Run Hide Fight (Hulu), Till Death / You're Next / Becky (Netflix/Prime), Wait Until Dark (rental)
How to find more
Logline mining — search these phrases plus "movie":
Martyrs wing: "she must fight her way out", "must kill them all", "make it through the night alive", "forced to fight to the death", "her only chance of survival"
Monster wing: "she was always", "her true nature", "a quiet young woman who", "her appetite", "unsettlingly calm"
Monster wing, snapping point: "pushed past her limit", "finally breaks", "something inside her gives"
Keyword databases:
- IMDb keywords: female-protagonist + held-captive, fight-for-survival, kidnapped-woman, female-fighter
- bestsimilar.com tags: trapped, held captive, game of death, characters-killed-one-by-one
- Letterboxd "good for her" lists — then apply the genre test to sort revenge out
- Tubi's own categories: the Revenge category, plus the "you may also like" rows off Raze and I Spit on Your Grave
People to follow: Pascal Laugier, Coralie Fargeat, Nicolas Pesce, Claire Denis, Julia Ducournau, Brian De Palma (monster wing), Zoë Bell (fight-out wing)
