The Final Girls
For many, a slasher film assigned the PG-13 rating damns it
immediately. Like a cut-off switch, that rating might as well condemn
the film to the guillotine. When a film of the slasher variety doesn't
put out the particulars—sex, flesh, blood, and viscera—it is considered
just a tease, not worth giving attention to. But I'd say if that is how
the audience dismisses the 2015 slasher comedy, The Final Girls, they
are missing out on a gem. It doesn't even truthfully match Scream
Queens, the television show, in overall depravity and sick comic
content. It does, however, turn the slasher premise on its head, grabs
the genre by the legs, and spins it around like a top.
Taissa Farmiga (Vera's sister) is Max, a responsible, well-behaved
teenager with an actress mom (Malin Akerman in a gem part) who can
never escape a slasher film she was in 20 years ago in 1986 where she
played a victim killed right before having sex with a horndog (played
by the spirited Adam Devine). While out together, Max's mom takes her
eyes off the road momentarily (Max spilled a drink) and a crash kills
her. Max lives with her aunt and is coerced by her best friend's (Alia
Shawkat; "Search Party") horror nerd brother (Thomas Middleditch;
"Silicone Valley") to attend a special screening of her mom's infamous
cult slasher film, Camp Bloodbath, and an inexplicable fire breaks out
(the film's camera playfully follows a dropped liquor bottle and a
small tip of cigarette ash which results in a flame of fire that
ignites the theater into a building inferno). A dropped machete carried
by a fan is picked up by Max who rips open the movie screen as the
projector continues to play as she and her friends (including a guy
that likes her (Alexander Ludwig) and the guy's former girlfriend (Nina
Dobrev; "Degrassi" & "The Vampire Diaries")) escape, believing it to be
an exit from the theatre. Instead, it leads them literally into the
Camp Bloodbath film!
There have been movies in the past ("Midnight Movie" & "The Cabin in
the Woods" just two examples) which toyed around with the slasher /
horror genre, so "The Final Girls" doesn't exactly have the ability to
claim the mantle in that regard, but it certainly adds its own
delightful spin to the works. Look, this bends and warps the genre like
an artist given carte blanche with this canvas that has the material
available and the tools (this has a nice production and mighty fine
cinematography) provided to go to work.
A serial killer named Billy, a bullied victim of camp thugs who toss
firecrackers in the outhouse he's hiding, has grown into a psychopath,
wearing a Tiki mask and "chi-chi, ka-ka-ing" (quite blatantly close to
Jason's "kill call"), pursuing the camp counselors of a fictional
"Eagle Lodge" in the movie Max and her friends find themselves. The
rules of the slasher, its very fundamentals, are under gleeful attack,
with plentiful satiric jabs made towards 80s styles and stereotypes,
taking contemporary folks who occupy this space they find offensive and
questionable. The virginal final girl, the sex-and-drug party chick,
the "shy girl with the guitar", the nerd, the sex-fiendish obnoxious
popular jock, and the leather jacket grease-monkey babe are among this
80s slasher cult film that Max and her buds congregate with and try to
join forces with in conquering Billy who, on cue, arrives to butcher
all of them when a girl strips or something that represents the
"naughtiness of teenagers".
What really sets off The Final Girls comes in the odd Twilight Zone-y
chance for Max to converse and spend time with a character her mom
portrayed. Losing her mom in the car crash, here Max is in this movie
with a character with plenty of her quirks, given a second chance to
save her…and possibly rescue her from the film with hopes to give her
life outside of the film universe she inhabits and seems fatally stuck.
The humor comes in various forms: the attempts to escape the film's
damning slasher plot deny Max and her friends time and again. They
inevitably are drawn inexorably to the camp and its killer. Much like
the stereotypes featured in Camp Bloodbath, Max and her friends realize
they themselves are just as in danger of being victims as the fictional
characters behaving as they were written. Highlights might include
Middleditch jazzing to their inclusion in a film he wholly adores even
at his own peril, Devine's sex-craved goof with every word of dialogue
geared towards fucking, Max and Nancy (Akerman's teenager character)
bonding during the slasher conundrum that brings them together, the
setting of traps in the Eagle Lodge and how it doesn't go so according
to plan (and the amazing virtuoso camera-work working its gymnastics in
overdrive), horny Tina (Angela Trimbur) taking Vicki's (Dobrev) Aderall
and being quite a bit wired even as she performs a striptease to
Warrant's Cherry Pie (!), Max and company experiencing the flashback in
black and white (and one especially creative moment where they
encourage Nancy to bring it back so they can stay ahead of Billy), the
intended final girl of Camp Bloodbath (Chloe Bridges) going up in
flames with Devine riding shotgun, Devin taking a trip out of the car
through the windshield and pretzeling across the road with his feet /
legs bending where they weren't intended, Nancy sacrificing herself to
lure Billy her way so Max could serve as the proper final girl to
defeat him, and just the spirited nature of the film with how it roasts
the slasher genre, lovingly mocking horror nerds and even including a
twist at the end involving a sequel; The Final Girls might not offer
the audience their gore and tits but that doesn't mean it should just
be ignored. It might surprise you. Fun cast, if anything.
But to say its inspiration was Friday the 13th would be an understatement.
It downright does nothing to hide that fact. From its Zombie Jason killer
to the "Kumbaya" circle song with the guitar,
this won't deny what gave it reasons to exist.
I think part of its charm night derive from how Max and her
friends react to the absurd situation befalling them. That
this kind of premise is such a playground, and the 80s lends
itself to satire, it is no wonder those who made this threw
caution to the wind. Not doing so would have been an
opportunity lost. One does wonder just how cool this
could have been if there were no PG-13 rules.
***
immediately. Like a cut-off switch, that rating might as well condemn
the film to the guillotine. When a film of the slasher variety doesn't
put out the particulars—sex, flesh, blood, and viscera—it is considered
just a tease, not worth giving attention to. But I'd say if that is how
the audience dismisses the 2015 slasher comedy, The Final Girls, they
are missing out on a gem. It doesn't even truthfully match Scream
Queens, the television show, in overall depravity and sick comic
content. It does, however, turn the slasher premise on its head, grabs
the genre by the legs, and spins it around like a top.
Taissa Farmiga (Vera's sister) is Max, a responsible, well-behaved
teenager with an actress mom (Malin Akerman in a gem part) who can
never escape a slasher film she was in 20 years ago in 1986 where she
played a victim killed right before having sex with a horndog (played
by the spirited Adam Devine). While out together, Max's mom takes her
eyes off the road momentarily (Max spilled a drink) and a crash kills
her. Max lives with her aunt and is coerced by her best friend's (Alia
Shawkat; "Search Party") horror nerd brother (Thomas Middleditch;
"Silicone Valley") to attend a special screening of her mom's infamous
cult slasher film, Camp Bloodbath, and an inexplicable fire breaks out
(the film's camera playfully follows a dropped liquor bottle and a
small tip of cigarette ash which results in a flame of fire that
ignites the theater into a building inferno). A dropped machete carried
by a fan is picked up by Max who rips open the movie screen as the
projector continues to play as she and her friends (including a guy
that likes her (Alexander Ludwig) and the guy's former girlfriend (Nina
Dobrev; "Degrassi" & "The Vampire Diaries")) escape, believing it to be
an exit from the theatre. Instead, it leads them literally into the
Camp Bloodbath film!
There have been movies in the past ("Midnight Movie" & "The Cabin in
the Woods" just two examples) which toyed around with the slasher /
horror genre, so "The Final Girls" doesn't exactly have the ability to
claim the mantle in that regard, but it certainly adds its own
delightful spin to the works. Look, this bends and warps the genre like
an artist given carte blanche with this canvas that has the material
available and the tools (this has a nice production and mighty fine
cinematography) provided to go to work.
A serial killer named Billy, a bullied victim of camp thugs who toss
firecrackers in the outhouse he's hiding, has grown into a psychopath,
wearing a Tiki mask and "chi-chi, ka-ka-ing" (quite blatantly close to
Jason's "kill call"), pursuing the camp counselors of a fictional
"Eagle Lodge" in the movie Max and her friends find themselves. The
rules of the slasher, its very fundamentals, are under gleeful attack,
with plentiful satiric jabs made towards 80s styles and stereotypes,
taking contemporary folks who occupy this space they find offensive and
questionable. The virginal final girl, the sex-and-drug party chick,
the "shy girl with the guitar", the nerd, the sex-fiendish obnoxious
popular jock, and the leather jacket grease-monkey babe are among this
80s slasher cult film that Max and her buds congregate with and try to
join forces with in conquering Billy who, on cue, arrives to butcher
all of them when a girl strips or something that represents the
"naughtiness of teenagers".
What really sets off The Final Girls comes in the odd Twilight Zone-y
chance for Max to converse and spend time with a character her mom
portrayed. Losing her mom in the car crash, here Max is in this movie
with a character with plenty of her quirks, given a second chance to
save her…and possibly rescue her from the film with hopes to give her
life outside of the film universe she inhabits and seems fatally stuck.
The humor comes in various forms: the attempts to escape the film's
damning slasher plot deny Max and her friends time and again. They
inevitably are drawn inexorably to the camp and its killer. Much like
the stereotypes featured in Camp Bloodbath, Max and her friends realize
they themselves are just as in danger of being victims as the fictional
characters behaving as they were written. Highlights might include
Middleditch jazzing to their inclusion in a film he wholly adores even
at his own peril, Devine's sex-craved goof with every word of dialogue
geared towards fucking, Max and Nancy (Akerman's teenager character)
bonding during the slasher conundrum that brings them together, the
setting of traps in the Eagle Lodge and how it doesn't go so according
to plan (and the amazing virtuoso camera-work working its gymnastics in
overdrive), horny Tina (Angela Trimbur) taking Vicki's (Dobrev) Aderall
and being quite a bit wired even as she performs a striptease to
Warrant's Cherry Pie (!), Max and company experiencing the flashback in
black and white (and one especially creative moment where they
encourage Nancy to bring it back so they can stay ahead of Billy), the
intended final girl of Camp Bloodbath (Chloe Bridges) going up in
flames with Devine riding shotgun, Devin taking a trip out of the car
through the windshield and pretzeling across the road with his feet /
legs bending where they weren't intended, Nancy sacrificing herself to
lure Billy her way so Max could serve as the proper final girl to
defeat him, and just the spirited nature of the film with how it roasts
the slasher genre, lovingly mocking horror nerds and even including a
twist at the end involving a sequel; The Final Girls might not offer
the audience their gore and tits but that doesn't mean it should just
be ignored. It might surprise you. Fun cast, if anything.
But to say its inspiration was Friday the 13th would be an understatement.
It downright does nothing to hide that fact. From its Zombie Jason killer
to the "Kumbaya" circle song with the guitar,
this won't deny what gave it reasons to exist.
I think part of its charm night derive from how Max and her
friends react to the absurd situation befalling them. That
this kind of premise is such a playground, and the 80s lends
itself to satire, it is no wonder those who made this threw
caution to the wind. Not doing so would have been an
opportunity lost. One does wonder just how cool this
could have been if there were no PG-13 rules.
***
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