This movie greatly reminded me of
Cabin in the Woods, one of my
favorite films back in 2012, as it also builds a clever set-up that
permits making fun of horror film tropes – particularly slasher films like Friday the 13th – but at the
same time allow these tropes’ application on the story in a manner that makes
sense in respect to its main plot device.
Cabin in the Woods did it much
better, but The Final Girls also has
plenty of good ideas and executed them quite well.
The Final Girls focuses on a young woman named Max (Taissa
Farmiga) who recently lost her mom (Malin Akerman) – a struggling actress whose
most famous role is that of a scream queen in the campy 80’s B-movie horror
film Camp Bloodbath – in a car
crash. Camp Bloodbath has achieved cult classic status, and on its 20th
anniversary, Max is persuaded to watch a special screening of the movie. However, as a fire breaks out in the theater,
Max and her friends find themselves mysteriously transported into the
movie. This enables Max to have an
emotional interaction with her mother’s Camp
Bloodbath character, Nancy, while she and her friends use their knowledge
of the movie plot and horror film clichés to fight off Camp Bloodbath’s machete-wielding villain, Billy, and survive.
Like other horror movie parodies,
The Final Girls is hardly scary,
though violent. But the writing is
pleasingly smart (though plot holes can be nit-picked if one chooses to) and hilarious. The deconstruction and lampooning of cheesy slasher films elements – the terrible acting and dialogue; the archetypal
characters; the correlation between sex and getting killed; reliance on
obligatory flashbacks; etc. – are cleverly well-done. All the actors displayed great comedic sense
and delivery, but the funniest of all is Adam DeVine; if the blooper scenes
during the credits are any indication, he was ad-libbing a lot, and it’s a riot.
However, it’s not all jokes at
all; it surprisingly has heart and depth as well. The drama involved is truly thoughtful, touching,
and avoids entering cheesy-sappy territory.
For those who love the genre or meta
parodies or Cabin in the Woods, The Final Girls will surely
delight.
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