FinalThe Final Girls
Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Cast: Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman, Adam DeVine
Sony Pictures
November 3, 2015
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons

There has been a recent wave of 80s horror nostalgia going on with a whole bunch of new movies coming out, loudly yelling, “Hey, you love the 80s horror movies right? Well we’re just like them!” More often than not, those flicks are pale shadows of the films they are wanted to be. Add to that a recent wave of final girl love, in a number of movies and books, a sudden influx of horror/comedies, and a reexamination of the slasher genre as more than just the lowest common denominator horror that it’s been written off as for so long. It’s that mix of ideas that gives us the new movie, The Final Girls. Is it a perfect storm of awesome or just a drizzle of disappointment? Well grab your shorts and don’t forget the bug spray, because we’re going back to summer camp.

Taissa Farmiga, perhaps best known by genre fans for her part in the TV anthology series American Horror Story, plays a young woman whose mother was an actress in a cult classic 80s slasher flick called Camp Bloodbath. The mother and daughter had a great relationship all the way up until mommy’s untimely death in an auto accident. One year later the daughter gets talked into going to see her mother’s slasher film and through some Last Action Hero-type magic, she and her friends find themselves stuck in the very horror movie they were just watching. Now they’ve got to try to stay alive and use what they know about slasher movies to avoid getting cut from the film.

And this is where The Final Girls stands out from similar movies: it winks and smirks at the slasher flicks of the 80s, specifically the Friday the 13th franchise, but it doesn’t make fun of them. It’s not pointing, laughing, and shouting, “Boy were those movies stupid!” like other, far lesser films have done. You can feel the love and respect that the writers and director have for the subgenre, and that makes all the difference in the world. The Final Girls is a loving homage to the kind of fright flicks I grew up with, and it plays with those films wonderfully. While not too frightening, it does get the humor right, especially if you’re a diehard slasher fan and get all the jokes.

That said, there is one part of this movie that did leave me scratching my head, and that is its PG-13 rating. Why the hell was this slasher slashed? Who was this movie made for? If it’s made for the actual fans of 80s slasher films then they will easily be of age to watch R rated movies. If they’re not old enough to see R rated movies without an adult, then chances are they won’t give a damn about a bunch of old movies form the 80s. Now this isn’t a huge gripe of mine, as the movie is good in spite of its rating, but the movies this film is about were full of blood, guts, and nudity, and none of that is in The Final Girls. Again, why? That makes zero sense to me, and while their absence doesn’t ruin this film, it does keep the movie from being truly great. Too many times something in this flick moves right up to the line that can’t be crossed and then chickens out. Every time it does that it makes you groan out loud, roll your eyes, and really pine for what could have been instead of what is. With a movie that is in all other ways so good, that’s a damn shame.

On to the special features on this new Blu-ray from Sony. There is both a cast and crew commentary with the director, cinematographer, a few of the actors, and more. Then there is a writer’s commentary with the two co-writers and co-producers of the film. There is a collection of deleted, extended, and alternate scenes, and like most such things, it’s pretty clear why they were removed from the film, but they were still neat to see. There are five scenes that have been collected to show off how things look before visual effects (i.e. CGI) are added and a visual effects progression reel so you can see how things came together step by step. You can also download the director’s shooting notes if you put the Blu-ray in a PC. Why something little like that isn’t just on the disc itself is a bit strange.

Despite being shoehorned into a PG-13 rating, The Final Girls is strong enough to warrant a high recommendation from me. It’s fun, funny, faithful and respectful to the source material. If you are a slasher fan, this is a must have. If you like horror comedies, this is a must get. If you just like enjoyable silly cinema, give it a shot, I’m betting you’ll dig it.

About Brian M. Sammons

Brian M. Sammons has penned stories that have appeared in the anthologies: Arkham Tales, Horrors Beyond, Monstrous, Dead but Dreaming 2, Horror for the Holidays, Deepest, Darkest Eden and others. He has edited the books; Cthulhu Unbound 3, Undead & Unbound, Eldritch Chrome, Edge of Sundown, Steampunk Cthulhu, Dark Rites of Cthulhu, Atomic Age Cthulhu, World War Cthulhu and Flesh Like Smoke. He is also the managing editor of Dark Regions Press’ Weird Fiction line. For more about this guy that neighbors describe as “such a nice, quiet man” you can check out his infrequently updated webpage here: http://brian_sammons.webs.com/ and follow him on Twitter @BrianMSammons.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This