Rapid Review: The Final Girls (2015)

“Camp Bloodbath is like the granddaddy of all campsite slasher films, okay. Amazing production design, insane music, over-the-top acting. It’s a cult classic!”
– Duncan

SYNOPSIS: A young woman grieving the loss of her mother, a famous scream queen from the 1980s, finds herself pulled into the world of her mom’s most famous movie. Reunited, the women must fight off the film’s maniacal killer. – via IMDB

Yes. This. Excellent. I know, I sound like a bumbling, incoherent fool, but that’s because this movie was just that good. Like, seriously. I didn’t have super high hopes for it, though there are fellow bloggers of mine that thoroughly enjoyed it. Why? Because, well, often these horror comedy endeavours just go so wrong. This is not the case here. Within the opening few minutes, I was laughing. There was potential. So, to see where it was all going to go, that was the important bit. Luckily for us, The Final Girls delivers on so many levels. The humour is maintained throughout the film, and while I can not say that this was a horror in any which way, I can acknowledge that it relied heavily on old school horror to use as a setting to tell the story, and fans of horror will love the implementation that was used to portray the movie. It was spans of fun. I mean, there was the über disgusting Kurt, and his obsession with sex and the female anatomy was so nasty. Then, of course, there was the cuckoo Tina. She started as super annoying, and don’t get me wrong, that didn’t necessarily improve, but she did provide a barrel of laughs – especially if you recall her Adderall induced Cherry Pie moment. Taissa Farmiga was very good here, though I expected that. Alexander Ludwig was a solid pick for his role, and I particularly enjoyed him, though I do miss his accent and just plain down intimidation factor from Vikings. Don’t even judge me, monkeys! One thing that I also really liked about The Final Girls is that, no matter how much fun we are having throughout, it very successfully manages to bring some serious heart to the film, and not to the extent where you roll your eyes and wonder why in the world they are pissing something so good away, but you are left exceptionally impressed with the fact that they integrated it so successfully. Anyway, I must admit that The Final Girls is one smart horror comedy, and is fresh and unique, definitely something that horror fans might enjoy on the level of The Cabin In The Woods. The cast was perfect for this, it was shot well, the music was complementary, the jokes were excellent and there was tons of fun to be had all around. The Final Girls is that something different, if you are looking for a change of scenery in the tired horror genre.