Deconstructions of horror movies are fairly common place, and even
the ones that tend to be the most self-aware are essentially love letters to
the genre. The Scream movies probably walked the
best balance between self-deprecating humor and real thrills, subverting the
genre in a way that has only been matched by The Cabin In the
Woods. Now it's time for a something a little different, because while
those other films are indeed love letters, none can attest to being both a love
story and a slasher film. But The
Final Girls can make that
claim as a film that celebrates both classic horror movies and the love between
a mother and daughter.
The surprising thing about The Final Girls is how much emotional heft it has for
a slasher comedy, and it all begins with the relationship between Max (Taissa
Farmiga) and her mother Amanda (Malin Akerman), a former "scream
queen" who has never recovered from her iconic role in 1980s slasher film,
"Camp Bloodbath". The two are close, with Max recognizing her mom's
struggles. So when Amanda is killed in a freak accident, years pass without Max
truly getting over it. Convinced by her genre-cliché friends: best pal Gertie
(Alia Shawkat), hot mean girl Vicki (Nina Dobrev), horror know-it-all Duncan
(Thomas Middleditch), and high school hunk Chris (Alexander Ludwig), to attend
an anniversary screening of Camp Bloodbath, Max reluctantly agrees. But when
the theater catches on fire, the only way out is to escape through the screen,
which opens up some kind of wormhole into the movie itself. 
What's next is a little like Hot Tub Time
Machine, only a Hell of a lot funnier and a lot cleverer. Max and her
friends are not only trapped in the retro '80s but they're stuck within
Bloodbath, and the only way to get home is to survive the 92-minute runtime
without being murdered by a Jason Voorhees-type killer. They'll also have to
endure a bunch of walking stereotypes, from Adam DeVine's insanely oversexed
dude, to the doomed African-American character, and the tough girl (Chloe
Bridges) who is destined to survive and be the "final girl". For Max,
all of these characters are secondary to the heartbreaking presence of her own
mother in the role that made her famous and ruined her life. Their encounters
are tinged with sadness, but they allow Max a chance to resolve her grief and
come to grips with the woman her mother was.
While that may sound pretty downbeat for a
comedy like this, director Todd Strauss-Schulson (A Very Harold
and Kumar Christmas) has a number of funny visual gags that keep the
film light. There's the enclosed, magical reality of the world they're trapped
in, which manifests in unexpected ways. If they try to simply walk out of the
camp they end up in a time loop right back where they started. Breaking from
the Camp Bloodbath plotline confuses the crap out of the characters, including
the killer whose sole purpose is hacking to death anyone who has sex. If you
ever wanted to know what it would feel like to experience a flashback sequence, The Final Girls answers that question to hilarious
effect. The film plays around with horror tropes in a way that fans of the
genre will appreciate, and this is probably a movie best seen with a group of
like-minded friends. 
Ultimately The Final Girls is about how movies can be a tool
for helping us overcome the pain of loss, a lesson we don't expect to learn
from a slasher film. We expect the characters in these films, especially the
female ones, to be disposable, but The
Final Girls makes us care
about Max and Amanda's future. While this sub-set of horror movies can probably
slither away and die now, this is one that makes for a very welcome
entry.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
