Welcome back! Maybe you have already checked out my two previous movie pick posts, #1 and #2, and are ready to check out #3 on my list, maybe you haven’t, but fear not, I won’t take it personally. If you have, hopefully you find yourself intrigued and wonder, “What comes next? I’m on pins and needles!” Again, this list is not ranked in any order; it’s totally random. Totally. A word which fits really well with the next film on my list.
The Final Girls ( 2015): Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson
Writers: M. A. Fortin, Joshua John Miller.
Apparently, I like “horror” films that basically poke fun at the whole genre, since I am adding yet another film to my list that fits this same bill; The Final Girls, directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson.
Strauss-Schulson also directed another film I found quite hilarious, Isn’t It Romantic (2019) which stars Rebel Wilson as a young woman who hates romantic comedies but suddenly finds herself in one. The film also stars Adam Devine and Liam Hemsworth.
The writers of The Final Girls, M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller, are apparently both work and romantic partners, and their other works includes a TV series, Queen of the South, and a 2021 movie starring Russell Crowe, The Georgetown Project. Other interesting tidbits–Joshua Miller is actor Jason Patric’s half-brother and his father, Jason Miller, played Father Karras in The Exorcist ( 1973), which apparently was one of Joshua’s inspirations for the screenplay for The Final Girls; seeing his father’s character die onscreen made him wonder what it would be like to act in a film with his father.
The Final Girls was released in 2015 but it was a couple of years before I came across it, as a “Recommended for You” by Netflix. The cast includes some well-known faces, Taissa Farmiga ( American Horror Story, The Bling Ring) the younger sister of actress Vera Farmiga, (and could be Vera’s younger clone, the resemblance is that close) Malin Akerman ( The Numbers Station, 27 Dresses, Rock of Ages) Adam Devine (Pitch Perfect, Workaholics, Arrested Development), Alia Shawkat (Whip It, Big Mouth, Robot Chicken) and Nina Dobrev, (Vampire Diaries).
The premise of this movie centers around high-schooler Max Cartwright (Farmiga) who is grieving the loss of her mother, Amanda (Akerman), a somewhat failed actress, who, as a young woman in 1986, appeared in a slasher film called “Camp Bloodbath”, which became something of a cult classic in later years, much to Amanda’s chagrin, as she once had higher hopes for her acting career and for years had struggled with her “one claim to fame”, that of a scream queen in a cheesy 80’s horror film.
Three years after her mother’s death in a car crash, Max reluctantly joins her friends, Gertie (Shawkat) and Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), at a tribute screening of “Camp Bloodbath 1” and the sequel, “Camp Bloodbath 2”, where she also meets up with a fellow classmate, Chris (Alexander Ludwig), a potential love interest. Also in attendance, unfortunately, is Chris’ jealous ex-girlfriend and resident mean girl, Vicki ( Dobrev). During the movie screening, a fire breaks out in the theatre and the five of them escape through the movie screen after Max cuts it open with a prop machete, and all five are, somehow, accidently sucked into the movie itself and find themselves trapped in “Camp Bloodbath 1”.
After a bit of confusion as to what happened to them and where they are, Max and her friends realize they are in the movie, at the entrance of Camp Blue Finch, the fictional summer camp in “Camp Bloodbath”, in the very first scene, and soon realize they must team up with the fictional ( and ill-fated) camp counselors to battle the film’s machete-wielding masked killer, Billy Murphy ( very obviously modeled after Jason Vorhees).
L to R, Chris (Alexander Ludwig), Max (Taissa Farmiga), Vicki, (Nina Dobrev), Duncan (Thomas Middleditch) and Gertie (Alia Shawkat).
Max is also stunned to come face to face with her mother (Akerman) in this movie-world, even though her mother in this place is just the character she played in the movie; shy, but good-hearted camp counselor, Nancy. Max and her friends try to use their knowledge of the horror movie genre and the story line of “Camp Bloodbath”, which they know well, to try and survive, and also, defeat, the seemingly un-killable Billy, in hopes that this will enable them to return to their real lives in the real world.
The film is a deliciously witty parody of so-cheesy-you-need-to-eat-Ritz-crackers-while-you watch-them 80’s slasher films, with plenty of pokes at classic slice n’dice films, most notably the “Friday the 13th” movies, and there is no shortage of cliches (including the inevitable “have sex and you die” cliché), meta-moments, 80’s era slang and music, and summer camp murder movie stereotypical, yet amusing, characters; like horn-dog Kurt (Devine) and dumb bimbo, Tina (Angela Trimbur) who were both so good in their roles you wished that they had been able to stick around longer ( but alas, as we all know, a high body count that includes main ensemble characters, in slasher films, is a must–have).
The movie, while wickedly tongue-in-cheek, also has some very heart-felt moments, between Max and Nancy, the character her mother played in the movie, and you feel genuinely for Max and how much she misses her mom. In fact, it is Max’s reaction, her desire to save her mother’s character, Nancy, from being killed by the twisted Billy, that changed the timeline of events in this movie-within-a-movie to begin with, and Max and her friends spend the rest of the film not only trying to save themselves, but to try and convince the characters to become proactive.
For those not in the know, the term “final girl” is a trope in horror movies, referring to the female protagonist who remains alive at the end of the film, after the other characters have been killed, when she is usually placed in a position to confront the killer. Well-known “final girls” in classic slasher films are Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) in the original Halloween movies, and Sally Hardesty, (portrayed by Marilyn Burns) in 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Taissa Farmiga deftly plays the sweet, sad, and wistful-turned brash badass Max Cartwright, as she prepares to take the role of the “Final Girl” and Malin Akerman shines as Amanda/Nancy. While this movie was mainly a spoof, and had many comedic moments, there was great heart in Max’s learning to accept her terrible loss and cherishing the moments she did have with her mother, and perhaps, through the meeting of her onscreen version of her mother, Nancy, get a glimpse of the young, hopeful actor her mother had once been.