Can’t recall where I first heard about The Final Girls, a gentle tribute to and comedy related to the “slasher” films of the 1980’s -and more specifically Friday the 13th– but I was intrigued enough to put it on my Netflix que and yesterday finally got a chance to see it.
The Final Girls starts with our two main characters, Amanda Cartwright (Malin Akerman playing -and succeeding- in the most challenging roles in this film) angrily emerging from an audition and meeting up with her waiting daughter Max (Tarissa Farmiga) in their car.
Amanda, we find in short order, is a frustrated actress quite literally haunted/typecast by her most famous role, that of a camp counselor/victim in the “classic” Camp Bloodbath, a fictional 1980’s film which is very obviously is based on Friday the 13th. Though bitter and knowing that her most current audition went nowhere (“He said he’d keep me in mind”), Amanda clearly doesn’t want to bring her daughter down.
It is during the first few minutes of the film, where we see the dynamic between Mother and Daughter, that the film succeeds the most. In those very short scenes we discover that Max is very much a realist while Amanda is a free spirit who recognizes she’s made many mistakes in her life but clings to her one very bright success: Her daughter.
Which makes what happens next all the more heartbreaking (Mild spoilers, although the trailer pretty much gives this away and it does happen within the first five or so minutes of the film): Amanda wrecks the car and we’re rapidly transported to three years later. Amanda, we find, died in the car accident while Max survived.
Now living with her aunt, Max is a high schooler who still misses her mother greatly. When she learns there will be a theatrical presentation/tribute to the Camp Bloodbath films, she at first doesn’t want to go. The reasons are many and obvious: Seeing the movie means Max sees her beloved mother in the role that typecast and ultimately stunted her career. Further, she is a victim of the slasher killer…why would she want to see her mother die all over again?
Nonetheless, she is convinced to go to the film and, while with her friends, watches along. When the movie comes to the scene where her mother is about to be killed by the slasher, Max needs to leave the theater. However, just as she heads to the exit a fire breaks out and, with her friends in tow, they “escape” the theater through the projection screen…
…only to find themselves within the Camp Bloodbath film!
The Final Girls cleverly and at times hilariously explores the conventions of these slasher films. The “real” people try their best to help out the movie characters to survive and, ultimately, kill off “Billy Murphy”, the Jason-like machete killer targeting everyone at the camp.
While the film is at times quite funny, there remains the bittersweet/sad undercurrent of Max meeting up with her mother once again, even though this time around she really isn’t her mother but rather Nancy, one of the soon-to-be victims in the Camp Bloodbath movie.
I don’t want to give too much more away but the film is a pleasant, very good comedy that falls just shy of being great.
Where does it fall short?
I think part of the problem lies in the film within a film needed to be a bit closer in its look to the actual Friday the 13th films. By that I mean there needed to be a greater sense of darkness and foreboding, something the Friday the 13th films did even when not showing graphic violence. Speaking of which, some have argued the film should have gone the “R” rated rather than PG-13 route, that if you’re making a “tribute” to the slasher films of the 1980’s there should be nudity and graphic violence. Given the sadness which lies beneath the laughs, I’m not sure about that.
People might have been turned off had Amanda/Nancy actually stripped or been shown graphically murdered. Further, once I got to know some of the other characters in the movie within a movie, I felt for them and worried about their predetermined fate(s). I didn’t need to see them then die in very graphic ways…then again, that’s just me.
Regardless, The Final Girls is very much worth a look, especially if you are familiar with the films it most gently -and at times hilariously- skewers.
Recommended.