|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Final Girls
Premiered at the Toronto Film Festival September 19,2015
Plot (Spoiler Alert)Max is having a hard time moving on after her mom’s passing three years ago. Her mom, Amanda, is best known for playing Nancy in a slasher film “Camp Bloodbath” back in 1986. On the anniversary of her death, Max attends a double-feature of “Camp Bloodbath” and the sequel at a theater as a special guest in exchange that Duncan does her homework. A fire starts and the exits are blocked. Max has a plan to escape in the back exit behind the screen. She along with her friends Chris, Gertie, Vikki and Duncan tear through the screen and walk through. They wake up in a forest not knowing where they are. They encounter the characters from “Camp Bloodbath” including Max’s mom as the character Nancy, and discover they have been sucked into movie. The movie won’t let them leave so they participate until the movie is over. Max gets a second chance with her mom and wants to protect her from getting killed. They encounter the villain of the movie, Billy Murphy, after killing two characters in the movie. Billy kills Duncan and the others make a run for it, but they still can’t leave. The character that survives in the movie, Paula, shows up and the group decides to stick with the characters, but they freak out Gertie gets blood on her face from a flashback in the movie. The characters, Paula and Kirk, end up dying in a car crash while making a run for it. Max and the others come clean with the characters, Nancy, Blake and Tina that they are really characters in a slasher film. They have a new plan and that is to stop Billy Murphy. They lure Billy in by having Tina do her strip tease. They try to kill Billy, but there is no stopping him. Tina, Kirk, Gertie and Vicki get killed and Max, Nancy and Chris make a run for it. Chris gets seriously injured and Nancy gets captured. Max leaves Chris somewhere safe while she goes after Nancy. Billy puts a knife in Max’s waist. Nancy sacrifices herself so that Max’s life can be spared. Max won’t allow it and she tells Nancy who she was in real life and that she is her mother. Nancy knows how hard it must be, but all she cares about is Max’s life more then her’s. Billy kills Nancy and Max is resurrected. She fights Billy, takes his machete and slices off his head. The movie ends and Max wakes up in a hospital with Chris unconscience in the bed next to her’s. Vicki, Gertie and Duncan have been reincarnated and they all believe they are home when really they are in the sequel “Camp Bloodbath 2: Cruel Summer”. Max grabs drip stand as a weapon and heads fro Billy. 
Blaine: Slasher films always have rules and not having sex is number one and “Final Girls” is making fun of that by having characters like Kurt and Tina horny. “Camp Bloodbath” is supposed to be “Friday the 13th” because it takes place at a camp run by young adults. And then you have the the killer, Billy Murphy, who is supposed to be Jason Voorhees because he is a big guy, his weapon is a machete just like Jason’s and he wears a mask……only Billy Murphy’s mask looks like an Eastern Island head and Jason wears a hockey mask. And last there is the creepy theme music that is very similar to “Friday the 13th”. It’s really funny during the first killing scene with those two characters in the woods and the kids from the real world people witness Billy Murphy killing two people because they are just sitting there watching two people getting murdered right in front of them instead of looking away or going somewhere else. Plus the only one who is excited about it is Duncan because he loves slasher films and he thinks it’s cool to see it in person. Duncan’s death when Billy throws the machete at his waist is funny because of the look on his and it’s very unexpected, but at the same time you know it’s going to happen. At first I thought that was a weak death for Duncan and I thought it at the neck would have been better because then I bet the characters would be even more freaked out. But then I saw Duncan come back only to get hit by the car which is funny. Paula’s death was very unexpected because she is the virgin of “Camp Bloodbath” which makes her the survivor, but then the car she and Kurt try to drive away in crashes and Kurt flies out of the car and gets seriously injured and then the car blows up with Paula in it. It’s funny because it’s unexpected. Production designer Katie Buron said they wanted to pump up the colors and they added a lot of green and bright colors to the camp set. Early on while the script was in works, they asked themselves what the look would be like and they didn’t want it to look washed out like those 80s horror movies instead it had to be like “Wizard of Oz”. When they shot in the forest they had to add flowers that were hand planted to the ground and they had to clear out a lot of branches because they were dry. Director Todd Strauss-Schulson wanted the people who were cast to be fun and be in their 20s or 30s. The actors in “Final Girls” show so much in their performances like when they are really freaked out or shocked or frightened. “Final Girls” is funny in every way, but it also has heart because Max has a second chance with her deceased mother, even though she is really a character in a movie, but she has the same personalities as her mom. There’s a scene in the movie where Nancy is crying because she has been given the bad news that her fait is death when she wants to have a life and have a child and Max comforts her. Malin Ackerman who plays Nancy was so convincing and real when she did that scene because she recently became a mother and Taissa Farmiga, who plays Max, didn’t have to make herself emotional because Malin’s performance made her cry. The actors in “Final Girls” give really great performances like when they freak out after someone gets killed and of course when Malin and Taissa characters are getting emotional over each other. Billy kills Alia Shawkat When Max tells Nancy that she can probably be saved and join them in the real world, I got a happy feeling because it sounded like it was possible that Max could have her mother back and you want that to happen. And the director said that scene is supposed to be excited because you want to support Max with the idea of saving her mom and the music in the background helps as well. The dance scene to lure in Billy was really big for Angela Trimbur who plays Tina (one of the sex addicts) because dancing is in her blood. Her mom owned a dance studio when she a little girl, but then she closed it down. If you go on Youtube there is videos of Angela dancing in a laundromat, an airport and a mall. Angela drank five Red Bulls that day they shot the scene and she was afraid she might die because she went too far with it. Taissa Farmiga going up against Billy Murphy was nothing new to me because I’ve seen Taissa slice zombies into pieces and stabbing a person to death in “American Horror Story: Coven”, but seeing her in that scene I knew she was right for this role. When Max woke up in the hospital, I was starting to think it was all a dream and that she survived the fire and passed out from the smoke and was taken to a hospital. But then the other characters from the real world were there saying it really happened and I wasn’t relieved, but at the same time I wasn’t disappointed because I didn’t care how it went. There are two alternate endings to “Final Girls” that take place in the hospital. One shows that Max and Chris are the only survivors in end and Gertie, Duncan and Vicki remain dead. Max and Chris take a walk around the hospital and then they hear, he he he ha ha ha, and then see Billy Murphy. They run and then trip on the title, “Camp Bloodbath 2: Cruel Summer”. As the lay on the ground, Billy looks at them and stares at him with an angry look in her eyes and gets up. Then it cuts to the end credits. And then the second alternate ending shows Duncan, Gertie and Vicki alive and well and Duncan is saying how he is jealous because he wanted to be the final girl so bad. Then they hear a weird laugh so they look out their room and discover Kurt is still alive. And Vicki is asking how a character from a slasher film ended up in the real world. Then Duncan remembered that the studio loved the character so much that they brought him back for the sequel to “Camp Bloodbath”. And then Billy shows up, Kurt screams and Max runs to fight him. My friend, Rich, said he would like to see a sequel to “Final Girls” because the ending left him with questions because it ends with the real world characters in the sequel to “Camp Bloodbath”, but it left me with nothing. M.A. Fortin, one of the screen writers of “Final Girls”, said if there is a sequel it will show who Max’s father is because in the movie Max said she never knew who her father was. My rating on “The Final Girls” is five out of five stars. Music |