MAY #11: The Final Girls

            Does the world need more meta-horror? More ‘80s nostalgia? Haven’t we dissected this friggin’ genre enough?? Maybe yes, maybe no, but when meta horror is as good as The Final Girls, who gives a fuck!

            American Horror Story golden girl Taissa Farmiga is Max, the teenage daughter of a washed-up scream queen still dreaming of being a great actress. For all her spoiled dreams, Amanda is still a kick-ass mom, that is until she dies in a very nasty car crash. Three years later, Max is still in mourning, but when her best friend’s stepbrother Duncan, a Randy-from-Scream type, nags her into attending a screening of her mom’s most famous slasher, she reluctantly agrees. One freak accident later, Max and her pals end up in the movie. Which is a premise that sounds like it should be self-indulgent as hell, but miraculously works. Really works.

Remember movie theaters...

            I thought I was completely sick of ‘80s nostalgia by now, and Final Girls is absolutely shameless, even borrowing Friday the 13^th’s iconic theme song (ki-ki-ki ma-ma-ma) for it’s bald-faced rip-off, Camp Bloodbath. What makes Final Girls inspired instead of dull is that it leans into the shittiness of the ‘80s campground slasher. Camp Bloodbath’s screenwriting is, shall we say, poor, and it’s cast of victims, especially horndogs Tina and Kurt, are not the sharpest crayons in the box. Duncan loves provoking Kurt into insulting him with shitty one-liners to demonstrate how dreadful the writing is. The resulting humor captures the joy of the poorly acted slasher flick, while the sharp comedic talents of its casts and its snappy editing keeps the jokes from getting dull, and made this audience member happy to overlook a few plot conveniences, like how everything in this movie seems to be extremely flammable.

            And Final Girls is funny, very funny, but it also goes for the feels. I’d been warned that this movie had a tearjerker of a climax, and oh how I scoffed, and then oh how I sniffled my eyeliner right down my face. Max is eager to spend time with Nancy, her mom’s character, a sensitive girl with a guitar who exposits the legend of the campground killer and, in the original film, is quickly offed when she loses her virginity, though this order of events is soon changed. Nancy isn’t Max’s mom, but she also kinda is, and Max gets a chance to work through her grief, even amongst the bloodiness of the slasher conceit. Taissa Farmiga always left me a little cold in AHS, but boy does she sell it here, and as Amanda/Nancy, Malin Akerman delivers. She has an emotionally-charged dance sequence in the climax that absolutely broke me.

The Final Girls is a more-than-adequate meta-horror-comedy, but it’s elevated by its savvy choice to make its nostalgia not just for nostalgia’s sake, but a way of talking about being stuck in the past by tragedy and grief. A strong heart and a solid sense of humor, this movie nails its tricky tonal balance and delivers something really special. It’s way more than just another genre deconstruction.  

*cries*

Vibecheck: Once Max and company hop into the movie, the colors are so bright it’s like Friday the 13^th by way of Wizard of Oz. And director Strauss-Schulson nails the breathless, spinny long-shots. Stylish, but not in your face about it. Yes, please.

Scare Factor: I guess it might make ya jump a couple times but, like Happy Death Day, this is a neat PG-13 and more funny than scary.

Pairs Well With: American Horror Story: 1984 must have stolen its whole schtick from this movie, from the VHS vintage filter to the summer camp vibes. And while it definitely doesn’t pack the emotional wallop of this movie, and has that quintessential AHS everything-the-writer’s-room-could-think-of-is-crammed-in-here bloat, it’s still a guilty pleasure of mine (and maybe my fave AHS season but don’t tell anyone). Billie Lourd and Angela Trimbur both do completely different but equally iconic things with the same ‘80s archetype. Oh and, I know it’s not set at a summer camp, but House on Sorority Row is my all-time fave ‘80s cheesy slasher, and has one of the best-worst line reads in all of horrordom, so I’m just gonna plug it here.

But how gay is it?: Adam DeVine is doing something with his performance as an aggressively heterosexual camp counselor who begrudgingly admires the ~homosexual lifestyle~, and I’m not sure if it’s campy or drag-king-y or what, but it’s very, very special.

Girlfriend’s Corner: This sounds like an absolute delight and, once again, my ability to watch was foiled by me having to work full-time so that I can get health insurance, which in turn is allowing me to complete my gender transition! Perhaps we should destroy capitalism.