FINAL GIRL (2015) : MOVIE REVIEW

Final Girl turns the genre upside down

Director: Tyler Shields

Starring: Abigail Breslin, Alexander Ludwig, Wes Bentley, Cameron Bright

Studios: Final Girl Productions, NGN Productions, Prospect Park

Distributed by:  Cinedigm

Release Dates: August 14, 2015 (United States)

Plot: A group of sadistic teens who kills blonde women for sport meets their match- their one final victim.

I’ve been dying to see this action thriller film from director Tyler Shields the first time I’ve seen it’s trailer. I immediately fell in love with the movie not only because Wes Bentley and Abigail Breslin are starring in it, but because the story itself of the film is just so amazing. So when I got the chance to watch this film, I immediately grabbed it. So here are the things that I enjoyed about the film. Check out my review of the movie, Final Girl.

Reinvents the Horror Structure

After watching it’s trailer online, one will notice that the film smoothly follows the structure of a horror film, with four, good looking boys inviting as girl to the woods, then revealing their main objective to their victim: to hunt and kill her. But then, it quickly revealed it’s twists. The girl that they have selected for that very night is very different from the rest of their victims.

Veronica played by Abigail Breslin ( Zombieland, Maggie, Fox’ Scream Queens) has been training all her life for one single purpose: to bring down bad men. Really bad, bad men. And her trainer, William (Wes Bentley, P² , American Horror Story: Freakshow) just found the perfect mission for her. To destroy a group of four young senior boys who kills blonde girls (yes, it should be blonde girls) for sport, with the Mastermind Chris (Alexander Ludwig), Danny (Logan Huffman), Shane (Cameron Bright), and Nelson (Reece Thompson).

It might be compared to other well-known horror films like You’re Next (2013) and No One Lives (2012) because of it’s storyline. But if you look at it closer, you’ll see that Final Girl is very different from the two movies mentioned. While these two movies does feature a victim turned victor and starts to take kill off his/her captors/killers, Final Girl is about a girl on a mission- meaning she and her trainer have been preparing for this night to kill these boys. It was not just incidental. The trailer itself gave too much of a plot which was a bit of a letdown, given that this film was a really good concept to boot. But I must say that the structure of the story, with the looks of a horror movie, but a heart of an action film, was really unique.

Amazing Performances

I don’t really know where to start. The cast was just so amazing. Each one of these actors really put a lot of effort to shape their own characters. Of course, Abigail Breslin’s performance was bravura. Although one might find her unfit(or some says she’s miscast) for the role, she proves in her performance that she is the best actress to play the lead role. Probably, the reason why a lot of people are turned off by her in the lead role is because we’ve seen her grow from a young girl (Signs (2002), Zombieland (2009)) to a teenage girl (The Call (2013), Ender’s Game (2013), Maggie (2015)). So in our eyes, we still see that girl that we have been seeing in her before, a young, charming Miss Sunshine.  But I must say, she really nailed her role in this film. I can’t imagine anyone else in this role aside from her.

Another actor in the film that I really want to commend is Wes Bentley. The first time I’ve seen him was when I watched watched The Hunger Games (2012) as gamemaker Seneca Crane. Then, I saw him again in the 2007 horror thriller film P^2. I never realized that it was the same man until I’ve read his name in the credits. Since then I’ve been a fan of Bentley. I’ve watched him as Doyle in Interstellar (2014) and as Edward Mondrake in FX’ American Horror Story: Freakshow. And every time I see him, I see a different person. He really takes possession of this entirely different persona. And he proves his talent once more here in this film.

I also liked to give praise to all the four boys who played Breslin’s captors: Alexander Ludwig, Logan Huffman, Cameron Bright, and Reece Thompson. I especially want to commend Logan Huffman’s very campy performance as Danny, the joker among the four boys. I just found his performance so disturbing to watch that every time he smiles, I feel so uncomfortable.

Great Action, Weird Atmosphere

One of the unique things about this film is that it has this weird 50’s style all throughout the movie. It doesn’t even showed any of the characters using a cellphone nor checking social media sites. Plus, the four boys in this film are always seen wearing black suits (well, almost all the men in the film does). Not to mention the music and the short but unusual choice of dance of Danny, and the way they all talk.

I also observe that the film has this eerie atmosphere once the story’s setting shifts to the woods. With it’s very prominent use of light (yeah, a night in the woods isn’t so dark at all) all over the forest, it achieves it’s surreal dreamlike quality which added to the weirdness of the film. There were even some scenes where they used a very bright spotlight to focus at the characters, as if it was a play.

Of course, the film is not complete without the action. And this movie never misses that. It’s got some great fight scenes, which might look unusual at first (because of it’s heavy use of spotlights, in addition to the character’s hallucinations) but very fun to watch. Abigail Breslin is really bad-ass in this scenes.

The only thing that I kinda feel disappointed about was that there were minimal blood and gore in these scenes. I was waiting for those over-the-top kills like my favorite blender-in-the-head kill from You’re Next. But I was somewhat disappointed because the film never goes that far.

Verdict:

Despite lacking the blood and gore that I was expecting, I still love this little action horror film from Tyler Shields. It was everything I’ve hoped for (well, in most cases). It’s got some crazy ideas, great execution and amazing performances from the cast.

Really worth the time.

I am giving this a rating of 5 out of 5 stars.