Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: After her actress mother dies, a girl and her friends inexplicably find themselves pulled inside one of the mother's slasher films.
Review: Don't confuse this with the, almost identically titled, film, "Final Girl," which came out the same year...starring one of the same actors even. How in the hell? Anyway, this is surprisingly one of the best nods to '80s slashers I've watched especially in regards to satirizing "Friday the 13th." The story is amusing, yet heartfelt somehow, and they play on the stereotypes intelligently without going over the top as something like the "Scary Movie" franchise would do. The best way to describe it would be to simply take a few horror buffs, suddenly thrust them into a classic like "Halloween," and then watch them react. Unfortunately, there are massive problems that hold this down from reaching legendary status. With story tweaking, and a solid R-rating, this could have easily been a must watch for all horror fans. Instead, I'm thinking this will be a love it or hate it kind of situation.
I'll provide a quick story synopsis to set the tone. In 1986 there was a wannabe "Friday the 13th" called "Camp Bloodbath;" the masked killer is even a fake Jason...named Billy here. The main character, Max, is the daughter of an actress who played a random victim in this film. We see that the two are struggling financially as the mom tries to find new gigs, but she can't live down her early horror roles. Shortly after this, the mom is killed in a car accident, and now Max is kind of depressed--not as emo as you'd expect though. During a 30th anniversary screening of "Camp Bloodbath," Max is semi-coerced into attending the show with a group of friends. Through shenanigans, the movie theater is lit on fire, but Max and crew, trying to escape, somehow are pulled into the movie itself. This is when the film becomes a lot of fun, and they make full use of the scenario.
What works the best is the actual notion of the film coming to life. This means text on screen physically exists, the credits of the film appear in the sky, narration is heard like a loudspeaker, the characters can hear the music prompts, and they are even subjected to cutaways for flashbacks. Everything is handled excellently surrounding this premise. The actors turn in quirky performances that I think work given the subject manner, and you feel their astonishment of the situation. The character stereotypes are addressed in a fashion similar to "The Cabin in the Woods" but not quite as gloriously. Still, I liked the idea of "the final girl" who must land the finishing blow as a rule of thumb to end the movie. Connected to this is the dynamics between Max and her mom's character. This added a unique layer to the typical victim fodder since Max wanted to transition the mom's character into the final girl. Beyond that, the technical feats are decent, and the humor can be great at times.
Despite so much going strong in this film, there are numerous things I take issue with. For one, there is little to no gore and they merely imply nudity which doesn't make sense given the context and the aspects they're satirizing. If you want to be truly faithful you have to go with a hard R-rating or don't bother tackling the subject matter. This might sound like a nitpick, but it's really more than that. You can't have a character whose entire basis is that she wants to strip, which will insight the anger of the killer, only to build and build to this chick stripping and then it's merely a shot of her from the shoulders up! Come on, son. Another annoying aspect was that they killed off the horror expert of the group early on. Now, I'm not saying he needed to live, but it didn't make sense that the remaining characters had their own ingrained knowledge about horror tropes and cliches too. You're telling me even the diva princess character knows the ins and outs of '80s horror movies? I'm not buying it. It also defeated the purpose of having the movie buff die since they didn't need him anyway. My other major complaint is the cinematography and general design choices. The picture is too bright and clean. They should have taken a few tips from "House of the Devil" to make the quality look grainier or at least throw in some kind of distortions. On top of that, nothing looked to be all that '80s specific. Oh, sure, there was Paula's car, a walkman, and some of the clothes, but they clearly did not put enough attention into the details. Again, it might sound like a nitpick, but the '80s throwback is crucial to the plot. In fact, it seemed like they spent more time trying to capture the look of the 1950's flashback. How odd.
I may have my fair share of complaints, but this is still a fantastic film in spite of the noticeable flaws. The story is entertaining, the mother/daughter relationship is interesting, and they successfully toy with your expectations of the stereotypical characters. You also can't go wrong with the movie within a movie concept so there's that to consider. While this is probably a little too casual friendly, I do think you will get more out of it if you're a horror veteran; at the very least, you should have a working knowledge of the slasher basics or have watched "Friday the 13th." Definitely check this out if you have a chance.
Notable Moment: When Paula shows up. Too bad we never saw what this character could really do since she dies right away.
Final Rating: 6.5/10
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