There are only a few movies about characters who go into other movies, but they raise an interesting conundrum. In any movie, we all think what we would do if we were in the movie, but we let it go because it’s not a movie about us. It’s about those characters. When a movie is about characters going into another movie and they still don’t do what we would do, that gets really frustrating.
In The Final Girls, Max (Taissa Farmiga) and her friends end up in the horror movie in which her mother (Malin Akerman) starred. They know everything that’s going to happen, except that they don’t belong there so that changes things a little. This film’s Randy character, the movie buff Duncan (Thomas Middleditch) can only help as far as the original movie goes. Once they change things it’s uncharted territory.
For a while, The Final Girls has to spend a lot of time disproving a lot of the ‘90s meta movie rules. The Final Girls sets up some fun movie rules of its own based on running time, narrative boundaries and scene transitions. It’s less of a commentary on horror movies and more setting up its own matrix in which to play.
They mess with the formula real good, but miss some big opportunities too. There is a great joke about a flashback that I won’t spoil, but so many ideas are posed by the mere notion of a flashback that one wonders why none of the characters thought to explore it further. They could still find find out they can’t change the past in a funny way, but if the audience is asking the question, the movie ought to address it.
In this world, Camp Bloodbath is considered the best summer camp slasher movie ever. That must mean this is a world where Friday the 13th doesn’t exist. That’s easier to believe than thinking Duncan actually prefers Camp Bloodbath. They may know that sex = death, but there’s no nudity. It’s still a 2015 horror movie. There’s really not much fun with Camp Bloodbath‘s killer, Billy. Since the kids change things, Billy doesn’t go around picking off the campers one by one. It’s all setting things up for the end.
Camp Bloodbath is just not that great a Friday the 13th spoof. Jason X had a better Friday the 13th spoof in it, but to be fair, Jason X is awesome. I don’t expect every self-referential horror movie to be Jason X. Everyone in Camp Bloodbath is an on the nose one dimensional archetypes speaking “bad movie dialogue.” A bad ‘80s movie isn’t self-aware enough to be this overt, but a clever movie should be more subtle. There’s no excuse for the modern characters. When one asks, “What is this, Detroit?” that’s no better than the sexist A-hole (Adam Devine)’s cheesy come-on lines. Detroit = worse than being chased by a slasher killer, also a joke from The Kentucky Fried Movie. Bringing a pro gay perspective to homophobic ‘80s tropes is nice and progressive, for the one scene in which it happens.`
There’s some ambitious twisting camera movement, but the visual effects look downright incomplete. I mean basic stuff like driving green screen shots don’t look done. Then there’s a car crash visual effect that looks so unfinished, they should just not show the car crash. You can imply a car crash. You don’t need to show it if it doesn’t look like an actual car crash. It’s supposed to be a serious car wreck, not a spoof one, so it can’t be excused as a cheesy joke. A distributor can fix these FX but they probably won’t.
The Final Girls is perfectly fun. You’ll never be bored but you might spend the whole movie second guessing its meta characters. That’s the other conundrum when a movie is made by and for movie fans. We’re a tough lot to please, so when you target us specifically, the standards get higher.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
