For Day 21 of The Bark Knight’s 31 Days of Halloween, our theme is horror comedies, and I went with The Final Girls (2015), a movie that takes the familiar slasher formula and gives it a surprisingly heartfelt twist.
I went into this one completely blind. I knew nothing about the plot, and the only thing I had to go on was the cover art, which had a very obvious '80s horror vibe. That's not necessarily a bad way to discover a movie, but I will say that The Final Girls has a particular tone that one may need to be in a very specific mood for. Luckily, I was.
A Slasher Within a Slasher
The story follows Max, a teenage girl whose mother dies in a car accident. Her mother was an actress best known for starring in an '80s slasher movie called Camp Bloodbath, a very obvious nod to the Friday the 13th franchise.
When Max attends a screening of the film with a group of friends and fans, disaster strikes, and they somehow find themselves transported into the movie itself.
Suddenly, they're trapped inside a world of slasher movie clichés, surrounded by characters who have no idea they're following a familiar horror formula. To survive, Max and her friends must navigate the movie's increasingly ridiculous rules, try to save its characters, and find a way to defeat the masked killer.
It's a fun premise, but there's more going on here than the setup initially suggests.
The Heart Behind the Horror
One of the more interesting things I learned about The Final Girls is that it was originally conceived and co-written by Joshua John Miller as a way of processing the death of his father, Jason Miller, who famously played Father Karras in The Exorcist (1973).
That personal connection an added dimension to the story. There's something touching about the idea of revisiting old movies starring someone you've lost, particularly when those films preserve a version of that person from decades earlier.
It's also something I can relate to in a different way. When I first started thinking about creating a podcast, one of the things that appealed to me was the idea of leaving something behind. Not necessarily in some grand sense, but simply having a record of who I was, what I was interested in, and how I felt about particular movies at a specific point in my life. Years from now, I might look back on those conversations and find that my opinions have changed, or that they remind me of things I'd otherwise forgotten.
Obviously, that's a different experience from what Max goes through in The Final Girls, but the underlying idea of preserving a piece of someone's life through their work really resonated with me.
Fortunately, the film doesn't allow that emotional side to overwhelm everything else. There's still plenty of absurd humor, slasher action, and over-the-top situations along the way.
Embracing the ‘80s Slasher Formula
The cast includes Taissa Farmiga, who you might recognize from American Horror Story and The Nun films, alongside Malin Akerman and Adam Devine. Devine's inclusion alone should give you a pretty good idea of how much comedy is involved here.
As the story progresses, things become more and more fantastical, but the movie never really loses its sense of fun. It leans heavily into the familiar stereotypes of '80s slashers, from the exaggerated characters to the predictable behavior that usually gets people killed.
Like Scream 4, The Final Girls has fun with the audience's familiarity with slasher conventions, although it takes a much more fantastical approach.
What makes it work is that the film understands those conventions well enough to have fun with them, rather than simply making jokes at their expense.
And, underneath all the silliness, that emotional connection between Max and her mother gives the story something a little more substantial.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed The Final Girls, and I think plenty of other horror fans will too, provided they know what they're getting into.
It's part of that horror, comedy, and fantasy mix we've seen quite a bit of in recent years. It's a Wonderful Knife comes to mind as a comparison, although I liked The Final Girls considerably more.
I've also heard good things about Totally Killer, Freaky, and Happy Death Day, which seem to operate in similar territory. Those are definitely films I'd like to explore as well.
If you're looking for a traditional, straight-faced slasher, this probably isn't going to scratch that itch, but if you're in the mood for something playful, self-aware, and surprisingly emotional, The Final Girls is well worth checking out.
Next, the 31 Days of Halloween is headed to the 1990’s!
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Previous Day: Days 20 - Scream 4 (2011): The Bridge Between Two Eras.
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