The Final Girls - Finally… a new take on a ‘slasher’ movie

Okay, so it’s not THAT new – after all, you still have a killer running around hacking up a selection of good-looking American teens, but – hey – it’s still better than most of the recent offerings.  The premise kind of reminded me of (the much underrated) ‘Last Action Hero’ in as much as people from our ‘real’ world end up getting stuck in a movie.  However, instead of being the ‘comedy relief’ to a much-loved Austrian mega-star, our hapless teens find themselves in the traditional middle-of-nowhere setting where they’re at the mercy of a fictional masked killer (who bears no small resemblance to one Jason Voorhees).

Therefore, like the ‘Last Action Hero,’ expect all the clichés and formulas from a horror/slasher movie to be pointed out along the way (not to mention the odd gruesome kill thrown in there).

There are no real stand-out performances here as, despite being a reasonably original take, the character types are pretty much what you’d expect, i.e. the good girl, the trampy girl, the best friend and so on.  However, this time round it’s all a little more ‘knowing’ and at least they’re aware of their own stereotypes.

There are also a few touching moments in the script towards the end that you probably wouldn’t expect from a film of this genre.  These actually make a welcome break from the general quips and carnage.

I wouldn’t have watched this film based on either the cover or the title.  I should have mentioned that the ‘film within a film’ is set in the eighties, therefore the cover art is all pretty ‘retro’ and I thought it just looked like another run-of-the-mill slasher flick.  Don’t let this put you off.  It is definitely worth a watch, but what you get out of this will depend on your existing knowledge of the genre.  The more you know about masked killers the more fun you’ll have here.  Luckily, I seem to know a lot about them, hence I had a blast with this film.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that