Final Girl Movie Review – Weird and a Little Interesting

Runtime: 90 minutes

Release Date: August 14, 2015

Rating: ?

Director: Tyler Shields

Veronica is just a little girl at the beginning of Final Girl. After meeting William and revealing that the deaths of her parents didn't really bother her, he agrees to take her in and begin training her for a very special and important job.

The movie then jumps a few years into the future. Veronica is now a beautiful woman who still works with William. He takes her into the woods and starts her training over again. He teachers her hand to hand combat, including how to take down a man with just a punch. Though William seems to look at her more like a child or a student, she seems to view him as a potential lover.

After going through several montages and other moments, including a few scenes of her taking down men twice her size, we finally get to the heart of a story. While sitting in a small cafe and sipping a vanilla milkshake, a man named Jameson approaches her. Just a few seconds later, he makes plans to meet her again, asking her to wear red lipstick. He shows up for their date with his three best friends in tow.

The four men take her on a long drive into the woods. They settle down on seats and invite her to join them in a game of truth or dare. Veronica agrees before handing over a flask, which she secretly laced earlier in the night. The game turns deadly when the men turn her loose and begin hunting her through the woods in the same way they did dozens of other women, but things turn even deadlier when the men realize that Veronica is more of a threat to them than they are to her.

Final Girl is a strange movie. Though it had some good scenes and some interesting moments, I can't say that I really liked it. Abigail Breslin is a pretty damn good actress, but she doesn't do her best her. While some might say that her cold and icy demeanor works with the character, I can't help feeling like she's playing her role from Scream Queens. Wes Bentley isn't so great as William either. He has the same expression on his face through most of the movie.

It's also the kind of movie that gives viewers little in the way of resolution. How did William find Veronica? How did he manage to take her into his home and raise her? Did the group of guys, who look roughly the same age as Veronica, have something to do with the murders of his wife and child? Is there a reason they targeted various guys earlier in the film? How did they find out about this new group of guys? Why is the general public not talking about how women keep going missing from the same damn diner? Yeah, we get no answers to any of those questions.

Final Girl actually played more like an experimental film to me than anything else, and actually reminded me of Under the Skin at times. It was interesting to watch the first time but definitely not something I would seek out again.