2 out of 5

Directed by: Todd Straud-Schulson

We exist in a pretty robust era for media, now, with directors helming whole seasons of television – more than whole seasons! – and multiple non streams by which to get that media, as well as inheriting (still focusing on television) more flexible concepts of when shows can start, when they break, how long they can run for…  But film is still comparatively stuck to a few set molds.  True, we’ve had more “shared universe” concepts and intended trilogies, but in order to be a movie, your runtime is going to be at least 80-90 minutes or so.  Shorts happen, but they generally seem to be warm-ups for bigger projects, and/or get adapted into “feature” length versions later on.  Plus, good luck seeing those shorts outside of festivals.  And what did I just call it?  Yes: a short.  Not a movie.

And while that newfound flexibility for television has really opened us up to a ton of great choices almost year round, year round we face a common problem with movies: in order to make it to at least 80 or 90 minutes, you sometimes have to streeeetch.  Until there exists a profitable method by which to create short films and get them to viewers, to the extent that we no longer consider them an in-between step, this is probably still going to happen.  Sure, you can blame the filmmakers on not crafting a better feature, but then you have something like Final Girls, which is a really great and fun concept, and is executed pretty solidly with good production and acting, but almost completely tanks because it runs out of steam after about that 30 minute mark.

Max (Taissa Farmiga) and her mother, Amanda (Malin Åckerman) are discussing Amanda’s difficulties in recovering from her film career a 70s movie starlet in teen slasher flick (and Jason homage) Camp Bloodbath when an overly CGI-y car accident then flashes our narrative forward some years to follow a now motherless Max wielding cynicism amongst a small circle of friends and associates – Gertie (Alia Shawkat), Camp Bloodbath-obsessed Duncan (Thomas Middleditch) and nice guy flirtation Chris (Alexander Ludwig).  The flick has already established its familiarities with genre tropes with a fake open of a clip from Bloodbath, and the snapshot characterizations thereafter are in line, following a shorthand that’s effectively written and plays to each actors’ strengths.  We’re setup for what we sense will be trouble: Duncan begging Max to attend a Bloodbath double feature as a star guest.  It is trouble indeed, as some Last Action Hero cosmicness draws all of our leads into the film.

Some true cleverness follows.  Final Girls even has an edge up on its meta competition (Scream and its “follow the rules and we’ll stay alive” followers) by giving Max a unique emotional angle via the interaction with her resurrected in-film mother.  And as long as the film stays in character, its pretty fun and smart.  But then it hits that wall.  Where it must decide what to do with itself.  And it comes to a screeching halt: all of the film characters, too self-aware, become less entertaining; the lack of heart to the movie overall (sort of a saving grace to Last Action Hero – besides being an exceedingly more intelligent film) becomes too apparent as does the loosey-goosey and probably undefined rules by which the movie-within-a-movie gag is churnin’.

Basically: the joke gets old, and Straud-Schulson’s flashiness starts too seem out of place and poorly applied.  Which is not to say there isn’t a good version of this, within that 90 minute runtime; the ultimate meta irony, then, is that a film that’s messing around with genre expectations ends up getting hurt by a larger expectation of the movie medium.