VOD Reviw: Final Girl (2015)

(aka Pretty Poison)
Release Date: August 14th.
Country: USA
Rating: R
Written by: Adam Prince and Stephen Scarlata.
Directed by: Tyler Shields.
Starring: Abigail Breslin, Wes Bentley, Cameron Bright, and Alexander Ludwig.

Tyler Shields is a photographer who is famous for capturing some of the world's most beautiful people in provocative poses; sexy, naked, bloody, violent... his work is anything but tame and conventional.

When we heard that he was directing a Horror movie, we were excited, because we figured that at the very least, it would be gorgeous to behold, and that it would more likely than not be bloody and sexy as well. Because that's pretty much his thing.

Final Girl is a gorgeous movie, and while it's got some violence in it, there isn't a lot of sexy to be found, and to be honest, Shields' photographs have far more life in them than the movie does.

After young Veronica's parents die, she meets a creeper named William, who offers to take her in and give her a "Job." What the job is is anybody's guess, but it sounds shady to us. 12 years later, Veronica is all grown up, and we learn that William has been training her to be an assassin. Despite her not being deadly at all, he won't let her use a gun to kill her targets, because I guess that makes too much sense.

"BUT WHY DO YOU GET A GUN?"

Her target ends up being a group of four boys who lure blonde girls into the woods, to hunt them and kill them. As blonde and pretty as she is, it takes Veronica no time at all to draw their attention, which leads to their leader inviting her into the woods for a date, where unbeknownst to her, they plan on killing her like the others... only it is beknownst to her, so the joke's on them!

OH, SOMEONE'S GOING TO DIE ALRIGHT...

Once in the woods, Veronica and the boys play Truth or Dare, where they dare her to run for her life because they're going to kill her. Unbeknownst to them, Veronica has a few tricks up her sleeve for them... which is actually unbeknownst to them because they don't know. It looks like the hunters are about to become the hunted!

Stylish stalk-and-slash shenanigans ensue.

WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING?

Final Girl is first and foremost a pretty movie to look at. Tyler Shields is obviously a man with a sharp eye for visuals, and although the movie doesn't push the boundaries that many of his photographs do, you can see his flair all over the place. At times, the movie was so steeped in visual bliss, that it felt dreamy and surreal.

In fact, you could argue that pretty is all that Final Girl is, because the visuals take precedence over story and character to the point of making us wonder if Tyler Shields actually set out to make a real movie, or if he was just interested in creating an elaborate piece of moving art. If it's the latter, then he succeeded wildly. Of course which one you think it is, is all going to depend on your level of artistic taste, but it's an artistic success none the less.

GORGEOUS.

We're not really sure what Final Girl was going for. It's a movie about a girl who is trained to be an assassin, but she never comes off as being particularly deadly. She and her trainer/handler have an odd relationship that never really goes anywhere, and we didn't really care, because the characters were so bland that we didn't really feel much about them either way. There's also a lot of 1950's-style hep-daddy shit throughout this one, which just felt pretentious; like someone was trying to make everything extra cool, daddy, cool.

The movie just doesn't have any life to it. Neither the story nor the performances are particularly compelling, and yet we watched it all intently. It's like a gorgeous girl in a coma; damn she's pretty to look at, but she just lies there, and she doesn't do much except exist. and occasionally, drool.

So I guess it's a Horror movie, though not a very bloody or scary one.

It's stylish as hell though. We can't deny that.

"THIS REVENGE TASTES DELICIOUS."

Final Girl is a movie that just kind of plods along, not doing much, and doesn't really give its audience much to sink their teeth into. It's also a movie that is gorgeous to behold to the point that some may call it a piece of art, so depending on what you're looking to get out of this one, it's either visionary or a hollow mess. 

C

Final Girl is available now on VOD, and in Limited Theatrical Release.

Abigail Breslin and Tyler Shields go way back... to when he photographed her naked when she was 17. That's a bond that never dies, folks.