Starring Malin Akerman, Taissa Farmiga, Nina Dobrev, Thomas Middleditch, Adam Devine, Alexander Ludwig

Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson

A good parody should pay tribute to the genre it’s lampooning and, ideally, rekindle the love you have for the films it’s having so much fun mocking. Undeniably, there’s a nostalgia centered around campy hack n’ slash horror from the ‘80s, so there’s always a sense of comfort and familiarity when revisiting old faves like Friday the 13th or The Prowler. It’s the love of the genre, however, that’s missing from Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls and it begins to show as the film reaches its climax.

Trapped in B-movie purgatory, Nancy (Malin Ackerman) and her daughter Max (Taissa Farmiga) travel to one failed audition after another, largely because of Nancy’s most famous role decades prior in the cult classics Camp Bloodbath and Camp Bloodbath 2. All Nancy wants is to be taken seriously as an actress and all Max wants is for her to stop obsessing over it. After an inventive 360-degree car crash sequence, Max survives and Nancy dies in the wreckage. Cut to a few years later and suddenly Max is trapped in a diner with her best friend Gertie (Alia Shawkat) and Gertie’s horror-obsessed brother Duncan (Thomas Middleditch) as he begs her to come to his revival double feature of the Bloodbath series that made her mother a star (in certain circles at least). Escaping a fire inside the theater by ripping a hole through the movie screen, Max and her friends find themselves stuck inside a loop of the actual Camp Bloodbath movie, trapped until the Voorhees-esque killer, Billy Murphy (Dan Norris) is killed by the final girl in the movie.

Knowing the movie by heart, Duncan hilariously guides them through the first reel of the movie within a movie, explaining that they should just observe the victims as if they’re watching animals on a nature preserve. However, their very presence begins to effect the outcome of the story, allowing the stereotypical characters in Bloodbath to become self-aware. The funniest moments come from Adam Devine’s (Workaholics) bohunk, Kurt, and Angela Timbur’s Tina, who offers up a hilarious speed-induced strip tease that seems like something Linnea Quigley would have done in her prime.

The ridiculous interactions between the characters and the sweet moments between Max and the movie version of her mother are the best moments of The Final Girls and it’s only as the film progresses that the camera tricks and clever character interactions with title cards and booming voiceovers begin to barrel towards overkill. Black and white sequences that transport the characters into the world of the cliche flashback explaining the legend of Billy Murphy and how he became a killer add a cartoonish aspect to Final Girls that’s welcome amidst the sometimes directionless feeling of the story.

If Wet Hot American Summer and Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon combined, it would have a similar vibe to what the final product of The Final Girls winds up being but it isn’t as well constructed and executed as Leslie Vernon or as funny as American Summer. If there was more of an underlying love of ‘80s horror on display, The Final Girls might have elevated itself to be something more than a fun parody that ends up being a little too caught up in its technical flash rather than creating some more crowd pleasing moments to wrap up the story. Until it begins to overstay its welcome, The Final Girls really is trying to show the audience a great time and, for the most part, it succeeds in keeping a high concept horror comedy firmly planted in its own bizarro world. It just tries a little too hard at times to have heart and technical ingenuity when it should be focusing on the rules it establishes and then has so much fun breaking.