Final Girl is a stripped down combination of The Most Deadly Game and a non-supernatural buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s an odd combination and, in its minimalist way, a reasonably diverting hour-and-a-half.
Final Girl opens with William (Wes Bentley) talking with young Veronica (Gracen Shinyel) about the death of her parents. When asked how feels about their deaths, she replies, ‘People die all the time.’ Apparently that is the right answer and William takes her under his wing – training her to be the ultimate assassin.
Intercut with Veronica (Abigail Breslin) in training is a sequence in which Jameson (Alexander Ludwig) gets Gwen’s (Francesca Eastwood) number and him and three other young men hunting and killing her. Along with William’s explanation of why he’s training Abigail, it’s clear that they are to be her targets.
A brief scene in the fifties-style diner we saw Jameson approach Gwen, finds Veronica talking with Jenny (Emma Paetz), girlfriend to one of the four – gathering information. A few nights later, Veronica is sitting alone in the same booth when she’s approached by Jameson. Let the games begin!
Writer Adam Prince and director Tyler Shields only give the barest bones of character in final Girl: the four guys are charming psychopaths; Jennifer is a sad soon to be ex-girlfriend; William is seeking vengeance for the deaths of his wife and daughter, and Veronica has, while becoming the ultimate assassin, fallen in love with her trainer.
Final Girl moves fairly quickly – enough so that we only learn a few things about the four hunters: Danny (Logan Huffman) loves fifties rock & roll, has a pretty fine pompadour and his weapon of choice is an ax; Nelson (Reece Thompson) still lives with his mother and prefers a baseball bat; Shane (Cameron Bright) is the one with a girlfriend, and Jameson is the clear leader (and whatever else he might be, he is not a liar).
The hunt is set up by some fun games – knocking country mailboxes off their posts and a very strange take on Truth or Dare – but when the hunt begins, the outcome is not really in doubt (Veronica has taken her training very seriously – including a hallucinatory experience to reveal something unique to herself.
What makes Final Girl interesting is that Shields stages it well and doesn’t let exposition get in the way of the mayhem. As trainer and student, William and Veronica make an unusual and effective team; the slightly less than optimum within the group of four psychos brings out some intriguing hints, character-wise, and the action is appropriately more real than we’re expecting – and thus more impactful.
The end result is a slightly better than average thriller that gives two characters – in William and Veronica – that it might be fun to see again (which makes it appropriate that film ends on an oddly sweet note back in that diner).
Final Grade: B-