By Chris Snellgrove | Published
I’m a huge horror fan, but there are two things that usually stop me from watching a horror movie: bad reviews and bad coverage. Unfortunately, the 2015 Last girl suffers from both, which is why I continued to ignore the film no matter how many times my various algorithms threw it in my face. I finally gave in and watched this movie for free on Tubi, and I’m happy to report that, despite what the detractors say, it’s almost a movie. Perfect horror film.
Girl’s Final Casting Gets Attention
The cast of Last girl is rather thin, but it contains some very big names, including Abigail Breslin (best known for Little Miss Sun) as the titular Final Girl and Wes Bentley (best known for American beauty And Interstellar) as a pragmatic coach. She is trained by a mysterious organization that gives her James Bond-level skills to help her kill bad guys. In this film, the villains in question are a quartet of murderous boys led by a charismatic sociopath (Alexander Ludvig, best known for The hunger games and the Vikings television show).
Although it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I really loved it Last girl for its straightforward storytelling, including the fact that we don’t get many exact details about who this mysterious organization is, what its purpose is, or even the exact year in which this period piece is set. It’s the ultimate “show, don’t tell” horror film, and that’s only fitting thanks to director Tyler Shields. Shields is actually a photographer by trade, and to his credit, he infuses every frame of the film with a signature style, one that balances the artistic excess of Zack Snyder with the arthouse minimalism of Jim Jarmusch .
Buffy fans take note
If you like horror movies, you might enjoy how Last girl subverts expectations in the fine tradition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The villains are a quartet of young killers whose sinister scheme involves choosing an unsuspecting target, taking her into the woods, and revealing their plan to hunt and kill her while wearing a tuxedo. They want Breslin’s character to be their next target, not knowing that she has spent her entire life training to kill these kinds of bastards in the most brutal and creative ways.
The film is equally creative, but that can be difficult to appreciate unless you get past its very trope-y design. It’s essentially a classic revenge story with a twist that the potential victim is willing to turn the tables, much like what you’d get if Buffy Summers hunted human monsters rather than the undead. Despite some very familiar tropes on display, this film’s dialogue is sparkling, the cinematography is breathtaking, and the kills are both unpredictable and satisfying, making this a film that is more than the sum of its parts tropes.
Not enough reviews
Unfortunately, not everyone liked it Last girl almost as much upon its release (first via a limited theatrical release and then on video on demand). On Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently has a critical score of 25 percent, although coming from only 12 reviews. And while all fans like to say that critics have done bad things to their favorite films, this is a case where most of the critics were truly wrong, complaining about things like the plot being basic and the film being too violent. What did they expect from a horror movie?
It’s true that Last girl isn’t going to blow you away with an intricate plot taken from a Chris Nolan film, but I argue that the best slasher films are those that stick to the classic formula of films like Friday the 13th while managing to surprise us with some unexpected twists and turns. This is exactly what Last girl fact: it takes the formula of hunting and killing unsuspecting victims in the woods, but turns those victims into potential attackers. The result is the rare horror film in which we can root for the brutal killer while she’s busy murdering some of the worst people around.
Will you find Last girl as exciting as me, or will you agree with the critics that this attempt at an artistic slasher fails to touch the cinematic artery? The only way to find out is to stream it for free on Tubi. I leave you with a simple reminder that I wish someone had shared with me when this film was released in 2015: it’s a lot, a lot better than its terrible cover would suggest.
Last girl is streaming on Tubi.
