Final Girl : La Dernière Proie

24 March 2016. It wasn't Abigail Breslin's fault I assume, but the script just didn't allow her to really shine in this movie. Her martial arts, well her kick-boxing skills or taking apart and putting together a weapon just weren't on par for as long as she trained for example as La Femme Nikita (1990), Elektra (2005), Hannah (2011) Daisy and Violet (2011), or Miss Meadows (2014). There was too much light in the darkened forest which was too unrealistic. As for the hallucination horror scenes, they weren't on par with such classics as The Blair Witch Project (1999), The Cell (2000), Silent Hill (2006), Black Death (2010). As a thriller, the movie did have a consistently and understandable plot, with some wry humor, and decent acting, and an atmosphere in this nevertheless predicable movie. But it could have been better.

Final Girl is basically putting the Hit-Girl trope to the slasher genre, which can be a pretty cool concept. The film's style is some sort of a fancy old-school mystery film, highlighting shadows and silhouettes through creaking walls, cafeterias and streets. Visually appealing stuff, rather enjoyed for being effectively overly campy for its low budget. But the story itself is just downright silly and even worse, meaningless. The movie sets up a little girl training to beat up dangerous men, but it instead lead us to a number of strange events, which results to such polarizing schlock.

Even for its shoddiness, the weird style could still be admired for being way too campy. The story centers on a secret organization that hires vigilantes, and everything else about them is a huge mystery. We only see two characters in their dark shadowy headquarters; it's either for the sake of being extremely minimal, or just really underdeveloped. But the important thing is, they're hiring a young girl to fight off their targets. In spite of training and even raising her in this cold- blooded environment, the main character, Veronica, still doesn't seem like she's as strong or as unfeeling as she is supposed to be. It makes everyone wonder what exactly did she train throughout her childhood. She's not given much of an arc either. The film just presumes that she is not competent enough at some points. It can be a useful good to bring some suspense, but instead, she is given an incredible dose of deus ex machina in this "daring mission" that would easily take down her targets.

While it makes the whole mission a lot weirder, all we see is just some amateurish looking acid trip that is supposed to represent their fear, but looks more totally random than disturbing. The fighting is hidden behind the vague shadows and the on screen blood is very reserved. All the slasher/gory fun is replaced with artsy pretentiousness. And for some reason, that can also be one of the benefits of the film. In a typical mindset, the experience may just be some terribly shot mindless violence on screen. Not saying that this approach is anything fresh or superior at all, it's just pretty rare that it manages to do something a little different. It brings some tongue-in-cheek characters, blanketing their shadows into some exteriors with lighting fetishes (the headlights of the gang's car is super strong enough to shine the entire forest). The movie brings some flavor, but it didn't gloss over enough about the fact how pointless this story all was. The acting is fine, they're basically as campy as the cinematography.

Final Girl is a cool looking film with a pretty ridiculous story that lacks severe subtext. The movie may have painted a lot of interesting shadows through its darkness which makes it effectively campy as hell, add some symmetry that somewhat turn buildings into dollhouses, make headlights spotlighting every hallucination, and characters chew the scenery because it's more intimidating that way, but then it's all just pretty images. It all lacks grotesque and gore, or even more important: meaning. While it's reasonably to get fascinated by a typical B-movie's decision have such obsession with silhouettes and lights, the story just doesn't make any sense in the end.

I saw the trailer to this and it appealed to me. I like both the main actors. They have proved they are good. But this film doesn't take long before your realise it is a little cheap. Questionable dialogue and poor cinematography.

The story is neither here or there. I have seen worse. But the way it is executed just leaves you wondering if this was a student project. The build up to the climax is clumsy and made me chuckle a few times. Abigail is a fine actress but this film did nothing to help her. She just wasn't convincing in this role. Especially if I compare next to the film: Hannah.

So in summary; Weak story, poor production, bad cinematography and failed direction that lets the actors down. Not recommended.

This is actually a good movie to watch when your just alone and want to see something by yourself............................................. I see a lot of reviews on this movie talking bad about it .. Some say it ruined a date or wasn't entertaining, that makes me believe those comments come from people who always expect a movie to have nudes and sexy scenes to help them get laid or from kids who just like cool Michael Bay explosions.............................................. This is a slow paced movie and its just what it was intended to be, like for example "sin city" in movies like that you cant expect total realism, there's some art in it. its not great but not bad too...... the end.

When the trailer comes out a couple of months ago, i was like, no, they can do that. Another one of thoses revenge flick they made a hundred times. Abigail Breslin stars as Veronica and Wes Bentley is not named and he is her mentor. He teach her (in a young age) to becomes a complete weapon. Which she is like 13 years later now at around 18. The character of Wes Bentley gives her many ''challenge'' and one of them is to approch a group of sadistic teens who killed blond women for unknown reasons. But they are a bunch of rich kids with problem. And they love the hunting season.

The funny thing in this film is the style, it is very stylish, 50s style and it is interesting to see the storyline developp. Sure, they don't look to have 100 millions of budget, but for what they get, they make a great effort and look really convincing. This director, Tyler Shields make his first big screen film and i hope it's not the last.