Final Girl

Plot synopsis:
A seven-year-old Veronica meets with a man named William after her parents have died. He asks her how she feels about it, and she responds that people die all the time. After she demonstrates total memory recall, he offers to take her in and train her for a job that is only for "special" people. After he explains that his wife and child were killed by "a very bad man", she accepts.
Twelve years later in the 1960s America, a now blonde-haired Veronica prepares to finish training. She and William enter the woods so she can acclimate to running through the woods barefoot. William explains she cannot use a gun since they are useless after running out of bullets. William teaches her how to put someone in a choke-hold. For the last piece of her training, she is given a combination of truth serum and a hallucinatory drug to confront her greatest fear. This is so she can understand what her victims will be experiencing. Despite believing herself fearless, Veronica confronts her fear of failure.
Four seventeen-year-old boys named Jameson, Daniel, Nelson, and Shane meet at a diner. Jameson, their leader, chooses blonde women to hunt and kill. Their latest prey is a waitress named Gwen. The boys take her to the woods, where they shoot her dead. On a recon mission, Veronica meets Shane's girlfriend, Jennifer, at the diner. They bond over their boy issues, revealing Veronica's romantic feelings for William despite their age difference and her realization that he is emotionally unavailable. Jennifer tells her the boys are on the verge of falling apart. Next, using herself as bait, Veronica meets Jameson at the diner and accepts a date and is told to come with clean hair and red lipstick.
Before leaving, Veronica writes "I Love You" in lipstick on her mirror. The boys pick her up at the diner and take her to the woods, where they play truth or dare. Offering a whiskey flask to the boys from her purse, she tricks all except Jameson into drinking the hallucinogen. She draws the dare 'Die' and asks to go home, but they refuse to take her. Jameson assures her that they will not rape her because women do not run so well following sexual assault. He gives her five minutes to run, which she takes before getting rid of her heels so she can fight. The boys do not wait and go after her immediately.
The first boy, Daniel, hallucinates two panda heads in suits coming after him, who is actually Veronica, who then kills him with his own axe. Next, Veronica goes after Nelson. He sees a group of gray figures circling around him whom he tries to fight. His mother appears and they kiss deeply before he dies as Veronica crushes his head with a rock. Jameson discovers his friends' bodies and is intrigued.
A car drives up to the front of the woods, and Jennifer gets out. She finds Jameson and asks for Shane; however, Jameson comes onto her. Before she started dating Shane, she lost her virginity to Jameson. She gives into his advances just as they start kissing Shane appears. Betrayed, he punches Jameson, who taunts him by saying people like them cannot love. Jameson explains to Jennifer what they do in the woods, despite Shane's protests. Shane punches out Jameson and, while saying he loves her, chokes Jennifer. It turns out to be a hallucination, as Jennifer is revealed to actually be Veronica before she strangles him.
Jameson and Veronica come face to face and talk before fighting. They play a game of asking questions where one has answer correctly whatever being asked. Jameson says he has killed 21 women, counting her. When Veronica reveals she enjoyed killing his friends, he proposes they work together, but she refuses. They fight until he passes out from a choke-hold that William taught Veronica earlier. She forces him to drink the drugged alcohol and, when he awakens, finds himself hanging from a tree. Crying, he begs for his life, swearing that he will never kill again but Veronica doesn't believe him. As the drugs take effect, his victims, including Gwen, come out of the trees and move toward him. In his haste to get away, Jameson steps off a tree stump and hangs himself. William appears and congratulates Veronica, and they go to the diner to eat pancakes.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
The rest of the actors do on the whole a pretty good job and overlooking Abigail Breslin's obvious miscasting this was an entertaining movie to watch.
Just don't expect too much going in.Wes Bentley, Cameron Bright, Alexander Ludwig and Francesca Eastwood are all actors I have seen before and their performances while good are let down by the unpolished script dialogue.The movie is quite short at 78 minutes before the credits and the story is quite good, but for one glaring plot hole.I gave this a 5.5 rounded up to a 6/10, which is better than the current average on here, it could have easily been an 8 with some work on the script and a more appropriate lead actress..
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..............................................
Even the paper used to print the script was a waste of good material.It gets a one star rating only because it is useful to show to film students as a lesson on how-not-to write and develop a concept...
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 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.
Imagine how much better this movie would have been if we'd thought she was a victim the entire time until she started killing them.
I don't know why they went the boring route of telling you she's an assassin at the beginning of the movie then watching Wes Bentley give her "training" that she endures whilst looking like she's about to cry the entire time.Talk about a weak "assassin".
This probably explains the problems so many of the other reviewers have with this film, as they likely thought they were thinking they were going to see a twist on the slasher genre based on the description of the film.This film doesn't explore its own premise or delve that deep into the characters.
It's nicely executed and overall the movie is watchable but it feels more like a student project with an interesting cast than anything else.
Even if your ultimate experience is indeed disappointing, it won't be half as bad as to justify the low rating and terrible reviews here.Final Girl is simply a fun, satisfying revenge flick telling the story of some sort of operative in a secret above-the-law agency given the task of eliminating five stereotypical psychopaths who enjoy toying with girls before killing them.
Add to that excellent characters, on-the-spot acting and great overall atmosphere and you get a wonderful experience of bad guys suffering beautifully painful consequences.Final Girl if far from being perfect or even impressive.
I can't tell the ending of this movie but I have a feeling 99.99% population can already guess what it would be.Maybe I can add a bit of the story...
Final Girl is a fine example of a beautifully made independent film.A great cast of young actors.
It's like everyone was expecting a big budget over the top Hollywood film......these days the typical audience doesn't appreciate independent films.....this film was awesome and if you like independent art films that were shot beautifully with great visuals and stylised lighting, I recommend checking Final Girl Out..
Final Girl: Veronica (Abigail Breslin) is out to bury the hatchet in this Revenge Horror/Thriller.
Her mentor, William (Wes Bentley), instructs her in strangle holds and she experiences the combined effects of truth serum and DMT, so she can experience what her targets will feel when she drugs them.Her prey in this first mission are four teenage boys who hunt and kill young women.
Well, I guess I am glad that I got my new OLED TV in time to watch this movie since I am sure my old LED-LCD would have struggled with the many dark scenes.
A guy who has gotten his wife and daughter killed by a set of psychopathic young men trains a (very) young girl for years to take revenge.
The locations are plain, but lit up and filmed very picturesquely; the characters were plain on the surface, but enjoyably layered as the film progressed; the outfits were plain, but stylish and as striking as they needed to be; the fights were mostly plain hand-to-hand, and it added to the sense of struggle and urgency; the music was barely there, and it was perfect.I keep seeing people say Hanna is better, but honestly now, I felt more for the heroes, victims, and even villains in this movie than I did with ANY character in Hanna, which by the way had the advantage of being 20 minutes longer, 22 million dollars more expensive, and sported a more well-known cast.
I've seen other reviewers of this movie complain about low production values and an under-developed plot; neither of those things bothered me.
Like for an example, a diner and a forest.A "setup" is the dramatic device that sets the tone for the rest of the film and prepares the audience.This little gem as an "overlong setup" as Wes Bentley and Abagail Breslin spend a lot of time, just the two of them, training, as if this were some sort of MMA epic.
His crazy eyes and strange demeanour have never been uses so effectively in his entire career.It is the brilliance of the overlong setup that carries the viewer into the second Act and the finale.The highest compliment I can pay this film is this -- if they do a sequel, I will stand in line to see it.And if Hollywood stole the idea and did a remake -- I would see that too..
A fun movie that bets on the fact that watching Breslin killing will make up for the lack of story..
Overall, a fun movie that bets on the fact that watching Breslin killing will make up for the lack of story.
From the very beginning this movie makes you ask questions - why am I watching this, why did they make this, should I even continue watching, etc.In the first few minutes of the film it is apparent that the female lead has had no training with weapons or fighting, yet the premise is that she's been training for 12 years straight.
Can't really say much more here, but the acting just added to an already bad script.One thing that really annoyed me - when you have it raining for most of the movie, but the actors magically stay dry - well, that is an issue.Pretty much the only thing that WILL stay with you after watching this, is how unbelievable the female lead was in the role.
RELEASED IN 2015 and directed by Tyler Shields, "Final Girl" concerns a little orphaned girl in Washington (state) who is trained by a mysterious cold man, William (Wes Bentley), in assassination techniques and the use of drugs.
Abigail Breslin plays the protagonist.This is a cool meshing of films like "Hanna" (2011), "The Hunger Games" (2012) and "Point of No Return" (1993).
I wanted to enjoy this.I liked the idea of the story/plot but it could've been so much more.There's holes everywhere- who are these people training the girl?
What's the background story?Same for the boys- give us more detail and background info.Don't watch the movie expecting great performances- they were OK, but again, could've been so much more, though I am curious to see what else Abigail Breslin does after this.
The acting was incredibly corny, the lighting was terrible, everyone stood in the rain constantly and never got wet, physically it is obvious that Abigail isn't beating up a rabbit in this movie let alone a group of strong post pubescent young men who could put her down easily with one hit.
I found no rhyme or reason for Abigail Breslin and Wes Bently's lives to intersect and then for him to just take over a young girls and bring her up, supposedly teaching her to fight, makes no sense.
A group of boys have been luring young girls into the woods to kill them, but when they get to Veronica, they picked the wrong girl.Speaking of picking the wrong girl, I'm not fully convince that Abigail Breslin was right for the part.
I think this movie would have been much better as a TV show.If the story could be condensed into 1 hour (easy enough to do given this film's slow pace) it could have been the set up for a series.
To see the young girl get back to those boys, but the actual scenes are uninteresting.This looks more like an experiment or a low budget student project than an actual movie.
This movie is so bad its an insult to modern movies, and the person that compare this to sin city, ROFL, he needs his eye checks, and understand what plot, script and directing means.The movie start with nonsense way to recruited child assassins, if u want to train a clumsy arm to arm combat assassins with no muscles or physical strength why bother with an IQ and memory test, just pay a beggar 5 bucks and hand them a knife or a shotgun and finish the job.Directing and lighting of this movie is a joke, Flood lights and spot light in the middle of a forest?
shot gun?I warn u all, save your money and time avoid this crap the writers and story for this movie are obviously pedophile that wants to see underage teens commit clumsy torture kills towards rich boys..
The one who act good is the little girl from the start (you can see her in trailer too) Just it.I don't know what to read anymore, I don't want to write more then this (could be harsh).
The plot is strange, four guys like to play, hunt and kill girls in the woods.
Acting is not good, the fighting scenes are really bad , nothing looks natural on this movie.I wonder if the people who make this kind of movies really watch them and what do they feel when they do.
Weak - Predictable - Unlikeable Characters VERY Unlikeable - Background on how she became who she was suppose to be so WEAK A cool idea that COULD have been promising Executed poorly I Like the Lead lady she usually picks interesting projects This one is her dud For sure That is really it for my review however for some reason IMDb says I must write at least ten lines So I would say again WEAK WEAK WEAK Disappointing and a Fail Did it go straight to DVD ?
Excellent Little Fantasy Revenge Killer Classic Movie With A Young Abigail Breslin.
Even though I enjoy the fantasy/nonsense of this ill cast (5' 1" thick little pretty girl)/revenge killer, I always enjoy the overview of this fun Ima-gonna-kill-em-all movie carried out by a beautiful young girl/child.
A bit of explanation about the mysterious death of Veronica's parents, the origin of the unknown teacher and the reason for the bizarre behavior of the four teenagers, would have been a useful contribution.Besides the outstanding performances of Breslin and Bentley (and Logan Huffman as the pretty crazy looking figure Danny) this was still a mediocre movie.
I was so excited for this one, just because I love movies wherein the main character is a girl who has this assassin-like skills.
As a viewer I was waiting for the biggest reveal, which was "Why do the boys kill blonde girls?" I know it's a psychological thriller but an explanation for how things were presented might have been good for the overall story..
If you're looking for a fun action flick involving a kick ass pretty girl - with no challenge or need to think or work when you watch it - this is your answer.
If you can accept 5' 1" blonde cutie Abigail Breslin as a highly trained assassin able to defeat four drug-fuelled sociopathic teenage boys in a fist fight, or the notion of said teenagers systematically murdering twenty girls without being caught by the police, OR the idea that teenage girls are only too happy to get into a car with a group of young men they have only just met, then Final Girl should prove enjoyable enough.Personally speaking, to believe that Breslin can beat up blokes twice her size is asking a bit too much, while the absence of any police presence and a total lack of wariness from the victims pushes the film way beyond the realms of believability, making it a rather unsatisfying experience.Novice director Tyler Shields handles the action reasonably well enough, and I applaud his bold choice of lighting throughout, which lends the film a twisted, unreal fairytale atmosphere (that actually complements the implausible plot), but I consider the film so fundamentally flawed that I found it impossible to fully engage with.4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb..
Trailer looked good ,film total crap.i cant even remember the stars name ,terrible acting ,another sad attempt to make us believe a 7 stone chick can be turned into a lethal weapon ,same old plot so cheesy it made me wanna puke .basically four dumb ass rich boys take pleasure in luring young girls into the woods and murder them ,real decent plot but so badly played out.watchin our main star in training ,you could clearly see she couldnt use a gun ,definetely not fight,her limp punches wouldnt knock the skin of a turd.its all to daft which is a shame as it woulda made a decent story if it was made properly .its samey ,cheesy,unbelievable ,predictable ,and only just watchable.
I loved ABIGAIL BRESLIN in THE CALL, but in this movie she just decays into a rot of a film.
You got a sense that she didn't know here character at all, and I was just watching some girl fight people for 90 minutes.
I was watching just so patiently waiting for the climax to come, then when the end credits rolled I was so confused because I wan't sure what the movie even did to be a horror film.
It has the makings to have been really good if they'd gone the horror comedy route - ridiculous evil bad guys, an absurd, doughy, 'deadly' assassin who looks like she couldn't beat up a twelve year old nerd, and an over the top, cold-hearted, steely-eyed mentor.
So, Final Girl isn't a horror film like its title suggests so, but quite an interesting psychological thriller (with the emphasis on "psychological"), whose strange texture requires some patience from the spectator, but it's eventually rewarding..
OK.The most interesting thing about this movie is that one of the main actors, Alexander Ludvig, (looks like a bigger, buffer Joffrey from GoT) also starred in The Final Girls.
An indie horror film that takes the subject of the 'final girl' in a slasher movie and runs away with it.
Sounds like it's someone else's rule, doesn't it?In time Veronica does her thing against the boys and they come to know she will be the Final Girl they have anything to do with.
SPOILERS This film left me with a lot of questions and I've come to realize that the answer to every single one of them is "because it is a dumb and senseless movie." Here are a few for you to sample: How did these murderers who are in high school kill William's wife and daughter over ten years ago?
The fight scenes are edited to mask the fact that clearly, this 10 year trained assassin looks like someone who just walked into a gym for the first time and was asked to stand in a boxing stance.Because you know from the start of the movie that the girl has been training, essentially, all her life to fight these guys, you never get the sense that she is in any real danger or that the outcome is ever in question.
Veronica has to kill them one by one to make the movie last some 20 minutes more.Screenplay is embarrassing, but not enough to start the so-bad-so-good process.
In what seems to be a montage audition for Hit Girl role, Veronica (Abigail Breslin) spends the first act with hard training only to engage in blurry fighting shots and illogical script.
Well this film offers some what of the twist, the Final girl is prepared to be hunted, has been trained to act out the innocent act and fall in line with these four adolescent killing machines.
Will the Final Girl have a chance of another movie like this one,well I bloody well hope so!!
I got up during the movie and it certainly isn't one of those movies you miss the beginning and you have no idea what is going on.The feature of the film was definitely the scenes of Abigail Breslin fighting in a cocktail dress.
I feel like Abigail and Wes' acting alone is enough to see this movie and believe me, this got and kept my attention a lot better than the 6.0+ flicks on IMDb. Is it bad compared to what could be a very intense thriller?
Despite having a good chemistry with Breslin, he only has a short screen time in the movie.Like most films in the genre where the good girl becomes the last intended victim, Final Girl is predictable, derivative, messy and devoid of any freshness.