Natflix On Netflix (Episode 1) Final Girl

Natflix On Netflix

We all know what it's like to scroll, scroll, scroll through the many choices that Netflix has to offer. Sometimes I spend so much time looking for something to watch, that I could have watched a whole episode or movie. It's even worse when you are trying to find something with another person. Well, Natflix to the rescue! I'm going to occasionally share some of the stuff I watch on Netflix to help make your choices (or avoidances) easier.

Final Girl

Director: Tyler Shields
Starring: Abigail Breslin, Alexander Ludwig, and Wes Bentley
Release Date: August 15, 2015

Synopsis via IMDb:

A man teaches a young woman how to become a complete weapon. Later she is approached by a group of sadistic teens who kill blonde women for unknown reasons. The hunting season begins.

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MY THOUGHTS:

So a couple of days ago, the hubs and I were doing the endless scroll through Netflix. He is adamant about not starting any new series, and Netflix seems to be all about binge-watching shows these days and less about movies (at least on the home screen), so pickins were a little slim. We read the synopsis for Final Girl and agreed that it sounded okay.

Final Girl is incredibly low budget. I didn't look at the movie cover closely, so was surprised to see that Abigail Breslin and Wes Bentley were the stars. The premise is that when Veronica's (Breslin) parents die when she is a young girl (5 or 6 maybe), William (Bentley) takes her under his wing with the goal of training Veronica to be a killer. You see, Veronica is a psychopath who doesn't even care that her parents are dead, so she is the perfect girl to train as his personal assassin.

Cut to when Veronica is 17. The ultimate goal, and what she has been training all her life for, is to kill the four young men who have been luring girls into the woods where they "hunt" and kill them. Veronica and William's plan is for her to bait one of the boys to become their next victim and turn the tables on them.

Despite a great cast (the main boy is played by Alexander Ludwig who was Cato in The Hunger Games and one of the other boys was the star of the excellent Rocket Science with Anna Kendrick), the film very much suffers from its low budget. The bulk of the film takes place in the woods where they are hunting Veronica (or where she is hunting them) at night. Because of this, the bright lights that shine behind and above the trees is so obviously fake that it seriously distracts from the film. I found myself laughing at the spotlight-like lighting that wasn't even trying to look natural.

I was also completely confused about when this was supposed to take place. I'm guessing by the costumes that it was supposed to be the '50 as poor Veronica is stuck in a circle-skirt dress for the majority of the film (which had to have sucked because there were times when you could see the actor's breath so she must have been freezing).

Finally, and I'm sorry to say this, but Breslin was so unconvincing as a bad-ass. I seriously doubt the girl has ever thrown a real punch in her life--which isn't a bad thing in terms of living a peaceful existence--but is a bad thing when you are playing someone who has supposedly trained for, like, 12 years to be a powerful assassin. She is also not very convincing as a psychopath, although that has to do more with the writing than it does with Breslin's acting.

Despite all of that, Final Girl is quickly paced at a slim 90 minutes, and the quality of cast does make it go down easier than it would have with no-name actors. It was entertaining enough--even if some of the entertainment value comes from laughing at things that aren't supposed to be funny. My husband also enjoyed this more than I did, so maybe keep that in mind if you are watching with a(nother) fella.

Overall, I cannot recommend this, but if you find yourself scrapping the bottom of the Netflix barrel, it isn't a horrible way to spend an hour and a half.