Last Girl Standing, 2015.
Directed by Benjamin R. Moody.
Starring Akasha Villalobos, Danielle Evon Ploeger, Brian Villalobos, Jason Vines, Laura Ray, Ryan Hamilton and Kelsey Pribilski.
SYNOPSIS:
So what does happen to the final girl once the chase is over? She doesn’t live happily ever after apparently…
Have you ever wondered what really happens to the final girl in the gruesome world of slasher movies? Some make it into the sequel and get killed off within the first 10 minutes as a new bunch of debauched teens becomes the focus of whichever franchise killer is the current pop culture icon but, for the purposes of this film at least, let us assume that there are no sequels and that the final survivor must continue their life with the weight of what they have been through resting on their shoulders. That is where Last Girl Standing begins.
The film opens where most slashers end, with Camryn (Akasha Villalobos) and a doomed male friend running from a masked serial killer. Once the guy is despatched Camryn becomes the final survivor and is cornered by the madman, setting off one of his own traps and killing him. This is all in the first five minutes and what follows is a carefully paced and intelligently written character piece as Camryn must come to terms with her ordeal and carry on with her life, all the while fighting the demons that plague her waking hours and battling the nightmares in her sleep.
Playing in the same ballpark as Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and tapping into the meta stylings that Scream introduced to the genre, Last Girl Standing is the type of film that will be a calling card not only for writer/director Benjamin R. Moody but also for star Akasha Villalobos, who carries the film totally and should be instantly catapulted into – should it exist – the scream queen hall of fame alongside the greats like Jamie Lee Curtis, Ashley Laurence, Heather Langenkamp, et al. With most slasher movies you have a whole film to get through before the group of victims is whittled down to the final girl so you have time to get to know the character and get on board with their plight; in Last Girl Standing you are thrown straight into the carnage with no knowledge as to how Camryn and her fellow victims got to be in the unfortunate situation they find themselves in and, most importantly, we have no prior knowledge of Camryn herself so it is up to Akasha Villalobos to sell her as a sympathetic character we can get behind as events move into areas that we don’t normally get to see.
While Last Girl Standing is fairly unique in horror movies for showing what happens after the slaughter and concentrating on the mental unravelling of the sole survivor, making the point that she didn’t really escape with her life as what happens to her afterwards is no life at all. Although the way that the story is told is something you don’t see very often – Reservoir Dogs being an obvious example of a movie that examines the post-event fallout – the film itself doesn’t contain anything you haven’t seen before in any number of slashers, proof that it isn’t the material but what you do with it that makes the difference. The ending will come as no surprise to anybody versed in horror/slasher movies but the performances sell it completely and it doesn’t cheapen the experience as much as it could have after so much solid character building. What really characterises the film, though, is the subtlety it employs as what is left of Camryn’s life falls apart, the film having a slightly ethereal quality to it and the narrative not hammering you over the head with its meta references, although those references are there if you look but if you don’t and you just want to enjoy a slightly more mature take on an established and often maligned genre then Last Girl Standing is one of the most rewarding horror movies of the past year or so.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
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https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published July 4, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
