The Film (4/5)

Four boys repeatedly select a young blonde girl to accompany them to the forest with the intention of hunting her down and killing her. Their latest choice is Veronica (Abigail Breslin, Scream Queens) and they soon find that this was a terrible mistake. Veronica has been trained since childhood by William (Wes Bentley, American Beauty) to kill serial killers because his wife and child were killed by 'a very bad man'. The boys aren't up against a helpless girl that's oblivious to their plan this time around but someone who levels the playing field. Veronica spikes a flask of whiskey with a combo of truth serum and a hallucinogen which all but the ringleader Jameson (Alexander Ludwig, The Hunger Games) drinks. Soon they begin to see their worst fears come to life.

Tyler Shields delivers a very stylish thriller for his directorial debut. The cinematography and the lighting is top notch and the scenes afford a lot of depth of vision. The cast is really good and while there's very little in the way of character's backstories, I didn't feel it needed it. It's a revenge tale of sorts and that is one of genre cinema's oldest stories. We want to see Veronica deal out severe punishment to these privileged assholes and it delivers that in spades. The film appears to be set in the 50's, and the crew uses that to it's advantage as well, and perhaps that lends some subtext as to how women were treated in the Eisenhower era. It wasn't heavy handed in any event.

Audio/Video (5/5)

Final Girl is presented in a 1080p AVC encoded transfer preserving the scope of it's theatrical presentation. It's gorgeous. Audio is presented in an English 5.1 DTS-HD MA track. It sounded great and subtitles were provided. (I love subtitles.)

Extras (4/5)

Cinedigm includes a making of the film, a photo gallery with commentary from director Tyler Shields, a director film trailer, a film trailer, and outtakes from 'Danny'. I'd have loved an audio commentary from Tyler Shields.

Overall

I really enjoyed Final Girl. I had seen some other reviews that were less than complimentary but I found plenty to like. It's nothing you haven't seen before but Abigail Breslin carries the film with a pleasing screen presence while Wes Bentley is suitably enigmatic. Tyler Shields up until this point had been known as a photographer and it shows in the film's composition. I very much look forward to seeing what else he has to offer.