What do you get when you take the Friday The 13th movies, add a pinch of Evil Dead, and throw the whole thing in a Hot Tub Time Machine? The Final Girls, the meta ’80s slasher film that’s making waves at SXSW this year.
Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson (A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas), The Final Girls tells the tale of a group of teenagers magically transported from their regular lives into Camp Bloodbath, a B-grade horror flick starring the mother of lead female Max (American Horror Story‘s Taissa Farmiga).
From there it’s a mix of hilarity and horror tropes as the very 2015 group — including Arrested Development‘s Alia Shawkat and Silicon Valley‘s Thomas Middleditch — interacts with the doomed 1980s cast, with Adam DeVine from Workaholics playing the ultimate ’80s jock and Watchmen‘s Malin Åkerman playing Max’s mom and sexpot camp councilor.
While the move definitely leans more towards comedy than horror, it respects its roots and provides the kind of over-the-top deaths and attention to gory details that takes your average slasher film and elevates it into a cult classic. The premiere of the film at SXSW was filled with laughs and screams as the transported group tried to use their knowledge of B-movie horror to outwit the Jason Voorhees clone, only to learn that death is an inevitable force when you’re inside a movie like this.
A release date for the movie hasn’t been set yet, but with all the buzz being generated by this campy horror romp at SXSW, you can expect it to get a proper release sooner rather than later.
