Best Film of 2015: The Final Girls

     I was saying that Furious 7 was the best picture of 2015 and stood by that claim for simple reasons.  I was thoroughly entertained and the film held my attention the whole way through even through the cheesiness, I thought it was great.  Tomorrowland had great potential, but fell flat on it's face and Star Wars 7 while good, was a bit of a let down.  The Final Girls however, was one of the best surprises I've had with film in a long time.
     Anybody that knows me personally knows that I have a soft spot in my heart for slasher movies.  I'm not talking about torture porn that seems to be an excuse for horror like Hostel or the Saw series, I'm talking about the classics like the original Halloween and Friday the 13th.  Films that I use to stay up late watching either during the childhood sleepover or that were hosted on USA Up: All Night and Monstervision.  The 80's slasher genre would never be nominated for any Oscars or (except 1978 Halloween) come on any top ten movies of the year lists, but did provide a few scares and mindless popcorn thrills for the audience.  The Final Girls is a love letter for fans of this while surprisingly having a great amount of heart within the humor and violence.  I don't want to use the term gore because the film is rated PG-13 and while I thought this was going to be a corny let down, I couldn't believe the mastery of director Todd Strauss-Schulson for making me more emotionally invested in the characters than blood on screen.
     The film is about Max (Talssa Farmiga) whose deceased mother (Malin Akerman) was a former screen queen of the 80s in a slasher camp movie.  During an anniversary showing at a theater a freak accident cause Max and her friends to be transported into the actual slasher movie.  There Max meets the character her mother played in the original and to me that is where the strength of the movie is.  The film does have it's tongue in cheek humor like Scream about how to survive a horror movie, but it never feels pretentious.  Tucker and Dave vs Evil is a movie I would compare The Final Girls too, but while Tucker lost steam and ideas halfway through, Girls keeps finding ways to surprise and keep the viewer entertained.
     It was refreshing to not have over the top violence or nudity, which both are almost absent.  Like an early Tim Burton picture the visuals are striking and create a perfect tone for set pieces in the movie.  It kills me how some films can cost millions of dollars and look like garbage visually, but a small budget film like this looks on par with something that cost ten times as much.  With a competent story and rich characters really do help make a complete movie.
     I really don't want to give too much more away in terms of plot because of spoilers and also I want people to be surprised.  This film was great on many levels, but how I judge a film is whether I am entertained or not.  The Final Girls moves at a decent pace, has a clever story, and keep me emotionally invested the whole time.  I loved all the nods to 80's slasher films and pop culture, but mostly I loved how I wasn't expecting much with this film and got so much more in return.
     To me, this is the best film of 2015.