Final Girls is directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson and written by M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller. The film stars Taissa Farmiga and Malin Åkerman in the two leading roles, with supporting performances from Alexander Ludwig, Thomas Middleditch, Alia Shawkat, Adam DeVine, Nina Dobrev, and Chloe Bridges.
Max (Taissa Farmiga) is driving home with her veteran-actress mom, Amanda (Malin Akerman), who, to her frustration, remains best known for the B-horror movie she made two decades earlier. Unfortunately, a traffic accident puts an immediate tragic end to their mother-daughter synchronicity. Three years later, Max is reluctantly dragged into attending a local showing of her Mom’s cult classic “Camp Bloodbath” by geek superfan Duncan (Thomas Middleditch), whose stepsister, Gertie (Alia Shawkat), is Max’s best friend. Also along for the night are Chris (Alexander Ludwig), the dreamboat classmate with whom Max has fallen in like; and, annoyingly, his still-possessive ex-g.f., Vicki (Nina Dobrev). After a couple of inebriated theater patrons accidentally set the cinema on fire mid-“Bloodbath,” Max and her friends escape by cutting a hole through the screen, only to find themselves in the woods — the celluloid woods of a fictional 1986, where the arrival of doomed nubile youths in a VW van every 92 minutes signals just what reality they’ve somehow landed in. Passing themselves off as extra counselors arriving for the start of Camp Blue Finch’s summer season, they awkwardly attempt to ingratiate themselves with the walking stereotypes they know are soon to be slaughtered by unstoppable avenger Billy Murphy (Dan Norris), a Jason Voorhees-type masked figure who’s been rumored to lurk hereabouts since a tragic bullying incident decades earlier.
The film had its world premiere on March 13, 2015 as one of the opening night films at South by Southwest. It then screened at the Stanley Film Festival as the closing night film on May 2, 2015, where it won the Audience Award for Feature Film. The film had a gala screening at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 16, 2015.
Final Girls will be released to theaters and video on demand providers in the United States by Stage 6 Films and Vertical Entertainment on October 9, 2015.