'The Final Girls': EW review

Imagine The Purple Rose of Cairo meets Friday the 13th, and you’ll get an idea of the high-concept premise behind the disappointing meta-slasher movie, The Final Girls. Directed by A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas’ Todd Strauss-Schulson (that’s not just a credit, folks, it’s a disclaimer), this slapdash send-up of ’80s bodycount flicks starts out with the cheeky promise of a 21st-century Scream, but it quickly runs out of gas. Taissa Farmiga plays an orphaned teen who magically reunites with her dead mother (Malin Akerman as a former B-movie scream queen) in her most famous movie, Camp Bloodbath, where they’re forced to battle a Jason-esque psycho. Adam Devine is on hand to do his braying Jack Black thing, Thomas Middleditch recycles his twitchy Silicon Valley mannerisms, and Nina Dobrev convincingly plays an eye-rolling mean girl. As horror comedies go, this one sadly winds up somewhere between Scary Movie 4 and 5. C-