Last Girl Standing

The movie that asks the question, "What happens to the Final Girl" after the mad slasher is defeated? You will be sorry you asked. Unlike Jamie Curtis' Laurie Strode (who was so interesting they came up with three different timelines for what happened to her in the Halloween Franchise, along with the Reboot which wasn't interesting) the protagonist here is uninteresting. So we are treated to an hour and a half of her moping about her past and a bunch of unnecessary jump scares before she finally loses it and starts killing off all her new friends in an ending so predictable that Stevie Wonder could have seen it coming. The payoff isn't worth the wait. Now, it MIGHT have been nice if you had a serious movie about a victim coming to terms with an event like that, but this movie is just plain silly, and not a funny kind of silly.

You always wonder what happens to the final girl and we occasionally get sequels where they are fighting a bigger, badder version of the big bad. But what happens after the big bad is actually dead? This movie does a take on the same premise with a brilliant concept... set the girl forward in time, with a job, new mundane life respectably afraid of making friends, etc. Well, the set up is indeed brilliant but then the movie falls off the rails mis second act. I suspected the ending when the movie started and prayed all throughout that I was wrong. I was not. Low budget does not, for once get in the way here (the top three leads are very capable actors) even if it does impact technical values of the production. It is the poor third act and pedestrian genre tropes that the movie falls into... Could have been so awesome. Danielle Evon Ploeger and Brian Villalobos strand out, even if the story eventually let's them down.

There's something faintly disorientating about seeing the 'end' of a horror film at the beginning: already traumatised teens are dying/have died in a series of gorily extravagant ways by what appears to be a killer in a mask before he too is despatched in a moment that might have been more effective if we'd had substantial running time leading up to that point. Although incongruous, such scenes are necessary for this exploration of what happens after the horror is over for the last girl standing – in this case, Camryn (Akasha Villalobos). The notion of someone trying to rebuild their life after a horrific sequence is usually featured in the first sequel to any slasher film, but here the adjustment provides the thrust of the story. Having awkwardness and insecurities heaped upon her could make for tedious, patience-stretching viewing, but Camryn's subsequent trials prove to be full of sufficient incident to remain interesting. Writing, acting and direction are all very much to be praised for this. The group's murder, which made the newspaper headlines (according to the clippings Camryn keeps) would, you'd think, have led to the sole survivor being under some sort of ongoing after-care. Therapy or medical monitoring don't seem to be part of Camryn's life. When she meets friendly co-worker Nick (Brian Villalobos), she is very much isolated and on her own. But when Nick's friends become her friends, she is saved from self-pity by the revelation that one of the group, Danielle (Danielle Evon Ploeger) has also suffered her own personal traumas – and it is she who convinces Camryn to revisit the site of her friends' killings, as a form of closure. There's a tragic inevitability about the final twist. In horror, there is no closure, and while the climactic events are not a massive surprise, they are all the more effective because of the truly persuasive warmth and closeness of the characters. 'The Last Girl Standing' becomes more of a slasher film in its own right rather than an exploration of what happens after one, and there's nothing wrong with that. Part financed by the 'Kickstarter' scheme, this is a very impressive debut for Director/Writer Benjamin R Moody.

I like independent films and don't try to compare them to Hollywood blockbusters with big budgets unless they deservedly out do the latter. I especially love horror. I enjoy independent horror sometimes way more than anything Hollywood could produce. Unfortunately, in this case it was not the result. I've been interested in seeing this film after reading about it and seeing it won some independent film awards. The movie starts off very good. Gory slasher, even if a bit cliché, but it was a nice stat. Then it just died into an abysmal tedious 45 plus minutes of drama, non sense talking, scenes that didn't fit, and could go on but like the movie I don't want to bore you here in the middle. But nothing happens. Then the last 15 minutes picks up were the beginning left off as a good gory slasher, again even if predictable and cliché. If you want t add this to horror movies that you have seen by all meas watch it. It is definitely not the worst. If you choosenot to, you are not missing anything.

i enjoyed this movie , the concept was new and refreshing to me ... i don't normally write reviews as i enjoy ALL kinds of movies , as long as they serve their purpose of entertaining me then i tend to give a movie two thumbs up so my opinion on the quality of this movie doesn't mean a s much as someone that rates and reviews for a living, but i had one small problem with this movie.... That unmarked grave that is mentioned in the newspapers several times is WAyy too shallow ... after 4 years buried that shallow the coffin would be exposed ... other than that good movie but that bothered me sooo much i HAD to write this review about it pretty sure that this is NOT a spoiler as it has nothing to do with eh plot of the story...

I caught this one On-Demand. I purchased with much trepidation, giving the synopsis of the story. Several other films have been made with this story line and most have failed...MISERABLY. Such is not the case here. "Last Girl Standing" opens with a single female fighting for her life against a brutal killer only known as "The Hunter." Seems for whatever reason (this is never completely explained), he was preparing some sort of ritual and had already offed most of her camping party. She gets away--not before being brutalized herself-- and the story moves five years ahead. Working at a laundry house, she is trying to get on with her life but refuses to actually live. If that's not bad enough, it seems "The Hunter" has returned to claim his only surviving victim. That is as far as I will go with the plot line. Suffice it to say, this movie made me feel like some sort of amateur detective. I will not lie and tell you I had it all figured out (like I tend to do...), but I completely missed this boat on this one. There are several red herrings thrown out here, and I fell for every one of them! The only main problem with the film is I would have liked to known more about the survivor. For a movie done on what I would this was a bargain-basement budget, this entertained me way more than say, oh, Zombie's latest turd (a/k/a "31"). Rated "R" for graphic violence, nudity, and language, I recommend "Last Girl Standing."

I don't know why others have felt this movie deserves such negativity in their reviews. The story is good and the acting and technical aspects of the film are professional and of a high standard. I found I was drawn into the story as each actor played their character brilliantly - especially the gorgeous Akasha Villalobos and stunning Danielle Evon Ploeger. The film won't win any awards for flashy special effects or groundbreaking technical work - but its not that kind of film. It is a solid, well-made movie which tells a believable story.

This film left me completely underwhelmed. The leading character (Camryn) is bland and unengaging. Yes she has been through a lot but still there is nothing that instills any feeling about her or her mundane life. She is portrayed somewhat like a blank slab, nothing there, no personality, no relationships, just an air of utter misery. Whilst camping her friends are murdered by a serial killer known as The Hunter. She ends up killing him. As the lone survivor she is shown living a stifled, mundane and lonely existence working as a laundry attendant. A new man (Nick) begins working at the launderette and attempts to interact with Camryn. Slowly Nick gains Camryn's trust and she begins mixing with him and his friends. The hideous negativity that happened to Camryn in the woods has followed her into her current life and bad things happen as she tries to form new friendships. I can see what the director was trying to achieve, to focus on the survivor and how the hideous events have affected her and her life. I didn't think it worked awfully well.

I'll start off by saying that this isn't a bad movie, it is very detail orientated and the camera work is highly immersive to where you get to feel for the main character and can enjoy most of her struggle. The problem is that in this immersion we are given very little to actually identify with in the character, who is literally only defined by her one traumatic experience that the movie opens up with, we learn nothing else about her or who she is. This means that the film never really rises above a certain level and could have done with an extra few minutes in the beginning to give us some idea of who this girl was before everything happened to her. Aside from this there are some problems in terms of pacing and story since the movie takes a painful amount of time to show the audience what it already knows, or at least highly suspects. This wouldn't be so bad if it all then paid off in some unexpected way, but it mostly goes the same way as any psychological drama in this vein and ends with the same conclusions that have been gone over many times before. I will say that the third act is executed very well despite its predictable nature and there are definite moments where this film shows that it has potential, it is just overall too basic and shallow in meaning to really get beyond a certain level. Overall this film has some definite strengths and is worth a watch due to its camera work, acting and directing. With other eyes on the writing this concept could have been executed better, but it needs more fleshed out characters and a slightly less tired plot to have matched up with the style it possesses. I still enjoyed it but it is hard to recommend because it is not enough drama or horror to specifically appeal to fans of either genre and both will probably find it lacking unless they have very particular tastes.

The movie starts with a brutal massacre a-la-Jason-Voorhees courtesy of a masked man called "The Hunter". In this sequence we receive the first batch of slasher movies clichés, last "heroine" and all. Of course, she kills the bad guy (obviously) and from there we jump 4-5 years into that last survivor's life. Camryn is just a typical girl struggling with all the aftermath of that horrible experience. But, unlike what we see in most of these girls in other movies (the last survivor trying to go on with her life), she is a very shy and almost obnoxious kind of girl. No new friends, no nothing...except for her job. Aside for the daily nightmares, everything is OK in her life until one day Nick arrives to her job, as the new cashier. And then, all of a sudden and without any sort of rational explanation, weird things start to happen and Camryn's life goes to hell. At that point, we receive a new batch of clichés: now for a "is it real or not?" type of thriller. And then...13 minutes before the movie ends we need to endure the beginning of one of the worst endings I have ever seen. The only "redeeming value" of this movie are the practical FX for the killings. They're pretty good, especially for an indie flick. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is complete garbage. The movie is predictable as hell, so much that there's simply no way that anyone will not know how it will end. It's just a matter of "expertise" at these kind of movies: if you've seen a lot of them you can predict that lame ending more than an hour before it arrives. If this is the first time you see one of these then you'll see the ending coming 15-20 minutes before. And if no matter who the viewer is he/she can predict the ending from miles away...you have a very very bad movie in your hands. Other than the aforementioned FX dept. Writer/Director Benjamin R. Moody can't seem to do anything "right": photography is bad, the script is awful, acting is weak and it doesn't have one shred of originality. Anywhere. The concept of "What happens to the final girl after the credits roll?" is very interesting and has the potential for greatness. Unfortunately this movie does it in an uninteresting and very dull way. Suffice to say that if you've seen a lot of slasher movies in your life then you've basically seen this one. Because although it may seem like an original idea, the way Mr. Moody did it is just...well the opposite of that. And if you were thinking "well, at least it's a scary movie"...well no, it has nothing actually scary in it, except for maybe 60-90 seconds of mildly "scary" stuff. Don't waste your time with this movie. It's boring as hell, as derivative as a high school project and has almost nothing to offer.