O
n the surface , Todd Strauss- Schulson ’ s 2015 horror-comedy The Final Girls was a prescient showcase for then-young acting talent , like Vera Farmiga ’ s sister , Taissa , future Silicon Valley star Thomas Middleditch , and the always-hilarious Adam DeVine , along with the relatively veteran Malin Akerman - all working overtime to sell the surreal plot , wherein Farmiga ’ s Max Cartwright character is transported with four of her high school besties back into Camp Bloodbath , the 1986 cult classic of her late scream-queen mother Amanda ( Akerman ) who is suddenly alive again for her daughter to save in the time-looping old footage . And once the original Final Girl — the standard blood-spattered sole female survivor of a slasher pic — gets offed by accident when the new arrivals alter the script , can Max save Mom and herself , when there can be only one Final Girl ? If she wants any kind of closure on her parent ’ s tragic death , she has to pick up the killer ’ s machete and wade into his arterial-spray wake herself .
In the process , the movie becomes much more than the sum of its promising newcomer parts — something surprisingly moving that touches on family bonds , mortality , legacy , and ultimately knowing when to let go of treasured memories . It ’ s not a masterpiece , exactly , and it ’ s a stretch to buy Akerman reprising her Bloodbath as a fresh-faced camp counselor naif . But if you suspend disbelief , The Final Girls is a lot of fun , with countless satirical , self-referential in-jokes that immensely pleased Chvrches frontwoman Lauren Mayberry the first time she watched it last year as part of research for her trio ’ s new Screen Violence concept album , it ' s fourth , out August 27 on Glassnote . Naturally , splattery metaphors burrowed their way into its
SCREEN TEAM
danceable yet dark synth-rock studies like “ Lullabies ,” “ Nightmares ,” “ Violent Delights ,” “ Final Girl ,” and a hip-shaking , depression-inspired “ How Not to Drown ,” featuring an apt cameo from Britain ’ s reigning King of Goth , The Cure ’ s legendary Robert Smith . But many complexities are happening just beneath the record ’ s surface , swears the Scottish-born , now Los Angeles-based Berry . And no one should ever accept anything Chvrches does at mere face value . “ We ’ re big cinephiles ,” the singer / lyricist says of her Glasgow bandmates , producer Iain Cook and multi-instrumentalist Martin Doherty , who also relocated to California with her at the same pre-Covid time in 2019 , ostensibly for extracurricular songwriting assignments ; they currently reside only a few blocks from each other . “ And I ’ m not necessarily a gorehound , but I ’ ve always been drawn to horror movies because of what they speak to within me if that makes sense ,” Berry speaks in a soft , speedy , burr-inflected lilt that belies the gravity of her carefully considered thoughts , which always seem to add up perfectly . And she doesn ’ t slow down to accommodate the listener — you either jump on board her idea train or get left in a cloud of dust at the last topical station . She has some big societal issues to unpack , sans apologies .
“ So for me , the song “ Final Girl ” is playing with the concept of the final girl , and how we ’ re all obsessed with it ,” the former journalism student goes on to explain . “ There are so many films and TV shows that are about dead women and dead girls , but the dead girls and the dead women don ’ t actually get any character development — they ’ re just a plot point to tell men ’ s stories . Like , Twin Peaks , I love [ it ] to the ends of the Earth . But Laura
By Tom Lanham
Palmer ? She ’ s just a plot device for the most part in that series . So the idea of “ Final Girl ” is also about personal experience , where I think people have been obsessed with the … kind of , I guess , grotesque violence around the band . And then if I write that AS the final girl in that story , then that gives me a way to talk about it , and that makes it all feel not so tragic .”
The violence Mayberry references isn ’ t the splattery Camp Bloodbath kind , nor is it some imagined slight . It ’ s the kind of everyday subliminal brutality that all women instinctively understand and regularly pick up on in many male-female interactions . And it ’ s something most men rarely perceive or even bother to consider : From their earliest girlhood years , women are taught — or generally warned — to fear men . Don ’ t get in cars or vans with strange men , don ’ t accept candy or gifts from them , be on guard when one comes walking confidently toward you — not just in a dark alley — but pretty much anywhere . Because crossing the wrong man ’ s path could result in physical abuse , kidnap and / or rape , and in some extreme cases , death , possibly by a machete-wielding lunatic . Young boys are instilled with no such lifelong fears . But offhanded words can cut just as deeply as Mayberry can painfully attest . In 2013 , she ’ d had enough of displeased online trolls commenting on her physical appearance in concert , and — employing her case-building journalistic skills — she addressed their litany of overtly sexist crimes in a fiery op-ed for The Guardian ; silently tolerating such cavemanatavistic behavior was enabling it , she asserted long before the # metoo movement got post-Harvey Weinstein traction . After founding a feminist Glaswegian arts collective called TYCI ( for Tuck Your Cunt
In , now dissolved ), she ’ s never backed down from a fight with the oppressive patriarchy , even going so far as to indict Donald Trump as an unpunished sexual predator justifiably . When she first spoke about the callous treatment of women in show business , it was a lonely position to take , and she wasn ’ t exactly celebrated for drawing a this-far-no-further line in the sand .
But just because women ’ s voices have grown into a universal chorus in no way signals the end of this problem , sighs Mayberry , a Christ-age 33 , spiritually believed to be the most eye-opening year of your life . Hence — just in “ How Not to Drown ” alone — her telling lines like “ You can ’ t kill the king ” and “ Kiss the ring .” Yes . It ’ s a pointedly papal allusion , she admits . “ But what that , to me , is about is being walked over by rich and powerful dudes .” With TYCI , she never felt ahead of the feminist curve , but behind it , as it felt like it was modernizing old Riot Grrrl tropes , but now that the cultural zeitgeist has recognized the mass behavioral infractions , she ’ s still skeptical about any lasting change . “ I feel like the media aren ’ t necessarily engaging with the conversation for the right reasons ,” she says . “ Somebody asked me recently in an interview with a local radio station , ‘ What ’ s your big # metoo moment ?’ And I gave them a very shocking answer .” Then she waited expectantly for the logical follow-up query , which never came .
“ This guy just moved on to his next question ,” she continues . “ And I thought , ‘ Oh , this guy knows that he has to ask that question , but he ’ s not engaging with me talking .’ If that makes any sense .” This is why she ’ s extraordinarily proud of Screen Violence , she notes . “ Because I feel like this
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22 illinoisentertainer . com august 2021