TrueHello
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Yvonne Jodi
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
fairlesssam
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.
dcarsonhagy
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."
Nigel P
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.
Greenzombidog
Last girl standing starts with the ending of a slasher film. We see the final girl of a slashers bloody aftermath dispatch the killer and escape with her life. We then pick up a few years later where the girl has become an unsociable and quite unlikeable social outcast. Distancing herself from everyone at work until the handsome new slacker guy arrives and oddly takes a liking to her. He then tries to integrate her into his circle of friends, just as things start to happen that could mean the return of the antler headed murderer from the intro.My main problem with this film is that the lead character is so poorly written and unlikeable as well as being obviously bats**t crazy. So crazy in fact that you can guess the ending at least 20 minutes into the movie. The one member of the group of friends who points this out is ignored because she's quite obviously the bitch character, but I still liked her more than the main girl. In fact everyone in the movie is more likable than our heroine. I can't understand why they keep her around, maybe its because batsh**t crazy is the one stereotype not yet taken in the group. The film is well made, well directed and it also has a pretty cool soundtrack. The gore scenes at the beginning and towards the end are really well done, with what looks like mostly if not all practical effects. I really wanted to like this movie more than I did. I think maybe I was just hoping for more because I liked the premise of the movie so much. Hopefully someone else can take this idea and make a better movie.
