10 Weirdly Feel-Good Horror Movies With Happy Endings
9. The Final Girls
The Movie:
A
satirical meta-horror with a big heart, The Final Girls sees recently orphaned
teen Max reunite with her dead, former B-movie scream queen mother Amanda after
a freaky incident at a screening of her 80s slasher Camp Bloodbath sees Max and
her friends magically transported inside the movie.
Max and her mum’s onscreen counterpart Nancy bond as they join together to defeat Camp Bloodbath’s machete-wielding villain Billy Murphy and try to survive the movie with nods to familiar horror tropes around every corner and a heart-warming mother-daughter relationship to boot.
The Happy Ending: Summoning their knowledge of the old virginal final girl trope, Max and Nancy/Amanda surmise that only the former can survive the movie and defeat the bad guy so the latter selflessly sacrifices herself for her daughter by performing a striptease to attract killer Billy – because promiscuous females always die in horrors, duh – to the tune of Bette Davis Eyes.
Technically, the poor Max has seen her mother die in both real life and fictional movie life which is a bummer but at least they got some much-needed bonding time in between. And trust us, Kim Carnes’ new wave classic has never been more emotional.