Comic-Con 2015 Interview: Director Tyler Shields Talks FINAL GIRL

On August 14th, Cinedigm will release Tyler Shields’ directorial debut, Final Girl, which features Abigail Breslin as a young assassin-in-training who, as her final test, must kill a group of men who have been terrorizing and methodically murdering women as part of their own twisted game. During the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con, Daily Dead had the opportunity to speak with Shields about the making of his film, working with Breslin and co-star Wes Bentley, and much more.

Let’s start off by discussing the idea behind the story of Final Girl - it definitely was a bit different than I was expecting and it was cool to see Abigail kicking ass as well.

Tyler Shields: You know, it’s funny because I love to shoot women in very powerful scenarios. I’m also a photographer and so I’ve always seen women as being very powerful. All of my friends were like, “Oh, that’s a dream role. I wish there was a role like that. There’s never enough good roles for women." When I came up with the concept for this, we all have that same vision of the girl’s tied up and this guy is going around killing her, doing this or doing that. It’s always the men in power.

So I thought what a better way to flip that than to allow them to think that they are in power. You still get to see these guys like they are and then it just flips on them and when it flips, it goes so bad for them, one by one by one. That was the idea.

And with a title like Final Girl, you sort of have certain expectations of what will happen to her, but the film is anything but that.

Tyler Shields: It’s funny because as we named this, I didn’t really realize it’s very difficult to get these types of movies made. People are not really pumped on the female lead thing and a lot of these—I don’t want to say studios—but a lot of the people, they’re just like, “Uh, no.”

But what I find interesting about it is you have these women out there who all want to play these types of roles. Now, if they are given the ability to play these roles, I think it’s something where it’ll change the dynamic of film as a whole. I don’t know people intimidated or scared to see a woman in this kind of dynamic, but I embraced that idea anyway.

The film has a very interesting tone to it, much like a dark comedy, and had you gone a little too far with it one way or the other, it may have detracted from the story. Was that tone difficult to balance out?

Tyler Shields: The tone was one of the most important things. I think when you shoot something like this, you have to be just right, but you can’t limit your actors, so you have to let them be free, too. With Final Girl, I let everyone go as crazy as they could and then I would dial them back. Just go to the top and let’s see what that is, because if I tried to maintain the tone in every single thing, it would fail.

I also played a few psychological games while we were making the movie. As much as it would be great if you could tell someone to do that, you’ll lose them because eventually, whatever is natural will happen, so we played a few games. Abby’s mom was on set. There was a scene where they were in bed and I was like, “Wes, be very careful, her mom’s in the other room. I don’t want to cross any lines here. She’s 16.” Meanwhile, her mom’s in the other room like, “It’s totally fine. Tell him to go for it. I want this scene to be great, blah, blah, blah.” I’m like, “She’s really worried. Yeah, I’d be real careful here.”

I played them against each other like that and it worked so well. Their performances - I wasn’t tricking them necessarily, but I do think it helped them because he’s not a very uncomfortable guy. To get him to be uncomfortable, you’ve got to really create that environment. He is incredible, the performance, he has such a range and so he made a really great choice with this character and he stuck with that choice and I think he did a great job.

You mentioned earlier that you are also a photographer and so I wanted to talk about Final Girl’s visual style because it has this really interesting feel to it. It looks sleek and minimalist, almost like you plucked it right out of the 1940s or ’50s.

Tyler Shields: You nailed it 100 percent. The idea for me was to have this subtext from ’40s, ’50s and ’60s throughout the movie. I didn’t want you to be able to put a date, a time or a place on it. The idea was if somebody watches this movies 10 years from now, they’re like, “Wait, when was this movie made?” I don’t want you to really be able to tell. The lighting and the look of it is to me what really sets it apart, because you really don’t see movies that look like this anymore.

We are telling a story in a way that hasn’t been done. You are seeing this idea of these serial killers, but the twist is she’s hunting them. I thought, “Okay, this can’t be shot like a normal movie, it can’t look like a normal movie.” Because the moment that there’s a normal shot in the movie, you’re out of it. There cannot be one shot in this movie that’s basic; it all has to be dynamic and that was a huge goal of mine to achieve that.

One last thing before we go - I’d love to hear about your decision to cast Abigail as the lead in Final Girl. She’s been doing some really great work and this was another great role for her. It was nice to see her doing a lot of physical things I don’t think we’d seen from her before. 

Tyler Shields: You know, making this film was a visceral experience for her. Abby’s talent is incredible. She’s been doing it so long and she’s just a fantastic actress, so that was not a challenge for her here - it was the physical stuff. I didn’t know how she was going to be at fighting, but I know what she’s capable of as an actress. And for her, what's so interesting is she was 16 when we shot it and it was her choice to do the movie. Some of her people were like, “This is too much. You’ve never done anything like this. This is very physical and he wants you to do the stunts.” When we were on set, she was like, “I’m doing every stunt. I’m doing everything.”

She even got hit in the face during the scene when she’s fighting Alex, where he accidentally kneed her in her hip and it took her straight down. She couldn’t move for a few minutes but once she was ready, she got up, walked it off and went right back to the scene. When we were done shooting, she said to me, “I don’t think there’s anything I can’t do now”, and I believe she’s right.

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