You may have seen a movie earlier this year travelling the film festival circuit called Tragedy Girls. I’ll be honest… I didn’t pay much attention to it when I first heard of it. The film art looked like a razzle dazzle 80’s slasher film with electric colors and copious murder. When I saw the movie was on Hulu, I figured I’d give it a try. I hadn’t read any of the reviews and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Boy, was I in for a treat.
Tragedy Girls follow high school seniors McKayla (Alexandra Shipp) and Sadie (Brianna Hildebrand). They run a true crime Twitter page called, you guessed it, @TragedyGirls, and they are documenting the crimes of a serial killer in their small Midwestern town. But it’s not enough to follow the crimes; these ambitious teens need to be ahead of the game.
They decide to try and catch their local serial murderer to learn a thing or two from him, but when he doesn’t cooperate, the girls have to take matters into their own hands, you know, for page likes. They want to get their site off the ground and will do anything to make that happen.
Have you ever seen the movie Detention? It has that manic editing, cutesy animations and “puts the fun in funeral” attitude. Tragedy Girls embodies that. It’s adorable, truly. The dialogue is hilarious and the chemistry between Shipp and Hildebrand is wonderful. I’m not sure they could have gotten two actors more perfect to play the roles. It was directed by Tyler MacIntyre and written by MacIntyre and Chris Lee Hill.
I wouldn’t change a thing about this movie. The lovely little pyschopaths, the gore gags, the realistic and entertaining echanges: they are all perfect. While the ending isn’t necessarily realistic, it’s tied in a pretty pink blood splattered bow and I was really happy with it. Even though these girls are cold, ruthless killers, you kind of want to be friends with them, too. If you have a Hulu subscription, go watch this Tragedy Girls! And if you don’t, then you’re definitely missing out.
