Tragedy Girls centers on two high school seniors, McKayla Hooper and Sadie Cunningham, who run a true crime blog. The two girls are absolutely obsessed with gaining followers and becoming modern horror icons, constantly filming updates, monitoring their social media, and writing blog posts about various crimes and mysteries. The film takes a turn when we learn that the girls are committing murders in order to fuel their blogging career.

McKayla and Sadie are popular girls in their high school, both cheerleaders with good grades and lots of friends, but their obsession with murder runs deep and has been with both of them their whole lives, as they’ve been friends since childhood. Their reaction to finding that a serial killer is loose in their small town of Rosedale is nothing short of delight.

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The Tragedy Girls decide that they need to find this killer and get him to help them learn as much as they can about murdering. They use a friend as bait to lure the killer out, and then they capture him while he’s distracted, tying him to a chair in an abandoned shed. He refuses to cooperate with them, so they leave him tied up in the shed intending to use him as a scapegoat while they perform the kills themselves.

Tragedy Girls Does Horror Satire Movies The Right Way

Tragedy Girls Alexandra Shipp Brianna Hildebrand
Brianna Hildebrand and Alexandra Shipp in Tragedy Girls

With the recent releases of horror satire films like The Hunt and Velvet Buzzsaw coupled with the growing political turmoil, there has been a growing revival of satire across all genres, and we expect to see even more films like this in the coming years. So, it only makes sense to take a look at some lesser-known gems of horror satire. Tragedy Girls takes the slasher genre and riffs on it without totally throwing away everything that makes it fun. Swapping out the classic ‘dude with a knife’ for two crime-obsessed teenage girls, the film makes a lot of interesting points about true crime culture, social media, and female friendship, while also delivering a thoroughly enjoyable film for all genre fans. It keeps the plot plausible and relatable, without sacrificing the delicious irony and juxtaposition that makes horror satire so satisfying.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is another good example of a film that does this very well - it takes the slasher genre and gives us another look at it without throwing out all the rules of a great slasher film. The plot feels believable and answers the questions that the audience would have in a natural way, giving us an ending that’s satisfying and also makes sense. A film that does this less effectively is Cabin in the Woods. While it gets a lot of love for taking the classic premise of the ‘cabin in the woods’ film and turning that on its head with some very interesting choices, it fails to deliver in a satisfying way. The film continues to reach further and further to characterize the film’s “villains” and explain the world, but it ultimately serves to create an unbelievable and lackluster underlying reason for the plot.

Throughout Tragedy Girls, there are multiple points when savvy genre-fans think to themselves, “I know how this is going to end,” but the film continually subverts these expectations in the best possible way to leave the audience surprised and satisfied. The combination of modern references, dark humor, and interesting twists on the classic formula make this film an excellent example of horror satire.

Next: Tragedy Girls Ending Betrays Horror Movie Rules