‘ Tragedy Girls’

At first I was put off by the performances by Brianna Hildebrand and Alexandra Shipp in “Tragedy Girls.” Too smug. Too much winking- at- the- audience. Too much transparent acting.

It was as if they’d seen “Heathers” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “Scream” and “Scary Movie” and a dozen other self- referential hipster-slasher- clever films, and they were “owning it” and not acting it. My mistake. As director/ co- writer Tyler Macintyre’s brutally effective and razor- sharp slasher/ satire “Tragedy Girls” tells its tale, the performances by Hildebrand and Shipp become increasingly effective and empathetic and surprising.

I don’t want to oversell a near- great ★★★ ½ B- movie that is nonetheless a Bmovie. Suffice to say “Tragedy Girls” has great fun with myriad horror movie tropes. Opens Friday at Regal City North and on demand.