Thanks for the memories!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

FINAL EXAM is one of those sluggish and slow-moving slasher films of the early 1980s that fails sufficiently engage with the subject matter and as such becomes humdrum and below par. Apparently the writer and director decided to go and focus on characterisation over suspense, violence and death, but as the latter are the main things this genre is known for, that wasn't going to achieve much. The film has an annoyingly spoofy feel to it and the characters are pure walking cardboard, without a sympathetic focus among them. Too much time is spent early on with random pranks and misbehaviour so that when the kills finally start happening you just can't take them seriously. I had always intended to buy a physical copy of this movie but never got around to it, so I'm glad I managed to catch Code Red's copy on Amazon Prime instead of wasting my money on it.

A psycho killer shows up on college campus to slash up pretty co-eds and dumb jocks.This is not one of the better known slasher films out there, despite it coming out early on in the genre (1981). Why? Perhaps the lack of name actors or director? Most likely what makes it obscure is the same thing that makes it better than the average slasher: they tried to actually have real characters.Sure, we all like when the mean girls and boys get hacked up without ever really getting to know them. And that has its place. But then you also have this gem, where the killing is such a small part of the story (even with a high body count) that they rarely show it on camera.Now, with the Scream Factory Blu-Ray the picture and sound are better than ever (though, for first-timers like myself this may not be obvious). And there is a nice assortment of interviews and commentary on the disc, too, for fans who want to know a little bit more.

"Final Exam" admittedly will likely engender mostly personal reactions; you'll either appreciate what writer / director Jimmy Huston is doing or you won't. His entry in the original slasher movie cycle is more in the "Halloween" mode than the "Friday the 13th" mode, meaning little in the way of nudity and gore, so if those are elements that you crave, you won't receive much to whet your appetite. The story takes place on a college campus where a brutal psychopath (Timothy L. Raynor) starts eliminating the student bodies. However, despite an opening murder set piece (Huston does know that this kind of thing often does need to start with a bang), nobody else gets killed for almost another 50 minutes. The first hour consists mainly of setting up characters and in fact comes off more as campus comedy, with the usual assortment of infantile, obnoxious frat boys, the principal one being the aptly named "Wildman" (Ralph Brown), a man so cool he's put his name on both sides of his shirt. Appealing Cecile Bagdadi is the even keeled lead female, and Joel S. Rice is the memorable "Radish", certainly a prototype for the Randy character in the "Scream" movies if ever there was one, who's meant to be a likable type of nerd, and Rice is engaging in the role, yet the guy does have quite a healthy fascination with true crime and even professes admiration for real life sniper Charles Whitman in class! One of Radish's admonitions is that "people are killed every day for no reason at all", and Raynor's killer is walking proof of this, as his character has no back story, no personality, and nothing in the way of an obvious motivation. While admittedly the movie is rough going for a while, the characters and performances make it palatable enough; other principal cast members include sexy DeAnna Robbins (who provides for us what little nudity there is) and Sherry Willis-Burch as the rather dim Janet. The best stuff is saved for the last 15 minutes or so, as Courtney runs for her life in an almost completely deserted campus. While not among the best of its kind, it's still not as bad as some fans of the genre will assert, although, once again, it may just come down to personal taste. Six out of 10.

Final Exam was an attempt made by Jimmy Huston, the film's director, for creating a Slasher title that tried ignoring the obvious boundaries that haunt the genre. This was the same man that would later go on to create a more popular product in 1987's My Best Friend is a Vampire. Teamed up with Huston is Gary S. Scott who arranged some of the music featured on Fox's Funhouse (hosted by J.D. Roth) in 1988, and in that same year allowed his musical hand to complete 31 episodes of Freddy's Nightmares (1988-1990).The film takes place at Lanier College and opens up with a murder at another campus. The killer is an unknown assailant who holds no ties to the cast in question; just a lunatic out for blood. The viewing audience is strung along on a 50-minute "heartfelt" exhibition of a "rigorous" college life. A second murder occurs in close proximity and poses a threat to the well-being of the young crowd as the remaining minutes display the disposal of the characters in a quick, albeit cheap, fashion.My description of Final Exam is brief because there's not too much to say, honestly. Mockingly I mentioned the heartfelt moments contained within – so many, in fact, it'll cause you to feel as if you're watching an after-school special or an episode of Full House rather than a movie filled with dread. The director wanted to avoid the usual Slasher routine so instead he opted to focus more on character development. I wonder who told him that this was a good idea – sure, not enough character involvement is unwise and too much of it in a Slasher film is boring…why can't there be a balance of both? Is that such a cross to bear? "Ugh, toiling endlessly on creating a decent film for audiences to appreciate…such a burden," Huston says to himself in the waking hours of daybreak. I'm curious as to why the horror genre attracts so many foolish wannabes who have the urge to pick up a camera and start filming absolutely nothing; almost like a curse, a hex if you will, which I suppose would be rather fitting. Seriously, film-makers should create a movie about a director who thrives on creating sloppy films that contain no substance or value – oh wait, they already did, and they based it on Ed Wood.Everything about this movie is dumb – which shouldn't be viewed as a wild accusation since the majority of films in the Slasher sub-genre are not only inadequate but also incompetent. The dialog alone should be a subject of ridicule with Oscar-rated material such as this to cleanse your palette:"I leave in the morning for the big city. You're gonna be left with nothing' but that saggin' old wife of yours. *Laughs arrogantly* She must almost be 30 by now?"Out of all the Slasher titles that involve students at a University or high school, I'd suggest watching those instead, more precisely, ANYTHING over Final Exam. Watching paint dry will become a favorite past time after experiencing the dregs of boredom that this movie invokes within its viewers. Final Exam executes the movement of a snail too perfectly and allows 1984's Girls Nite Out to look like a Masterpiece Theatre rendition of Julius Caesar.