Examen

Certainly one of the most wretched slasher movies ever made.

Timothy Raynor as the killer could not be worse.

The real blame for this turkey must be attributed to Jimmy Huston.

There is no gore, no suspense and no intelligence.

And it is slower than paint drying.

Nobody but Hitchcock fans watch thrillers for the art. Everyone else is looking for actual thrills. The slasher cycle began with Halloween, and John Carpenter provided the blueprint for the imitations that followed - suspense, jump scares, false frights that turn out to be nothing, doom-laden musical notes... The mechanics of the low-budget thriller are familiar and easily achieved.

Final Exam borrows a few tried and true items from Halloween's box of tools. The killer is shot from the waist down or partially screened by trees to appear remote and menacing. Bright light glints off a bloody blade on an otherwise dark night. But the little here fails to actually generate suspense. The viewer is merely reminded that suspense-building is a necessary element of the process. The problem is that the building blocks of a slasher film are too thinly spread and separated by long stretches of time spent among poorly drawn and uninteresting characters. This is a common fault in slasher movies but one which can be at least partially offset by lively pacing and occasional action. Unfortunately, the film's pace is leaden and what little action occurs is so poorly staged that it fails to excite a viewer perpetually starved for distraction.

This is Final Exam's fatal fault. Nobody renting a slasher movie is expecting character interest on the level of The Big Chill or the epic sweep of The Godfather. The viewer's expectations are already modest. But providing more stimulation than what is minimally required to keep the viewer awake should not represent undue hardship for a slasher movie's creator.

No thriller worth the name should be this boring. Cinematic entertainment needs to be entertaining. Writer-director Jimmy Huston clearly slept through the lesson in film school that emphasized keeping things moving along.

"Final Exam" is a pretty unknown flasher film from 1981 that at the moment has the totally undeserved overall rating of 4.7/10, and I can't understand why! Sure, the acting isn't always top-notch and maybe the killer isn't really something we haven't seen before. But the movie still has some great things about it. Let's get to my positives.

I do really like that this movie actually focuses on its characters more than most slasher films because that makes some death scenes a little emotional. Speaking of the death scenes, "Final Exam" isn't really that blood-focused at all. It focuses more on the presence of this killer and the building tension before the killer strikes, which I really did like. I would say that it's bloodier than the movie "Halloween" (of course talking about the 1978 original), but not the same level as any of the "Friday the 13th" movies. The film also has some scenes in the first 40 minutes or so that nicely ties in to the third act and when people start getting killed, which I think the movie should get more credit for doing.

Also, when we watch slashers we want a good and scary killer. And for the most part, this one has all of that. He reminds me of an unmasked Michael Myers. But this movie isn't perfect, so let's get into some of my issues with it.

I'll be quick to get these out of the way: The acting isn't all that great, the Killer is good for the most part but I feel like he would have been scarier with a more detailed look (like a mask and a vest etc), some scenes during the first 30 minutes or so can be pretty boring & finally; Ralph Brown as Wildman can be pretty annoying.

I did have a good time watching "Final Exam" and I think that any Slasher fan should give it a chance. It's a fairly solid slasher flick from the 80s and if you can get a copy of the Scream Factory release then I highly recommend it because it's worth your money.

Horror: B- (Some Suspenseful Scenes and Good Scares Throughout)

Entertainment: B- (A lot of 80s Charm and fun Collage Pranks)

Acting: D+ (Not That Great, Although Some Were Pretty Decent)

Suspense: C+ (Good Build-ups for Scares, but the First act Lacks it)

Characters: B- (Better Than Average)

Script/Story: C+ (Pretty Basic)

Overall Rating: 7.4/10

Final Exam is like cafeteria food. Nothing special and a little bland, but it gets the job done. If you're needing an 80's slasher fix, Final Exam isn't the cream of the crop, but it's not without its own high points. Some of the characters are decently developed and the filmmakers create a little bit of mood with the abandoned campus location. It's just a shame that the film's killer is such a blank slate.

"Final Exam" is your typical cheesy 80's slasher flick. Not that that's a bad thing, but if poor production values and horrid acting aren't your cup of tea, than this movie probably wouldn't appeal to you.

I discovered this one a few years back when I was going through my "watch every college-based 80's horror movie"-phase. I thought that it had a decent title, and the coverbox was very reminiscent of an early "Friday the 13th" cover, so I figured that it would be worth the $1 that I paid for it. I won't go into the plot details since they are readily available anywhere, but I will tell you what I thought could have been better.

First on the list of faults is that there is no "whodunit" aspect to the picture. I'm not ruining anything for you since you find out after about five minutes that it isn't one of the students hacking people up, but just some random murderer that decides to put his skills to the test at a North Caroline college. That's why I chose "Leave your brain at the door..." as my one-line summary, since there is no thought needed as you watch the "plot" unfold.

As a few others already pointed out there is the opening scene involving two students getting sliced-up in a convertible, and then about an hour of dead time(pardon the pun). For about an hour following that we got some lame attempt at characted development that leaves out any murders. I don't mind some exposition in a movie, but these are all throw-away characters delivering horrible dialouge in bad situations. The final third of the film is when the rest of the students get dispatched of, and when they do there is absolutely no blood. I do tip my hat to the director because he throws in more suspense than your average campus murderer movie, but the payoff just isn't worthy of the buildup.

There were only two characters in the flick(and sadly, no, the lead isn't one of them) that were memorable at all. Radish, who reminded me a little of Randy from the "Scream" series, was our straight-guy, but was just too out-there to actually give you anything to care about. The same thing goes for the character of Wildman, a whacky jock who is somewhat likeable, but his character's actions are too erratic for him to really hold any solid ground on my care-meter.