Final Stab

Kristin is a b*tch who likes to cause trouble. When she invites some 'friends' over to her a house she's just brought, she asks them to help her play a trick on her sister Angela and Angela's boyfriend Charlie. What will happen is, Kristin will get an actor to play a killer and this actor has to pretend to kill everyone, scaring Angela and Charlie. What people don't realise is, this is not a game, and there is a REAL killer on the loose.

Yes, Final Scream is another straight-to-video/TV B 'horror' movie, which of course like many others out there is completely rubbish. The whole cast here are nobodies and act absolutely awful. The little twist (Is it even a twist?!) at the end is pathetic and it's quite obvious from the beginning what the ending will turn out to be. This is pathetic and should not be watched by anyone. I can't believe I actually brought this movie.

I admit it, I got suckered in. Silly me! The plot actually borrows more from "April Fools Day" (which was one of the better slasher films of its time) than "Scream." A rich bitch invites her estranged sister and her sister's nightmare-plagued boyfriend to a house-warming party, accompanied by her synchophant college friends. She stages a fake death, allegedly to start a murder mystery theme house as a business venture. But (surprise!) someone starts killing off the guests for real. While I never expected anything of quality, I had hoped for something that was enjoyably bad. The people involved in this films seemed to promise such a thing. What amazed me was how boring it was. Everything that is done here has been done before. The cast is good-looking, but they show very little skin. Also, the killings have very little bloodshed, far less than the R rating warrants. It makes me wonder who the target audience was.

There are only a few minor compensations. Errin Hayes gives a pretty good performance as a Joan Collins wannabe, and the other actors are passable. The background music isn't bad, some of the humor works, and the technical aspects are marginally better than in other films of its kind. But it didn't make the film any less boring.

Final Scream commits the cardinal sin of having people endlessly stalking around a house, shouting in the dark and looking for people. If I've got one pet hate, it's wasting time having people walk around shouting. The worst example of this to me is Legend of the Mummy 2, and while watching Final Scream I noticed that both films were directed by the same guy, and set in the same house! That means I've spent three hours of my life watching people wandering around the same house. Truly painful.

Nightmare having Charlie and his girlfriend Angela are invited to a part by Angela's estranged sister Kirsten, seemingly to repairs ties between them, but really just an excuse to trial a murder mystery weekend venture Kirsten planned out. Before you can 'this film is utterly ridiculous' a real masked killer turns up and starts stabbing everyone to death: the actors hired for the murder mystery weekend, Kirsten's friends, some locals that turn up for some reason. But who is the real killer? Is it Charlie, who has a secret past? Or Kirsten, who goes on about how great Friday the 13th is (good move that, constantly referencing a much better film). No one even realises that there's a killer in their midst until the very end (they just comment on how good people are at playing dead).

I'll say this: It's by no means as bad as Legend of the Mummy 2. I'll also say this: It's by no means a good film either. There's a distinct lack of gore (though plenty of kills)and I for one can't stand the smug, self-referential horror flick talk that Scream has foisted on us. If you like people wandering around asking who's there, then this is the film for you. Good luck.

Final Stab was a delightfully pathetic movie. It reminded me of the videos made in my high school film class. That aside, it had potential. The slasher idea, while about as used a week old kitty litter, still has potential to produce "that movie"....another scream (the original). If this script was tossed to John Sayles for a couple weeks it could have been worked into a good piece of work. The potential lied mostly in the fact that it was a murder mystery party, so the victims walked right into there deaths, not expecting anything but a rubber knife and fake blood. The part that killed it was, by far, the writing. Even without changing a thing about story, good writing could have made it more bearable. My friend commented that he thought it was bad acting, but I felt the actors did quite well stumbling over all that awkward dialogue. The villianous sister, played by Erinn Carter is a quite talented actress. She movied onto the Sitcom/improv show "On the spot" with Tim Conway. There she does an excellent job in flexing her comedic muscles. One last comment on the film, while the ending was semi-predictable, I was pleased how it was incorporated. It was the ending that a good slasher filck should have had.

A wealthy group of recent college grads are invited to participate in a "murder mystery" game. It begins as a fun evening of scary stunts featuring rubber knives, fake blood, and a "murderer" played by an actor in a creepy mask. But when the body count becomes real, the players soon realize that one of them is a real killer and the rest of them are playing an altogether different game...to stay alive.

Final Stab is a pretty decent horror flick made in 2001. The acting by the main characters is pretty good for a B movie. There is a little bit of blood and no nudity. Overall I would recommend this to any slasher fan I guess. Don't expect this to be very scary cause it's not one of those "on the edge of your seat" horror movies. About half way through I was able to figure out who the killer was. It's a watchable thriller with minimum gore.

5/10