Final Stab

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.

I know David DeCoteau films will never be mistaken as great art. But if they were at least entertaining then their lack of artistic merit wouldn't be so bad but alas, his films are rarely entertaining, which makes these producers products even more tedious to watch. And FINAL STAB is one tedious film: a bland film with a bland title with bland actors in a bland one-setting story. A game of Pong is more compelling than this so-called horror film.

The funny thing about this film is that it was shot in widescreen and yet the film was never released theatrically. So why bother shooting this direct-to-home video film in widescreen?

Anyway, there's almost nothing else worth mentioning about FINAL STAB. It's pretty difficult to write a concise critique for such a bland film.

'Final Stab' also known as 'Final Scream' is a straight to DVD slasher flick from the early 00's and was one of the many attempts from this era for low budget filmmakers to cash in on the 'Scream' franchise. This is about as generic a slasher flick can get with its very 90's dated feel with all the tropes present with its predictable structure, convoluted writing, badly written stock characters and obvious plot twists that you can easily coming a mile off. This isn't a good slasher flick by any stretch of the imagination.

The plot = Angela (Melissa Renee Martin) along with her boyfriend Charlie (Jamie Gannon) gets invited to a party by Angela's sister Kristin (Erinn Hayes) at a secluded mansion along with some of her friends to take part in a murder mystery game, but soon enough the game becomes real, and the guests starts getting killed off one by one.

The movie's pacing is thankfully fairly fast even if nothing all that interesting is happening on screen, as there's almost no atmosphere and boring bloodless kills. The direction by David DeCoteau is passable at best, just the basic point and shoot without any flair or energy and the constant thunderstorms which are obviously flashing strobe lights. But given the time constraints and low budget it's fine. So yeah, everything is just basic and by the numbers without any creativity whatsoever.

The performances are lacking direction though, its basically TV movie acting and not the good ones, but the cast are trying at the very least, but they're all very thinly written and comes across as fake. Erinn Hayes as Kristin probably gives the best performance here giving a very melodramatic and hammy performance and really gets into her bitchy role quite nicely. But even that's just the best out of a bad bunch. The rest of the cast are just unmemorable and flat.

Overall 'Final Stab' lacks any joy or fun and only seek out if you wanna kill some time, but other than that it others nothing to the genre and there's far better examples of slasher flicks out there.

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