Final Scream

A rich bitch (Erinn Carter) throws a Halloween birthday party for her sister (Melissa Renee Martin) at a secluded house where a family was murdered years earlier. Unbeknownst to the innocent sister and her mentally unstable boyfriend (Jamie Gannon), they're actually being set up as guinea pigs for a plan to turn the house into a bed and breakfast where make-believe murder mystery games are to be played. Who better to show up than a real masked killer with a knife?

Martin and (especially) Chris Boyd are better actors than usual for a David DeCoteau movie, but this is basically just a bunch of long, boring, talky sequences punctuated by kill scenes so tame John Ashcroft wouldn't even raise an eyebrow at them. A few ridiculous surprises pop up near the end, but they do not make up for the tediousness of the first hour.

Score: 2 out of 10

Kristen is spoiled rich and always gets what she wants, even to see her very own sisters' psychotic boyfriend snap. So Kristen sets up the idea for a murder mystery party at an old house in the country. She invites people she went to college with and hires an actor to play a killer. She then has Angela (her sister) and Charlie (sisters boyfriend) come to the 'surprise' party. Kristen plans it out perfect, Charlie sees the first fake death right in the living room with everyone else and then he begins to panic and rushes out of the house. That's when Kristen's games begin. However, she thinks she has the perfect plot until the people really start dying. They really do have a killer among them. Sounds pretty good huh? Overall you could tell this movie was a "B" movie because of the poor directing and blood. The acting wasn't bad but as you can see plot is very good. Even though this was a predictable movie I'd rate this.. 6/10.

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 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