Scream 4

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.

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.

'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

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.