Final Exam

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.

Final Exam (1981)

* (out of 4)

Downright horrid slasher has an unknown maniac showing up on a college campus and going on a killing spree as many of the students are preparing for their final exams.

You know, when I watch really bad movies like FINAL EXAM it can't help but make me more impressive with certain movies in the Friday THE 13TH series or even THE BURNING. It's really amazing when you go back and see how many slashers were made in this period but what's even more shocking is how many of them are downright awful like this one. I finished the movie just minutes before writing this and I'm still in shock at how stupid this movie was. Umm...was there a motivation for anything we just saw? How about a motive? A backstory? Anything?

What's even more shocking is that we're given a murder in the opening sequence but the next one doesn't happen until around the 55 minute mark. I'm a little confused but had the filmmakers noticed that in slasher movies you need dead bodies? So we get about fifty minutes worth of character development, which is actually zero development and instead we just see a bunch of dumb characters doing dumb things that really don't add up to anything. The characters are all extremely annoying and it's impossible to care what happens to any of them. You get the typical stereotypes (the hunk, the dork, the good girl) but all of them are just boring.

The death scenes are also pretty boring with most of the bloodshed just a little aftermath stuff with blood coming from mouths and so on. Even the murder weapon is just a butcher knife and not much is done with it. Then there are the performances that range from poor to downright bad. The music score is a cheap knock-off of Carpenter's HALLOWEEN and there's no question that this movie is trying to be like that one in many ways. FINAL EXAM is a really horrid little movie that has very little going for it.

FINAL EXAM is about life at Lenier college, where Courtney (Cecile Bagdadi) is just trying to get through her finals. Unbeknownst to her, a mad slasher is on the loose, already responsible for two murders at a nearby college.

Soon enough, said maniac is stalking Courtney, able to roam freely in broad daylight, like a ghost. Courtney's beautiful, cranially-challenged roommate, Lisa (DeAnna Robbins) is suitably oblivious, as is her murder-obsessed friend, Radish (Joel S. Rice). After what seems like a millennium of frat boy hijinks, the mindless slaughter begins. In no time, dead jocks are found folded into lockers, and nerds are turned into door decorations! Can Courtney somehow survive the onslaught of this carnage-crazed campus killer?

This movie was a bit of a surprise, especially the finale. An enjoyable, more obscure slice of early-80's horror fun...

The opening of final exam seems pretty promising, a couple making out in a car are stabbed to death by a killer, Now the rest is a bore. The killer shows up at a college campus stalking students. Why? Who is this man? these are never quite explained. This is slow paced, even for a horror movie. Check out happy birthday to me. Or madman. they are much better.

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.