FINAL EXAM (1981)

FINAL EXAM (1981)

The movie’s plot revolves around a college in North Carolina, where a bunch of students stay behind at the end of the term in the dorms. The idea is to take an exam the following day. For some reason a killer is on the loose and he’s just gonna stab as many “20 something” college students that night, as he can find. Yeah it’s that simple. I am not trying to trick you or something. That is pretty much it. 

The films poster is ludicrously close to being a copy of the poster for FRIDAY THE 13TH which came out just a year earlier. Like that movie the killer is unseen till well over half way through the movie, also like that movie we have no freakin idea who this killer is until that point. Unlike in FRIDAY THE 13th however, zero explanation of who the killer is in relation to everyone else, or what his motives are, even come up. In fact the killer doesn’t say anything at all, like it's just a big freakin mystery. 

Director and writer Jimmy Hudson, tries to focus more on the actual students and character development and nearly avoids all nudity (which often meant you had an actual story to tell and weren’t trying to gloss things over with eye candy) in favor of atmosphere. This bugged me, because it ends up meaning we’ve got a ton of dialog which slows down the movie quite a bit. A big issue with that is the viewer might have a tendency to check out even if they are “trying” to pay attention. On top of this, the dialog seems to not really go anywhere. After all the exposition the only two characters I find myself rooting for. Not that every horror movie needs at least a few people you want to live, but man it helps. 

Acting is typical 80’s fair, but the cast is slightly less talented than what we get in some other films of the time. Having said that, I guess it’s quite possible they are actually great at acting, because how else could those jocks be that idiotic? While the dude that plays the killer is still acting, for Cecile Bagdadi (who plays Courtney) this movie was her only film ever. Joel S Rice (who plays Radish) still has a nice career going as a producer. Yeah, there’s a dude named Radish in this damn thing. I should also say that most of the stabbings in this movie are practically bloodless and there is really no gore at all. I would be fine with that if this tale was well told, but unfortunately it isn’t. 

Where this movie succeeds is creating a creepy atmosphere. The score is decent and so is the pacing once everything gets kicked into high gear, in the movies final 20 minutes or so. It seems like this one was trying to capitalize on HALLOWEEN or FRIDAY THE 13th, but we never get to see a sequel. Even with a limited release the movie actually did 1.3 Million at the box office on a $374,000 budget. I can see why producers might have thought this was peanuts though, since FRIDAY THE 13th did almost 40 Million on a $550,000 budget. 

I give FINAL EXAM a final grade of 3 OUT OF 7. I’d probably watch it again, but it’s not going to blow any minds and it’s not worth the $20.00 + price tag for the BLU-RAY. So I am thankful I gave it a shot for free on a streaming service.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF MOTION PICTURE MARKETING (MPM) AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.  

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