Ah, Final Exam (1981) — the cinematic equivalent of getting stuck in a multiple-choice test where all the answers are “run faster, scream louder, and pray the killer trips over the plot.”
Let’s get this straight: you have a killer whose hobbies include stalking, slashing, and proving that personal hygiene and common sense were optional for 1980s college students. And then you have your cast — Courtney, Radish, Wildman, Lisa, Janet, Mark, Gary — all of whom seem to have collectively read a manual called How To Die in a Slasher Film 101. Spoiler alert: step one is always “don’t stay on campus during finals week.”
Filming in North and South Carolina, this film clearly spent more time exploring wood-paneled dorms than developing its characters. Director Jimmy Huston probably envisioned tension but ended up with students wandering aimlessly like caffeinated zombies in a budget-conscious game of Where’s Waldo?, only with more stabbing. And oh, the killer — a man apparently allergic to subtlety — slices through students with the kind of efficiency that makes you wonder if he’s moonlighting as a cafeteria chef.
Highlights include the prank that backfires spectacularly, turning the “ace your chemistry final” subplot into a death-count leaderboard. Nothing says educational excellence like getting garroted by gym equipment while trying to steal prescription drugs. And the film’s climactic showdown in the clock tower — a location that screams “someone left the script on the shelf labeled ‘set pieces’” — is basically Courtney’s attempt at playing Whack-a-Murderer, except the killer keeps coming back like bad exam anxiety.
The cast tries, bless them, but their performances are like flat soda — carbonated in theory, lifeless in execution. Cecile Bagdadi’s Courtney makes valiant gestures with a kitchen knife, but the knife is no match for the film’s true horror: narrative coherence. Joel S. Rice’s Radish is the kind of character whose sole purpose seems to be “call the cops and then die anyway,” a trope so tired you could use it to polish the floorboards in the gymnasium.
Final Exam’s budget was a laughable $363,000, and it shows in every awkward tracking shot, every fake scream, and every poorly staged death that looks like it was choreographed by someone who once stabbed a watermelon and thought, “Yes, this is convincing.” By the end, you’re left rooting for the killer to just finish the job quickly and spare yourself the tedium of witnessing teenagers discover that college is apparently more dangerous than a haunted carnival.
Dark humor aside, this film proves one thing: if your plan is to survive finals week, skip the chemistry review sessions and hide under your bed. The killer may find you, but at least you won’t have to sit through six weeks of cinematic boredom before he does.
Verdict: 2/10 — The murders are slightly entertaining, the plot is a cafeteria special of bad ideas, and the only thing more horrifying than the deaths is realizing this was supposed to be a suspenseful slasher rather than a cautionary tale on why students should never be left alone with a van and poor decision-making.
If you want blood, go watch The Evil Dead. If you want teenagers to flounder in the most creatively pointless ways possible, congratulations, you’ve found your final exam.
