RETRO REVIEW: "FINAL EXAM (1981)"
1981 was a banner year for the slasher film, as films like 1978’s HALLOWEEN and 1980’s FRIDAY THE 13TH, had created a near-Pavolvian demand in audiences who wanted nothing more than to see teenagers getting cut the eff up. It truly heralded the golden age of the slasher film, with no less than 30 slasher films being released that year alone! Before the era of streaming services, horror producers teamed up with major distributors, who saw dollar signs in packing mall multiplexes with teens who were ecstatic to see their peers sliced and diced on the silver screen. And man, it worked. Films like HELL NIGHT, THE FUNHOUSE, HALLOWEEN II, MY BLOODY VALENTINE, and FRIDAY THE 13TH PART II were all released that year, as well as a little college-set horror film called FINAL EXAM, that would end up grossing $1.3 million at the box office.
PLOT:
At Lanier College, the semester is almost over. Exam week is coming to a close when some upperclassmen decide to play a prank by staging a phony terrorist attack. As Wayne Campbell might say, it's super funny - NOT! But after the excitement of the prank dies down, a new scare is unleashed on the campus, and it’s one that will be a lot more final than their exams. Students are falling prey to a knife-wielding maniac stalking the school, bent on making sure that for some, school is out. Permanently.
KILLS:
In the opening scene, we are already hitting the ground running, crossing the Tropeinzy Bridge to Tropetastic Falls, as two teens from nearby March College are going at it in the backseat, while a Kidz Bop version of John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN score plays in the background. Damn, I love 80’s horror films that would just blatantly rip off other slashers and not even bat a fucking eyelash. The unabashed maneuvering of studios for a quick box office slasher grab at the cost of any original artistic content was so pure it almost seems quaint now.
Okay, where were we? Oh yeah, two collegiate kids getting rumpy-pumpy in a Buick. We see a shadowy figure quickly dispatch them (off cam, natch, because this is a pretty bloodless slasher). We then are introduced to our core group of stereotypes - sorry, I mean characters - consisting of Courtney (the studious, “she’d be a six in New York, but she’s like a seven here in Scranton,” girl-next-door), Radish (the awesome, but obviously closeted nerd), Lisa (the hot blonde with a penchant for professorial peen), Mark (the cruel frat president who’s about 80% feathered hair), and Wildman (a belching, beer-swilling meathead).
All of them, with the exception of Courtney, are hastily disposed of like a wadded up Kleenex in a Vegas Motel 6 room, and with about as much fanfare. Sadly, most of the “legitimate” kills in this film are pretty ho-hum (I’ll circle back to why I put “legitimate” in air quotes in a sec), with the exception of Wildman’s death at the hands of a gym weight machine. Fun fact: the guy who played the killer, actor/stuntman Timothy L. Raynor nearly killed Wildman (Ralph Brown) while performing the scene where he gets strangled by the weight machine wires. According to Raynor, one the wires was wrapped too tight around Brown’s neck, choking the actor unconscious until Raynor quickly saved him.
Okay, back to the whole “legitimate” kills thing, because perhaps the most disturbing kills in FINAL EXAM are not even real deaths. I’m warning you now, because if you are triggered by mass shootings, what’s about to pop off is absolutely banoonies.
In one scene early on in the film, we see a few of our characters walking across the quad after a class, along with many other students heading to other classes or to their dorms. Suddenly, we see several balaclava-clad men in a van heading in that direction, screeching up to the curb and jumping out, brandishing semi-automatic weapons. The first time I saw this scene, I was like wait, how are we suddenly in Michael Mann’s HEAT? They then proceed to straight up massacre the students in the quad, wildly shooting as kids drop left and right. Guys, this scene is fucking WILD and absolutely in no uncertain terms would not fly today, even if the movie was about a school shooting. No shit, watching this scene a few years ago for the first time, my jaw dropped. So yeah, in a 2023 context, this scene is fucking bummer, I’m not going to lie, even if its ultimately revealed to be a fraternity prank. Hey kids, remember when we could joke about school shootings in the 80’s? Yeah, me too. Thanks, President Reagan.
VISUALS/SFX:
I’m warning you wonderful readers right now, this is going to be a pretty short section, because the special effects in FINAL EXAM consist of trickles of red corn syrup and a pillow that got stabbed to death in the final scene, sooo…yeah. FINAL EXAM ain’t exactly THE THING. The one striking visual we really get is when Wildman crosses through the gym’s dimmed basketball court, which proceeds to go completely dark as he’s walking, the electronic billboard the only source of light in the space illuminating him. It’s a great shot in a film filled with mostly meh ones.
PERFORMANCES:
Listen, this is a cast of unknown 20-somethings in a low budget slasher film. As far as performances go, they do FINE. Joel Rice as Radish is the one true standout in the film, actually bringing some life, comedy, and heart to his performance of the lovelorn, pushed-around nerd. But, for a film that director Jimmy Huston said he wanted to focus more on the characters, there’s very little here that’s memorable. Even the killer is forgettable - no mask, no makeup, no menacing voice (he doesn’t even utter one damn word in this film). I can’t help but compare the killer of FINAL EXAM to one Michael Myers. They are similar in that they both silently stalk around with a butcher knife, targeting local teens, but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. Michael Myers is terrifying, and the FINAL EXAM killer? Well, he just looks like some dumb New Jersey jabroni (no offense to Tim Raynor, who I’m sure is a perfectly nice person). Okay, yes, he actually can grab an arrow right out of the air (Raynor actually did that in this film), but he’s not scary. When you look at a villain like Mike Myers, yes he’s silent, yes we don’t have a grasp of what his real motives are, but he has some things going for him that make him a compelling character. One, we can’t see his face, so there is an air of mystery as all we can see is this blank, white-faced mask. Granted, there have been slasher killers who did not wear disguises, but they also were tied to the events and people of the plot in a real way. We learn fuck-all about the FINAL EXAM killer - no motive, not even the slightest hint as to why he would be doing what he’s doing. It’s like getting an AI robot to hold a knife and just go out and stab random teenagers. Oh wait, that’s CHOPPING MALL - another slasher that’s way better than this tepid snoozer.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS:
FINAL EXAM tries to emphasize character development over gory kills, but with the exception of Radish, all of these characters still feel like caricatures of caricatures. For a horror film, it's strangely anemic. Even our Final Girl feels like a Shein version of Laurie Strode. Perhaps one of the most vexing things about this film (besides the idiotic ending) is that it was so close to being a really good slasher - the location and sets were solid, the young actors were competent for the material they had, and the premise of a killer stalking a college campus is horror movie gold. But you can’t toe a middle line with a slasher film - you have to either stay in the shallow end of the pool, focus on your characters, story, and dialogue, or jump in the bloody deep end and splatter the screen in viscera. Watching FINAL EXAM feels like I’ve been masturbating for an hour and a half and my vibrator decides to die in the last ten minutes, and that’s one slasher film sin I just cannot give a passing grade to.
THE GORY DETAILS:
While not prosecuted for obscenity, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty panic.
During an interview with Hysteria-Lives.com actor Timothy L. Raynor, who plays the killer, said he got the role because director Jimmy Huston was impressed with his martial arts skills and his ability to handle a weapon. Raynor said that the knife he wields in the movie wasn't a prop but an actual butcher's knife.
Tagline: "Some may pass the Test, God Help the Rest."
MY RATING: 4.5/10
WHERE TO WATCH:
YouTube, AMC+, Amazon Prime, The Roku ChanneL
Stay up to date with “The Dark Side Of Pop Culture” by following MacabreDaily on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
