Final Exam (1981)

A Masterpiece!

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a very cheesy campy slasher film from the 80s that grabs some viewers attention. although this film has no value, and no thought out plot, theirs is still somethings to like. the pace is tame it doesn't rush into the film, it takes time, to get to the sequence, the music is pretty suspenseful. one bad thing that actually makes the movie good is the really bad dialog that that makes the movie laughable and enjoyable all at the same time. this film surely is not perfect but it makes for a great, movie to get some good jumps and laughs out of.

I didn't have high hopes for this one. I didn't see any big names in the cast either. I was proved right.The characters are highly clichéd. Having seen a few slashers recently I was not that satisfied with the clichéd characters which you can predict from the beginning. The dialogue is tired and unimaginative. But maybe there is one thing that separates it from some other slashers. The killer is revealed in the beginning itself and there is no whodunit structure to the movie. So there are no over the top twists or strange reasoning for the murders. In fact there is no reason at all, just some random guy doing these things for the audience entertainment I guess.The shooting scene was done pretty well. I admit I was impressed with the scene, a pretty unexpected one in an 80s slasher. Frankly that was the only memorable scene in the movie, otherwise it doesn't really make an impact. I liked "the boy who cried wolf" touch in the end as well.There is maybe one scene of nudity, maybe they could have amped up the sleaze, at least that could raise the rating a bit. The kill count is pretty big, maybe he has wiped out most of the people there (at least the ones who were available).Altogether an average slasher which I would not watch twice.5/10

If you're a student at Lanier College, the only thing worse than being one of the few whose finals fall on the last day of the semester is being confronted with the madman who has arrived on campus just in time for the end of finals— and the end of lives, too. Needless to say, the unlucky coeds who are still at school won't be getting any studying done tonight.Free of the obligatory gore and gratuitous sex that dominated the '80s slasher as we know it, "Final Exam" takes its cues from "Halloween" and "Prom Night," emphasizing quiet terrors over confrontational scares. I was shocked by the fact that the film seems to have gotten a lot of flack from people who have deemed it far too "boring" and complained about its lack of "back story," so just let me say this: you're wrong. Is "Final Exam" a masterpiece? No. But its detractors are overlooking the fact that one of its most unique tenets is in that it fails to ascribe to the conventional stalk-and-slash formula by a madman with mommy issues. There are no masks, no motives, and no over-psychologizing of a mythical lunatic. It's a random account of a random killing spree, and while some feel that's a cop out, the flip side is that this approach is the film's greatest contribution toward anything original. When you strip the film down beyond that, it's fairly routine, though of a higher caliber than most films of its era. There is some classy cinematography and some deliciously creepy, subtle shots of the killer looming around. The film also makes ample use of its abandoned college campus setting, much like films such as "Girls Nite Out" and "The House on Sorority Row" did in the following years— but let's not forget, "Final Exam" was something of a pioneer for the college campus slasher as we know it, whether you want to admit it or not. Solid yet quirky performances from a cast of unknowns also help keep the film afloat.Overall, "Final Exam" truly does not get enough credit. As a slasher picture, it's a slow burner, but it's got enough eerie cinematography and ominous atmosphere to engage before the body count starts to rise. As I said before, it unabashedly takes its cues from "Halloween" and other slasher trend-setters from the late '70s, but its denial of a tedious back story or any real denouement forces it outside of the box, even if just a little. Either way, I found the film a splendid exercise in subtle spookiness, and I've never found a college campus so eerie—although maybe that's just because I went to college in the Bronx. 8/10.

Being an 80s slasher fan, I've seen a lot of them. The good, the bad, the classics and the garbage. This one is somewhere between boring and uninteresting.I read on Wikipedia that the director wanted to do a different slasher. One that focuses on character development rather than kills. While it may have sounded great as an idea, the outcome is poor.If we don't count the first kill, the movie takes more than 50 minutes before anything slasher-related happens. The film spends so much time on the characters that it feels almost like a teen comedy. And one can only wish the characters were somewhat interesting, but they're not. They are as generic as they get. There are the obnoxious jocks, the computer nerd, the dumb blond who has an affair with a teacher and the "not so attractive, yet strong" final girl.The killer is a chapter of its own. We never learn his motivation, or who he is. But we can clearly see his face from the very beginning. Also, he would absolutely need to have "serial killer super powers" in order to appear at certain places where there is no way he could get without someone noticing him. Simply impossible. I understand the writer wanted to go for something else in his film, but this decision was poor.This film fails on pretty much every level. It's only recommended if you're a die hard genre fan.