Final Exam (1981)

Director: Jimmy Huston

Starring: Cecile Bagdadi, Joel S. Rice, Ralph Brown

A psycho killer shows up on college campus to slash up pretty co-eds and dumb jocks.

‘Final Exam’ is trying so hard to be another ‘Halloween’, but just doesn’t make the grade as a slasher movie.

A lot of screen time taken up by silly chatter, but I guess in a way it was for us to get to know the characters better. The film is filled with pranks and silly student behavior. Character-wize it had more substance than most slasher movies, but as a slasher horror movie, it was a snooze fest.

Courtney (Cecile Bagdadi) is supposed to be the heroin, but she’s an insignificant character. There really is nothing special about her. I thought Radish was the most interesting character (well portrayed by Joel S. Rice). The rest of the characters are pretty standard.

The final act is formulaic slasher movie procedure. Who is the killer? There is no information or backstory on this person. No name. Noting. It’s just a crazed killer for no reason, and nothing more than a stocky, uninteresting character. ‘Final Exam’ will go down as a forgettable movie (in my books, at least). There are far better and more interesting slasher movies out there.

Would I watch it again? No.