Couple '81 Slashers
So Turner Classics' TCM Underground surprised me by featuring Final Exam & Night School early Saturday morning in their 1:00 - 5:00 AM block. Only with this would we ever see these two unlikely candidates for the channel. Just read some user comments for Final Exam and you will see most of my common reviewer peers aren't too particularly fond of it. Boring, worthless, long-winded, with nothing happening are weapons of literary warfare certain to diffuse any serious interest for those slasher fans who haven't seen it but are mining the thoughts and opinions of those who watch their fair share of these era of films and the genre. Night School gets better response, however, although it wasn't the feature slasher of the lineup. I think for most slasher fans, Night School is the A slasher of the two while Final Exam is often lucky to be called a D slasher. I'm not so harsh on Final Exam although the critical point of the motiveless killer just sunk it with many viewers and fan of the genre. History has yielded psychos who just loved to kill so perhaps Huston (writer and director) just didn't feel like that was important enough. It sure is for many of my fellow slasher fans who consider a killer with some reason to pursue college students only on campus because they took their final exams late. The shooting took place mostly in the Carolinas on specific campuses, real colleges does give the film a certain authenticity. Night School, on the other hand, was shot in Boston which I think alone should generate interest as this city isn't known for the genre. The streets and local Boston flavor sort of offer an atmosphere all their own.
Whether southern folks such as the coach and campus security are discussing the sheriff's former college exploits with fire when throwing his weight around in regards to threatening the football jocks behind a prank involving machine gun terrorism (nope, there's no way this makes it to a theater today!) from masked students out of a van or Rachel Ward reacting rather sadistically towards students (a waitress just being hospitable dufring service at a diner, and an assistant who man's the projector when consoled for the loss of her friend are extreme examples of just being friendly with the anthropology professor she's obsessively involved with) who are objects of her professor lover's prurient desires, these early 80s slashers feature certain tropes that the genre formulates with regularity. Killers in both films pursue a select group, students in college or indirect victims who come in contact with them. Both use a very sharp blade and surprise from the shadows or emerge with hostile intent.
Differences in how fans saw them are quite substantial, however. Final Exam is concerned with the kids, intimating their particular characteristics in regards to the future...which never comes. The nerd obsessed with serial killers (he has posters of The Corpse Grinders and The Toolbox Murders on the wall of his dorm while he types up computations before jocks from the Gamma frat complain about his calling the sheriff's department in regards to the van incident), the pretty and modest girl who studies hard but opines to the nerd that her gorgeous blond pal/roommate gets plenty of breaks due to her looks, that same gorgeous blond screwing around with the married chem professor, the frat jocks stealing tests to cheat, the naive and bubbly blond who considers her golly-gee boyfriend's frat pin gift so important, and the newbie to the frat still enduring hazing (he's "convinced" to steal a test and is tied by rope to a tree for giving his blabbermouth girl his pin, as ice is dumped in his tighty whities while whip cream is splattered all over him). Eventually the black-haired killer hulking about gets to use his knife, and even as nothing is shown onscreen his multiple up-and-down strikes relay the message to us all so clear. In Night School, there's a lot more blood and the victims backing up and trying to defend themselves is shot much more up close and intimate. More harrowing and in your face. And Drew Snyder smearing bloody bits of flesh on Ward in the shower doesn't have an equal in regards to the bizarre in comparison to Final Exam, a slasher that plays it all close to the vest with very little surprise.
I actually own the VHS (sans box) of Night School. At the time the film wasn't readily available. Thankfully (or not if you are of the critics carrying pitchforks and torches) Final Exam got a Code Red release which is how I got to see it. But TCM ever showing them, that was not ever anticipated.
Final Exam *** / ***** Old review
Night School *** / ***** Old review
Whether southern folks such as the coach and campus security are discussing the sheriff's former college exploits with fire when throwing his weight around in regards to threatening the football jocks behind a prank involving machine gun terrorism (nope, there's no way this makes it to a theater today!) from masked students out of a van or Rachel Ward reacting rather sadistically towards students (a waitress just being hospitable dufring service at a diner, and an assistant who man's the projector when consoled for the loss of her friend are extreme examples of just being friendly with the anthropology professor she's obsessively involved with) who are objects of her professor lover's prurient desires, these early 80s slashers feature certain tropes that the genre formulates with regularity. Killers in both films pursue a select group, students in college or indirect victims who come in contact with them. Both use a very sharp blade and surprise from the shadows or emerge with hostile intent.
Differences in how fans saw them are quite substantial, however. Final Exam is concerned with the kids, intimating their particular characteristics in regards to the future...which never comes. The nerd obsessed with serial killers (he has posters of The Corpse Grinders and The Toolbox Murders on the wall of his dorm while he types up computations before jocks from the Gamma frat complain about his calling the sheriff's department in regards to the van incident), the pretty and modest girl who studies hard but opines to the nerd that her gorgeous blond pal/roommate gets plenty of breaks due to her looks, that same gorgeous blond screwing around with the married chem professor, the frat jocks stealing tests to cheat, the naive and bubbly blond who considers her golly-gee boyfriend's frat pin gift so important, and the newbie to the frat still enduring hazing (he's "convinced" to steal a test and is tied by rope to a tree for giving his blabbermouth girl his pin, as ice is dumped in his tighty whities while whip cream is splattered all over him). Eventually the black-haired killer hulking about gets to use his knife, and even as nothing is shown onscreen his multiple up-and-down strikes relay the message to us all so clear. In Night School, there's a lot more blood and the victims backing up and trying to defend themselves is shot much more up close and intimate. More harrowing and in your face. And Drew Snyder smearing bloody bits of flesh on Ward in the shower doesn't have an equal in regards to the bizarre in comparison to Final Exam, a slasher that plays it all close to the vest with very little surprise.
I actually own the VHS (sans box) of Night School. At the time the film wasn't readily available. Thankfully (or not if you are of the critics carrying pitchforks and torches) Final Exam got a Code Red release which is how I got to see it. But TCM ever showing them, that was not ever anticipated.
Final Exam *** / ***** Old review
Night School *** / ***** Old review
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