Final Exam (1981)/ Additional

 As Intruder was in closing credits mode, Tubi recommended Final Exam (1981) as the next watch, I had no plans this year to watch it. I really felt the last time I wrote about it on the blog, that would be it. I have nothing else to say about the plot, but my daughter was in the room and wanted to watch it, so I was like, "What the hell..." I totally get why a section of slasher fans -- and certain popular horror podcasters I pay attention to -- find Final Exam a bore. They watch the film over and over to try and discover just what value some of us find in it. Why, oh why, does anyone like it? I think, for me, it is just that kind of film I can play in the background while I put together a beast of a gargantuan novel of a review for Intruder. You know, my daughter just really enjoyed it. Boy, that machine gun practical joke on campus so Mark (John Fallon) could get that highly coveted 82 so his parents would continue paying for his car sure as fuck hasn't aged well. I told my daughter that just would not be allowed today. You can say that about A LOT of subject matter in the 80s. Even the coach (Elijah Perry, with the arrow shot from his bow caught in the hand by the killer, even as the killer was holding a butcher knife in his other hand!) gets a good giggle as does the security guard, taking the sheriff (Sam Kilman) to task for being deservedly pissed at all the hazing shit the frat on campus gets away with. Try that now...talking about being cancelled. Those with pitchforks and torches would burn you at the stake for that shit today. College kids collapsing to the freshly cut green lawn of the campus with fake blood on their chests in a heap as ski-mask frat numbskulls fire off blanks from machine guns as Joel S Rice's genius Radish flees to call the cops with students scattering and hiding...umm, yeah, not a good look today.

There is that moment where we see the plates with food go down that conveyor to the dishwashers as Courtney (Cecile Bagdadi) walks out of the cafeteria just for later when the killer himself (Timothy L Raynor) rides that same passage to pursue her. I can see some frustrated viewers questioning the reasoning behind following plates to dishwashers who take out garbage... "Why must there be such padding?", I can hear disgruntled viewers balk. Granted, there is barely any violence on screen, and what is leaves much to be desired. And the killer is just some burly guy. He leaps out of trees and catches arrows without a hitch. But he's still nondescript...a real no-no for many slasher fans.

My daughter seemed to really take to the cast of the film. I guess the way the film captures the college experience to her was interesting. The three ladies, Bagdadi, pretty blonde, DeAnna Robbins (having this weird affair with the chemistry teacher for better grades, bragging about how she's a better lay than his saggy "nearly 30" wife), and "falls in love with all the boys she dates", Sherry-Willis Burch, were interesting to her as was Rice's college dorm with the movie posters and Frankenstein Monster mask. Wildman (Ralph Brown), with his messy whip cream and goof-off personality and Mark seemed to irritate my daughter with their hazing torment of Burch's boyfriend of the film, Terry W Farren. That's my girl.