Director: Jimmy Huston
Writer: Jimmy Huston
Starring: Cecile Bagdadi and Joel Rice
Body Count: 9
Review: Believe it or not, this film is probably one of the best slasher movies ever made.
Jimmy Huston was obviously following his slasher handbook when he wrote this college campus flick, where an unknown drifter driving a black van crawls onto campus and begins picking the kids off one-by-one.
That in itself isn't so extraordinary, but what is extraordinary is what Huston manages to do with his limited pallette. What we've got here is essentially Halloween: Laurie Goes To College. The film opens with a murder, but the rest of the killing doesn't take place until the final half-hour or less--much like Halloween, which Final Exam is obviously trying to duplicate. More interesting is the fact that Huston manages to actually develop his characters to some degree (which is no small feat, considering the somewhat sub-par actors in the film). Add to that some gore and great dialogue, plus some fairly clever genre homages and smart scripting, and you've got yourself one hell of a slasher movie.
Don't get me wrong--Final Exam isn't flawless, but it's damn close, as far as early 80s slasher movies go.