Final Examination starts as Rachel Kincaid's (Jen Nikolaisen) car taking a dive off the end of an unfinished freeway, unfortunately she was in it at the time... Jump 'Five Years Later' & Los Angeles Detective Shane Newman (Brent Huff) has just trashed half the city during a high speed car chase involving drug dealers, collapsing under the weight of all the lawsuits Lieutenant Hugh Janus (pronounced 'Huge Anus') (Jay Richardson) has had enough of the uncompromising Newman & transfers him to Hawaii, damn it's alright for some! Derek Simmons (Winton Nicholson) is a millionaire businessman who owns a mens top shelf magazine called 'The Cavalier' & decides to shoot a centrefold spread using graduates from his college five years prior. Megan Davidson (Belinda Gavin), Terri Walker (Kim Maddox), Amanda Galvin (Kalau Iwaoka) & Kristen Neal (Amy Lindsay) are the lucky chosen four to fly out to the beautiful island of Hawaii for the shoot all expenses paid, however it's not long before tragedy strikes as Terri is found dead by her boyfriend William (Jason Schnuit). Detective Newman & his new partner Detective Julie Seska (Kari Wuhrer) are on the case & quickly deduce it was murder, soon after Amanda is murdered & it becomes clear that there's a aerial killer on the prowl...
Directed by Fred Olen Ray, on the version I saw under the pseudonym Ed Raymond, I though Final Examination was a pretty poor film. The script by Sean O'Bannon is terrible, the pacing is all over the place & after a very promising start with a really cool car chase through the streets of Los Angeles it slows down to an absolute snails pace, only three people are murdered throughout it's duration until the lame, poorly thought out, predictable & utterly stupid 'twist' climax that's as obvious as the nose on your face. To give Final Examination a bit of credit there is another excellent car chase to complement the one at the start but these two truly cool (I'm not joking either) sequences are genuinely exciting & impressive which is strange as the rest of this sorry attempt of a film is anything but exciting or impressive, it's almost as if these car chases are from a completely different film & have been randomly spliced into this one. Anyway, apart from those two char chase scenes there is nothing remotely good about Final Examination, it's boring, predictable, is full of annoying teenagers, clichéd & has one of the lowest body counts in slasher film history at a measly three. What more can I say, this is definitely one to avoid folks.
Director Olen Ray films with surprising competence & the Hawaiian locations are truly beautiful, who knows maybe he just wanted an exotic holiday & wasn't going to let the little matter of actually trying to make a good film get in his way. Final Examination has some nudity & there is one scene in particular in which someone answers the phone topless for no reason whatsoever, after the conversation is over she puts the phone down walks off screen & the next time we see her she's fully clothed. There is no gore or violence to speak off, a couple of drownings, someone is stabbed & coughs up some blood & correct me if I'm wrong but if you are repeatedly shot you will bleed, yes? Well, why at the end when the killer is shot & falls into the swimming pool do they not bleed? I'm sorry but that pool would be red in no time & wouldn't remain PERFECTLY clear, would it?
Technically the film is actually quite good considering it went straight to video apart from a glaring continuity error during the car chase at the start, it rains between shots! But since that's the best sequence in the entire film & is excellently done I'll cut it some slack. The acting is pretty bad from everyone involved.
Final Examination as a slasher film is rubbish, there are so many better ones out there but it has two fantastic car chase sequences which save it from being a complete turd. I mean it's still a turd but I've seen worse.
Directed by Fred Olen Ray, on the version I saw under the pseudonym Ed Raymond, I though Final Examination was a pretty poor film. The script by Sean O'Bannon is terrible, the pacing is all over the place & after a very promising start with a really cool car chase through the streets of Los Angeles it slows down to an absolute snails pace, only three people are murdered throughout it's duration until the lame, poorly thought out, predictable & utterly stupid 'twist' climax that's as obvious as the nose on your face. To give Final Examination a bit of credit there is another excellent car chase to complement the one at the start but these two truly cool (I'm not joking either) sequences are genuinely exciting & impressive which is strange as the rest of this sorry attempt of a film is anything but exciting or impressive, it's almost as if these car chases are from a completely different film & have been randomly spliced into this one. Anyway, apart from those two char chase scenes there is nothing remotely good about Final Examination, it's boring, predictable, is full of annoying teenagers, clichéd & has one of the lowest body counts in slasher film history at a measly three. What more can I say, this is definitely one to avoid folks.
Director Olen Ray films with surprising competence & the Hawaiian locations are truly beautiful, who knows maybe he just wanted an exotic holiday & wasn't going to let the little matter of actually trying to make a good film get in his way. Final Examination has some nudity & there is one scene in particular in which someone answers the phone topless for no reason whatsoever, after the conversation is over she puts the phone down walks off screen & the next time we see her she's fully clothed. There is no gore or violence to speak off, a couple of drownings, someone is stabbed & coughs up some blood & correct me if I'm wrong but if you are repeatedly shot you will bleed, yes? Well, why at the end when the killer is shot & falls into the swimming pool do they not bleed? I'm sorry but that pool would be red in no time & wouldn't remain PERFECTLY clear, would it?
Technically the film is actually quite good considering it went straight to video apart from a glaring continuity error during the car chase at the start, it rains between shots! But since that's the best sequence in the entire film & is excellently done I'll cut it some slack. The acting is pretty bad from everyone involved.
Final Examination as a slasher film is rubbish, there are so many better ones out there but it has two fantastic car chase sequences which save it from being a complete turd. I mean it's still a turd but I've seen worse.