Final Exam (1981) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 17

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You will be graded on your creativity and your knifemanship.

Another early school-themed slasher film, Final Exam takes the formula into more realistic territory. Creating a film where motivations and reasons are unknown, provides a look at modern fears of the public, especially those in a college setting.

Before Viewing

This trailer shows life on a typical college campus in the early 80s. Students making out or tying a freshman to a tree in their underwear. But then the narrator shockingly mentions that there’s also a killer on campus. He’s come back…to kill people. Like the guy on the phone to the police says, “There’s a murderer on campus and he’s killing people.” As with other trailers of this kind, the killings are shown in some small way throughout the trailer as an example of the commitment of the killer. The logo even has a small knife in place of “i”. Class is not the only thing getting cut during the Final Exam.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

A couple make out in their car at March University in North Carolina. The girl is uncomfortable and wants to go elsewhere, but the boy is horny and not listening. Suddenly a Killer (Timothy L. Raynor) drags the boy out of the car stabbing him. The girl screams. Word of this attack reaches the students at nearby Lanier College, where Radish (Joel S Rice) tells Mark (John Fallon) and Courtney (Cecile Bagdadi) of a “mass murder.” The three students make their way to their Chemistry test on the second to last day of finals. During the exam period, a van pulls into the quad outside the building and a couple of ski-masked men jump out with machine guns, shooting at least three students. They grab the bodies and drive away, shocking most of the students–until some realize that there was a Gamma Delta Psi sticker on the back of the vehicle. The van pulls into a dirt road by the observatory where all the men exit–including the ones that were shot. A classic college prank!

Courtney, Radish, and Lisa (DeAnna Robbins), Courtney’s roommate who is dating the Chemistry professor, are joined for lunch by Janet (Sherry Willis-Burch) and Gary (Terry W. Farren), who is a Gamma pledge. Mark pulls Gary aside, telling him that he needs to steal tomorrow’s final exam. Meanwhile, a dark van follows the students around campus. The Sheriff (Sam Kilman) arrives on campus to take a report on the shooting. Radish provides the license plate number, which is registered to football player Wildman (Ralph Brown). The lawman berates the jock telling him one day he really will be in trouble. The Coach (Jerry Rushing) diffuses the situation sending the agitated Sheriff on his way.

Janet is excited to be ‘pinned’ by Gary. Gary steals the test, but because he’s not wearing his pledge pin, the frat brothers tie him to a tree, mostly naked, and cover him with ice and whipped cream. Wildman comes to “talk” to Radish about the incident with the Sheriff, but Mark has a better idea and steals the nerd’s keys. Now nighttime, Gary is still tied to the tree. Security guard Mitch (R.C. Nanney) won’t free him, as he respects how the hazing system works. Shortly one of Gary’s ropes is cut, and he believes it to be Janet who comes to save him. But it’s the Killer, who stabs him repeatedly with a large butcher knife.

Janet finds Gary free of the tree and follows a path of his clothes to the Observatory where the Killer attacks her too. Wildman, taking the keys from Mark, trashes the locker room (to blame it on Radish) and steals some pills for the Frat to sell. He sees the Killer and tries to fight the man, but is impaled on some gym equipment by the stronger man. Radish, still rattled by the frat prank, has a sweet moment with Courtney where he admits that she’s pretty and wants to make sure she is safe and keeps her door locked. Mark visits the Gym to see what is taking Wildman so long and finds him stuffed upside down in a locker. The Killer chases Mark around to a boiler room, where he stabs the Frat bro.

Radish, having completed his studies for the test, decides to follow the Coach’s request to inventory the locker room. He discovers Mark stuffed in a locker and calls the Sheriff, who doesn’t believe the second report of killings at the college in a day. Radish runs to Courtney’s room to warn her and is killed, left hanging in a door panel. Courtney finds Radish dead on the door and runs from the Killer. She makes her way to the art studio where Lisa and the Professor are having a date. The Killer sees an easy kill with Lisa, who is lying seductively naked on a couch. He then resumes the chase of Courtney who hides at the cafeteria.

Courtney tricks the Killer into entering the walk-in freezer and locks the door on him, but he exits through a second door. She runs to McWilliams Tower, the highest point on campus where a student committed suicide last year. The Killer follows her to the top. Coach shows up on campus to go hunting with Mitch, as it is now early in the morning. He hears Courtney’s cries for help and enters the tower, firing an arrow at the Killer. The Killer catches it and storms the man, stabbing and killing him. Just as the Killer is about to grab Courtney, she hits him with a large plank and he slips through a hole in the floor, plummeting six stories to his death. She walks past the bloody body, but he’s not quite dead. Courtney grabs his knife and stabs him aggressively 12 times before walking outside to sit on the steps and wait for help.

“I mean, senseless murders are a modern phenomena. Can I help it if people are crazy?” – Radish

There’s the bell for the penultimate movie in a theme week made up of collegiate slasher films inspired by Randy’s quote from Scream 2. In that film, he asks the killer what his favorite scary film is. “Wait. Let me guess. The House On Sorority Row? Dorm That Dripped Blood? Splatter University? Graduation Day? Final Exam?” And with that, I have the majority of films to review in a theme week. You can check out these links to the previous films, Sorority House Massacre (a substitution this year), The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Splatter University, and Graduation Day. Final Exam is a 1981 slasher film that opened one month after Graduation Day (and also Friday the 13th Part 2). It followed the deluge of copycat slasher films that were being made after the success of Friday the 13th. As discussed in yesterday’s article, the popularity of Prom Night in 1980 started a new subset of slasher films based around schools, both High Schools and Colleges. Final Exam takes the formula in a couple of different directions to make the film a little more unique than other similar films, both those reviewed this week, as well as others. It also has some material that may have been edgy at the time but shows up as examples of something you would never see in film today–which makes for an interesting rewatch.

In the slasher genre of horror, Psycho seemed to popularize the analysis of the killer’s motivations. And all the popular killers had motivations. Most were suffering from some mental illness (diagnosed or undiagnosed). Some had mommy issues, or daddy issues, or issues surrounding sex, or religion. There were those who had been hidden away from society by their family in order to protect the person (and others), while some escaped from mental hospitals–their desire to kill being so strong. Final Exam takes an unpopular route by making the Killer, and his motivations, unknown. He is not one of the students, or faculty, or a crazy janitor on the campus. He’s not related to the kids, or a grieving parent or sibling. He is literally a random aggressor who drives around to college campuses and kills students with no motivation. It is a modern fear that Radish expresses so elegantly. “Perfect strangers wake up in the morning and decide, ‘Hmm… I think it’s a good day to snuff somebody.’” His character, the audience surrogate, sees what is happening in society and becomes a realist about random happenstance. It’s not a coincidence that he’s also a fan of horror films. Movie posters line his wall, not only for older horror films but also for detective flicks. He’s an amateur sleuth who finds the process exciting, at least until it catches up to him. It’s both his fetish and his greatest fear. At no point is there any discussion about what motivates the Killer. There’s plenty to be assumed about him based on the way he dresses or his physique, but that may be one of the scariest things about the film, which no one knows for sure.

This film also integrates non-horror tropes that are also concerns of modern audiences, in this case, random shootings or terrorist attacks. This element of the film is actually the most shocking watching in 2024. While there have been mass shootings throughout the modern age, statistics show that in the United States, there were only 8 mass shootings in all of the 80s (and not just limited to schools). By comparison, the 2020s (all 5 years so far) have 34 separate incidents listed. It seems prescient that such a scene was included in a film from 1981. This prank, which would result in more than a “boys will be boys” guffaw, was meant to show the effect of random violence on the wider student population. Its impetus was no different than that of the Killer. A bunch of crazies show up on campus with machine guns and kill a number of students. Of course, the ulterior motive for the frat brothers was to cause a distraction for Mark to grade his own paper for a favorable score and then slip it into the bottom of the pile. This follows a poor taste reference by Professor Reynolds to a sniper he’s (jokingly) hired to watch for cheating students, which allows Radish to express some modicum of admiration for Charles Whitman, a Marine sniper who killed 16 students and faculty in 1966 at the University of Texas in Austin. Later, the story of a girl who committed suicide because a Sorority wouldn’t accept her is told. While a character wonders how the Sorority felt about that, the truth is that it doesn’t matter. It shows that no one can ever know what another person is thinking. These elements all set the audience up for the more shocking scenes showing how random incidents and violence affect us all.

The Final Girl of the piece, Courtney, is an interesting character. She is the most down-to-earth and sweet character in the film. She empathizes with both her roommate Lisa (a high-maintenance, spoiled, rich girl) and with Janet (a dorky, naive, country girl) about their concerns and fears. And while she says she is jealous of Lisa, it’s not in the way she looks. It is the shortcuts she takes. The fact that Lisa can get boys to do things for her. That makes Courtney jealous, but she also understands that Lisa’s actions will have future ramifications and that she herself will be more prepared for what life brings. Courtney shares a tender moment with Radish-who’s obviously enamored with her–where they have a real discussion before Radish tells her she has a pretty face. It’s these moments of character development that set Final Exam apart from the pack of slasher clones. It also allows the audience to believe that this sweet girl has the anger and rage to be able to stab the Killer twelve times! It’s easily one of the most vicious and unexpected attacks in the film. Everyone is waiting for the Killer to not be dead after his fall. But no one is expecting the fury that Courtney unleashes on him for killing her friends. It’s a shame that this was Cecile Bagdadi’s only film, as she has a great honest screen presence.

Horror films, especially thrillers and slasher films, trade on foreshadowing of clues about the murderer’s intentions or their downfall. Sometimes these clues are terribly obvious and occur moments before they come to fruition, as with a character spying a sharp spear before they enter the room with the killer. Final Exam sets up the finale in its opening moments. Courtney spends time thinking and studying in the McWilliams Tower. She is introduced inside and descends to join her friends on the way to a final. Later she relates the sad tale of the girl who committed suicide by jumping six stories to her death from this same tower. That’s where the connections to how she might end the Killer begin. Similarly, there’s a shot that shows the layout of the cafeteria, as Courtney puts her tray into a small elevator that carries it down to the kitchen. The camera follows the path and drifts through the kitchen with a worker taking the trash out the back door where the scene once again picks up Courtney walking past the Killer’s van. This entire setup provides the audience with the knowledge of the space so that when Courtney tries to hide from the Killer, they understand how he is able to find her. And as with most horror films, the teases about who will die, and how, are telegraphed relatively predictably.

The biggest drawback to Final Exam is the overt frat bro vibes. The film seems like a cross between Revenge of the Nerds (which hadn’t been released at this time) or Animal House and a horror film. The extended scenes of the hazing and fraternity culture go on too long and detract from the more serious elements of the film. But I suppose they do have their place in the overall theme of random violence in the film. Gary’s hazing where he is stripped to his underwear, tied to a tree, covered in shaving cream, with ice being poured into his underpants shows the cruel and unusual lengths that occur on college campuses. No one would blame him if he picked up a machete and attacked Wildman and Mark. It would almost be cathartic. But this institutionalized torture is seen as a rite of passage. Mitch, the security guard, says he won’t free Gary, because that would be going against tradition. Overall, the film is engaging from a character standpoint. It might not meet the high standards of horror aficionados, due to the lack of gore and blood during the scenes. But it stands as an interesting example of variety in the relatively narrow slasher genre.

Report Card

• Arithmetic: Ten kills, including the Killer. Three occur offscreen. Exceeds expectations.
• Science: Uneven pacing for killings. After the opening scene, it’s nearly 50 minutes until the next killing. From there things speed up immensely. Meets expectations.
• Phys Ed: Lots of running. Radish is fast and Courtney has to hoof it around campus, to the cafeteria, and back to the top of the tower. Exceeds expectations.
• Fine Arts: Beautiful blood-spattered paintings courtesy of Lisa’s blood. Well well-lit and shot, especially in night scenes. Meets expectations.
• Music: An actual soundtrack that changes to ominous tones at the right time. Adds an extra level of ambiance. Meets expectations.
• Final Grade: B-
• Teacher comments: Writer/director Jimmy Huston is also known for writing the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines action comedy Running Scared, and directing the vampire comedy, My Best Friend is a Vampire.