Final Scream

Not as bad as David DeCoteau's most recent efforts, but that isn't saying much. Wealthy woman invites some friends over to her place to play a pratical joke, which invloves faking the deaths of everybody, on an enemy of hers. However, someone shows up and actually starts killing everybody.

Not nowhere near as explotive as DeCoteau's previous efforts, and mildly entertaining, but awfully mechincal and by the numbers. The references to Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer throughout the whole film feel really out of place here.

Rated R; Graphic Violence and Sexual Situations.

I admit it, I got suckered in. Silly me! The plot actually borrows more from "April Fools Day" (which was one of the better slasher films of its time) than "Scream." A rich bitch invites her estranged sister and her sister's nightmare-plagued boyfriend to a house-warming party, accompanied by her synchophant college friends. She stages a fake death, allegedly to start a murder mystery theme house as a business venture. But (surprise!) someone starts killing off the guests for real. While I never expected anything of quality, I had hoped for something that was enjoyably bad. The people involved in this films seemed to promise such a thing. What amazed me was how boring it was. Everything that is done here has been done before. The cast is good-looking, but they show very little skin. Also, the killings have very little bloodshed, far less than the R rating warrants. It makes me wonder who the target audience was.

There are only a few minor compensations. Errin Hayes gives a pretty good performance as a Joan Collins wannabe, and the other actors are passable. The background music isn't bad, some of the humor works, and the technical aspects are marginally better than in other films of its kind. But it didn't make the film any less boring.

I know David DeCoteau films will never be mistaken as great art. But if they were at least entertaining then their lack of artistic merit wouldn't be so bad but alas, his films are rarely entertaining, which makes these producers products even more tedious to watch. And FINAL STAB is one tedious film: a bland film with a bland title with bland actors in a bland one-setting story. A game of Pong is more compelling than this so-called horror film.

The funny thing about this film is that it was shot in widescreen and yet the film was never released theatrically. So why bother shooting this direct-to-home video film in widescreen?

Anyway, there's almost nothing else worth mentioning about FINAL STAB. It's pretty difficult to write a concise critique for such a bland film.

Final Stab was a delightfully pathetic movie. It reminded me of the videos made in my high school film class. That aside, it had potential. The slasher idea, while about as used a week old kitty litter, still has potential to produce "that movie"....another scream (the original). If this script was tossed to John Sayles for a couple weeks it could have been worked into a good piece of work. The potential lied mostly in the fact that it was a murder mystery party, so the victims walked right into there deaths, not expecting anything but a rubber knife and fake blood. The part that killed it was, by far, the writing. Even without changing a thing about story, good writing could have made it more bearable. My friend commented that he thought it was bad acting, but I felt the actors did quite well stumbling over all that awkward dialogue. The villianous sister, played by Erinn Carter is a quite talented actress. She movied onto the Sitcom/improv show "On the spot" with Tim Conway. There she does an excellent job in flexing her comedic muscles. One last comment on the film, while the ending was semi-predictable, I was pleased how it was incorporated. It was the ending that a good slasher filck should have had.

Kristen is spoiled rich and always gets what she wants, even to see her very own sisters' psychotic boyfriend snap. So Kristen sets up the idea for a murder mystery party at an old house in the country. She invites people she went to college with and hires an actor to play a killer. She then has Angela (her sister) and Charlie (sisters boyfriend) come to the 'surprise' party. Kristen plans it out perfect, Charlie sees the first fake death right in the living room with everyone else and then he begins to panic and rushes out of the house. That's when Kristen's games begin. However, she thinks she has the perfect plot until the people really start dying. They really do have a killer among them. Sounds pretty good huh? Overall you could tell this movie was a "B" movie because of the poor directing and blood. The acting wasn't bad but as you can see plot is very good. Even though this was a predictable movie I'd rate this.. 6/10.