The Final

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Scared to hell out me because you know stuff like this happens in the mind of kids who get picked on. God help us if any kids today decide to act out on their violent fantasies. Shame on the jocks and socials who have to belittle the others to make them feel better about themselves. The personas that the downtrodden kids take on are truly priceless. The Nazi, the Dominatrix, the Scarecrow Clown, or Mr. GasMask; you can help but root for them and wince at the same time when they wield their retribution. The Creepy Banjo tune has the same of effect of the tell tale music that plays in Jaws when the shark was around. Also very surprised to hear that the movie was made on a shoestring budget. They did a lot with a little. It all makes for one hell of a scary movie. Definitely worth the price of admission!

I'll tell you right now that the reason I'm giving this film 9 out of 10 is because the premise (and much of the execution) gives evil life to many of my most twisted revenge fantasies. If that makes me a sicko, sue me. As Jack says at the end of the film "There's more of us out there." Damn straight. If you were ever unjustly tormented for not wanting to fit in, for having an individual bone in your body, this one's for you. Ah, The Final: A little indie thriller from Texas that wears it's DIY-ness like a badge of honor. That makes it's highs very high and it's lows unapologetically low. But --- "look on the bright side," as Dane would say --- at least it was spared from the big studio feel-good-with-a-morale ending --- no, it ends darkly, disturbingly, and fittingly with more than just a bit of gleeful irony. The director, Joey Stewart, has described the film as more of a psychological piece and that's fairly accurate --- most of "The Final" is very talky (the Outcasts to the Beautiful People) and much of Jason Kabolati's script is so dead-on in its narrative verve it's hard to disagree with the antagonists or their motives. There's not a lot of on-screen gore, which I found fairly classy for this genre of film (it doesn't go the splatter "Hostel" route, and I can see why Stewart made this choice --- it would derail much of the mental tension and turn the film into just another freak show). Yes, the antagonists want revenge, even blood, but they mostly want to drill the victim's sins into their own heads along with the horror they are set up to witness. What they want most of all is to be LISTENED TO (and noticed). Perhaps it was this necessary evil to conjure empathy for the sadists that compelled so many of the unfortunate casting choices on the Beautiful People side of the fence. Either many of these kids need severe acting lessons or they were just given direction to "act vacuous." Still some of the line readings given by Justin Arnold, Julin, and Jascha Washington in particular are so poor it's almost as if they're reading cue cards or off camera sides. The subplot, focusing on Washington's "escape" is so shakily executed by the young actor that it threatens to implode the tension occurring simultaneously in the "A" story (did he forget his lines when he kept repeating "There's still time to call them...they're killing people..." 5 times?). And there are a few implausible plot "twists" (not really surprises) that could have used a few more scenes for exposition. It could easily have been stretched to 100-105 minutes, but I imagine indie horror films have a built in budget limit of 90 minutes. the sets probably automatically start to collapse if you shoot more film, I'd expect. As I said...this movie has so much going for it --- in the solid turns from Mark Donato, Lindsay Seidel, and Eric Eisenhower, the unapologetically harsh story line and uncompromising ending...you easily forgive it's minor fumbles. It will stay with you a LONG time. You kind of wish there was a Tarantino-like Wunderkind behind it sometimes to inject some "I haven't seen THAT before"-type camera work into it, but overall, it's an impressive little horror piece and a cut above the usual from the After Dark guys. Big Disclaimer: If you're one of the Beautiful Ones, like the reviewer who claimed that his bullying in high school was "teaching us a lesson about what it takes to be a winner in real world" --- he obviously doesn't know many failed ex-jocks --- I can only hope you find yourself in that Final test-taking dental chair someday...soon.

The Final is a tense drama more than a horror film. If you want to see something like SAW or Hostel you will not like this. I'm a junior in high school it spoke to me in so many ways. This was almost like my own little fantasy of getting to see the kids I hate at school finally get punished. Almost to a fault, it doesn't over-explain things to you. I had to read in the trivia section here to understand one of the subplots, and if you don't get it, you will think there was an editing error. Both strong as well as not so strong acting throughout. But as a story, it seemed meant for me. It's rated R but I think if you're in high school and have ever been bullied or just hate the popular kids then this film may speak to you, too.

Set in the Rocky Branch, Texas, THE FINAL – is a tale about some kids at high-school who get bullied and abused … until they eventually team up and turn the tables on their oppressors to exact revenge on those that tortured them As this preview was being shown at 11:30pm – and it was way beyond the "watershed" – it is being widely promoted as THE horror film to see … I was expecting this film to be quite a shocker … and indeed it was … only, not in the way that the producers and the director intended It has been a long, long time since I've seen such a boring pile of drivel … it's hard to know where to start … the direction, casting, acting, music and cinematography on this film were ALL underwhelming … I've seen scarier things on Coronation Street … or a bit of mouldy cheese … truly! Everything is laboured and drawn out … there were parts of the film that were supposed to be building up tension – but people were just laughing at the appalling acting and ineptitude of what we were watching ... It's also been some time since I've seen so many people (at least 20-30) get up and leave the cinema with still an half hour to go I would like to say SOMETHING positive here about this film … but in all honest ... I just can't I felt that this was a waste of a night out – that I would rather have (and should have) spent in the pub I believe that there is going to be a film studio and some producers that are going to lose a lot of money with this film release The FINAL is 93 Min's long (although it seems much longer!), and is on general release from Friday 13th August 2010

It's a bit of shame. This movie seemed to have some real potential, due to its concept but it still manages to go wrong, pretty early on in the movie already. It's still a movie with lots of great ideas and some good moments but the movie doesn't really known how it wants to make you feel and the movie therefore feels confusing and messy. Let's face it; the premise of having a bunch of bullies get taken revenge on by their 'victims' sounds like an awesome idea, you can do so much good and interesting with. Lots of stuff that you can cheer for, since everybody till some extend can definitely identify with the bullied persons in this movie. And while the movie does this at points it also really crosses the lines of morality. Seriously, how is what these kids are doing in their movie any less worse than those kids who did those school shootings because they always got bullied, or for whatever other reason? The movie doesn't really seem to know how it wants to make you feel. The one moment you are really sympathizing for the bullied persons, who are taking revenge but at others you are disgusted and shocked by the way they are taking their revenge. But it definitely is a movie that is still being mostly entertaining. It isn't being too heavy on its subject and it just doesn't try to handle it too seriously. This is what still makes "The Final" a very watchable movie. Even when the movie really starts to cross the border you won't get too disturbed by it, due to the entire way the movie got shot and set up. The entire premise of this movie might sound gory but the horror fans will still most likely miss some real good gore and disturbing shocking moments in this. It definitely is no "Saw" or "Hostel", though the movie might sound like that. I don't even remember really any blood in this. It's not because they didn't wanted to have any probably but more because they simply couldn't. It's not a very high budget movie, which is OK, since the movie does very well with the resources it did have. It's a good enough movie, that just doesn't live up to its premise and potential well enough. 6/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/