"F" for Finally
God bless the Halloween DVD season. Were it not for Best Buy and Blockbuster's annual need to fill up endcaps with something cheap and horror-related, the only new releases we'd be seeing 'round this time of year would be Anchor Bay's 47th edition of Halloween and a commemorative Evil Dead set packaged in a life-size latex replica of Bruce Campbell's chin.
Fortunately, for those of you who, like me, spend less time in October opening candy wrappers and more time opening your wallets, the harvest is plentiful this year, especially if you're inclined toward bad slasher movies, or bad-good slasher movies, or Final Exam.
Since seeing it for the first time about ten years ago, I've searched long and hard for someone else who actually liked Final Exam. Fans of "new" horror say it's too slow; fans of "old" horror say it's too much like Halloween (a detraction that's never really made much sense to me -- that's kind of like saying Diet Coke tastes too much like Coke). That's because Final Exam isn't really like any other movie from its era, or any era. It's classier than, say, Cheerleader Camp, but not exactly Carpenteresque; it's essentially just another school slasher, but probably the only one that successfully favors characters over carnage for a good hour. It's derivative, but daring. And thanks to the endless e-mail onslaught by the 14 people who enjoy it enough to have worn out their old VHS tapes, it's finally out on DVD.
No sign of any special features, so you'll have to live with a DVD on your shelf that isn't a 2-disc, high-def, scratch-n-sniff, sing-along edition, but that just means you'll have more room for that inevitable rubber chin.
Cheat Sheet:
1 comments :
Long live "Wild Man!"
Post a Comment