For every good slasher film in the 1980s, there were ten that should've never seen the light of day. Some of those misfires have gained cult status over the years for one reason or another. It's tough to truly judge a movie in a genre that celebrates bad acting, cheesy dialogue, and nonsensical plots. 1981's "Final Exam" is a perfect example of one such film that is beloved by many today for, in my opinion, no good reason at all.

A serial killer walks the streets of Lanier College as the students prepare for a week of final exams and frat hazing. With no apparent motive or target demographic, the murderer hunts down both jocks and nerds without prejudice. Can anyone stop the madman before he takes his next victim?

I can appreciate what Writer/Director Jimmy Huston was trying to do with "Final Exam." He was attempting to make a film in the vein of "Halloween" using Hitchcock's sensibilities and techniques. Huston did his best to establish characters the audience would connect to. Unfortunately, the fact that none of the performers playing them could act annihilated any hopes of that happening.

It would've also helped if the murderer had ANY sort of motive for his killing spree. It's just some guy following college kids around and butchering them. B-O-R-I-N-G! Slasher movies either have to have one thing or another going for it. It has to be suspenseful or graphic and gory when it comes to the violence. "Final Exam" doesn't excel in either of these areas. The suspense is smothered by a lack of motivation and the kill scenes are absent of any real substance or bloodshed.

"Final Exam" is rated R for violence, language, adult situations, and nudity. Of course, there's the obligatory boob shot all slasher films must have. There's so little on screen gore that the movie quite possibly could air right after an episode of "Goosebumps" on Teen Nick. If made today without the one scene of nudity, it might earn a PG-13 rating for its content.

As far as slasher movies are concerned, "Final Exam" is a weak entry into the genre. I'm sure many fans of the film will disagree with me and they have every right to. I can't consider it an essential piece of horror history based on its lack of motivation, suspense, and gore. Without those elements, it's just another bland B-movie with bad acting.

An unknown maniac is prowling a college campus stalking students the day before final exams. All the familiar slasher film characters are here. Courtney (Bagdadi) is the virginal one who becomes the final victim. The jock (Brown), the nerd (Rice), the slut (Deanna Robbins) and the Druggie (Fallon) are all present. Director Jimmy Huston makes a curious decision to show the killer's face several times. Unfortunately he never gets around to telling us, who he is, why he is killing everyone and what his motivation is. I guess in the year of the slasher film 1981, you just needed someone with a large knife killing people to make one of these films. The death scenes range from boring to inventive and there is some suspense present in the end scenes. A decent score helps, but "Final Exam" needed more true scares, better plotting, and perhaps a masked killer to have stood out. This is for die-hard slasher fans only.

FINAL EXAM could have been much worst. I've seen much worse than this. But what's really odd about this HALLOWEEN copy is the fact that the producers copied almost everything about the John Carpenter film except for one major detail: the killer or the killer's reason for killing. Ooopps! Something tells me that after watching the film, the producers couldn't figure out exactly what they left out from HALLOWEEN. It's quite obvious from a horror fan's Point-of-View though. FINAL EXAM has some good moments, and even though it takes forever to get going, when the killer strikes, the film sorta becomes suspenseful. The problem is, we never know anything about why the murderer is going on this rampage, at this specific time, etc. They hint at a back-story (a girl committed suicide after she was refused by a sorority and we can assume that whoever's doing the killings must be a relative) but that's just not enough.

The thing that makes the original HALLOWEEN so great (forget the sequels) is that it builds a mystery around Michael Myers without telling us too much about him (which is the problem of the sequels). In FINAL EXAM, we know NOTHING about the killer. He looks like a prop guy who stood in for the killer. Had the producers actually written a reason for the killer's motivations, I think this would have a been a passable flick. As it is right now, it's just pointless.

The only really original aspect about FINAL EXAM is Radish, who's so annoying that he actually becomes fun to watch. What a uber geek! Without Radish, FINAL EXAM would have been completely forgettable or as anonymous as those no-name products you find in a supermarket.