The Final

The plot of The Final is simple: A group of picked-upon high school outcasts devise a plan to invite all of their tormentors to a private Halloween costume party, drug them, chain them up and give them their just desserts by way of physical torture.

The point of The Final, however, is not so simple. In one Saw-like scene, a chained-up bully is given the opportunity to save herself from pain by inflicting pain on one of the other captives. She refuses and has to suffer the consequences.

This, in a nutshell, proves just how dumb, confused and ultimately pointless The Final is.

In the aftermath of Columbine, filmmakers have generally shied away from storylines involving students being murdered and those that didn't were mostly shunned (even Ginger Snaps caused some Columbine related controversy before it was even made and that was a frickin werewolf movie!). The filmmakers behind The Final clearly weren't concerned about causing a stir and decided to go right for the throat. What bothered me most about this film, though, was not the fact that it tackled such a touchy subject—no, I encourage such things—but rather how it was tackled.

Kids being bullied to the very edge of sanity is unfortunately a very real part of life that quite often ends in tragedy. Petty insults being flung at you by a total jerk in your class may not seem like much from the outside, but to a teen, it's all there is and it absolutely has the ability to destroy you. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—can relate to this and sympathize with it. However, the significance, severity and reality of this issue seems to have been completely lost on shallow-minded writer Jason Kabolati. He obviously doesn't understand kids at all, nor does he seem to have a clear idea of what point he's trying to make, which made it impossible to sympathize with any of it.

The Final takes an important issue and exploits it to the nth degree, turning it into something along the lines of Hostel or Saw. Creepy masks are worn, diabolical speeches are made, banjos are played, heavy metal is blasted and strobe lights fill the room while kids are tortured, all for the sake of horror movie atmosphere. One of the characters even says that all his years of watching horror movies are finally being put to good use, which just plain infuriated me. Is Kabolati suggesting that horror fans are psychos who are bound to snap at some point? Is he suggesting that the existence of bloody horror movies are dangerous to our youth? If that's the case, then why the hell did he write a horror movie like this?

The bullied teens are nothing but pathetic caricatures who prove themselves to be ignorant and obnoxious beyond belief. The leader of the group, Dane (Marc Donato), justifies his actions by saying that God would have stopped him if what he was doing was wrong. If he truly believes that God would stop any wrong-doing, then why didn't God stop the jocks at his school from picking on him? Does that mean that they deserved to be picked on?

When some of the captives are given the option to inflict pain on the others in order to be spared, doesn't this totally defeat the purpose? Teens who constantly pick on their peers are usually doing it to feel better about themselves. So weren't these bullies already inflicting pain on others to spare themselves in their everyday lives? Isn't the whole point to prove that this kind of cruel behavior is wrong? So why then, when a captive refuses to play along, do they punish her for it?

The one thing I liked about The Final was the absence of most adults. Parents and teachers are present in the film, but their faces are either left off camera or somehow concealed. This made the loneliness of being a teen more apparent and I think that was a good move on director Joey Stewart's part. But other than that minor detail, I'll just be totally blunt and sum up The Final as an extremely pathetic excuse for a film that says all the wrong things with an endless string of contradictory messages that prove nothing other than the fact that Jason Kabolati is a total douche bag.

 
RATING:

The Final

The plot of The Final is simple: A group of picked-upon high school outcasts devise a plan to invite all of their tormentors to a private Halloween costume party, drug them, chain them up and give them their just desserts by way of physical torture.

The point of The Final, however, is not so simple. In one Saw-like scene, a chained-up bully is given the opportunity to save herself from pain by inflicting pain on one of the other captives. She refuses and has to suffer the consequences.

This, in a nutshell, proves just how dumb, confused and ultimately pointless The Final is.

In the aftermath of Columbine, filmmakers have generally shied away from storylines involving students being murdered and those that didn't were mostly shunned (even Ginger Snaps caused some Columbine related controversy before it was even made and that was a frickin werewolf movie!). The filmmakers behind The Final clearly weren't concerned about causing a stir and decided to go right for the throat. What bothered me most about this film, though, was not the fact that it tackled such a touchy subject—no, I encourage such things—but rather how it was tackled.

Kids being bullied to the very edge of sanity is unfortunately a very real part of life that quite often ends in tragedy. Petty insults being flung at you by a total jerk in your class may not seem like much from the outside, but to a teen, it's all there is and it absolutely has the ability to destroy you. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—can relate to this and sympathize with it. However, the significance, severity and reality of this issue seems to have been completely lost on shallow-minded writer Jason Kabolati. He obviously doesn't understand kids at all, nor does he seem to have a clear idea of what point he's trying to make, which made it impossible to sympathize with any of it.

The Final takes an important issue and exploits it to the nth degree, turning it into something along the lines of Hostel or Saw. Creepy masks are worn, diabolical speeches are made, banjos are played, heavy metal is blasted and strobe lights fill the room while kids are tortured, all for the sake of horror movie atmosphere. One of the characters even says that all his years of watching horror movies are finally being put to good use, which just plain infuriated me. Is Kabolati suggesting that horror fans are psychos who are bound to snap at some point? Is he suggesting that the existence of bloody horror movies are dangerous to our youth? If that's the case, then why the hell did he write a horror movie like this?

The bullied teens are nothing but pathetic caricatures who prove themselves to be ignorant and obnoxious beyond belief. The leader of the group, Dane (Marc Donato), justifies his actions by saying that God would have stopped him if what he was doing was wrong. If he truly believes that God would stop any wrong-doing, then why didn't God stop the jocks at his school from picking on him? Does that mean that they deserved to be picked on?

When some of the captives are given the option to inflict pain on the others in order to be spared, doesn't this totally defeat the purpose? Teens who constantly pick on their peers are usually doing it to feel better about themselves. So weren't these bullies already inflicting pain on others to spare themselves in their everyday lives? Isn't the whole point to prove that this kind of cruel behavior is wrong? So why then, when a captive refuses to play along, do they punish her for it?

The one thing I liked about The Final was the absence of most adults. Parents and teachers are present in the film, but their faces are either left off camera or somehow concealed. This made the loneliness of being a teen more apparent and I think that was a good move on director Joey Stewart's part. But other than that minor detail, I'll just be totally blunt and sum up The Final as an extremely pathetic excuse for a film that says all the wrong things with an endless string of contradictory messages that prove nothing other than the fact that Jason Kabolati is a total douche bag.

 
RATING:

Dark House

Three little girls approach the front gate of the Darrode house, a spooky place where the "weird kids" live. One of the girls explains that they're just foster kids and decides to enter the house to prove there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of. But to her surprise, what she finds inside is the site of a massacre; kids strewn about in each of the rooms in a big bloody mess and the foster mother, Mrs. Darrode, with her arm shredding in a garbage disposal.

Cut to present day and 21 year old Claire Thompson (Meghan Ory) is struggling with the memories of that awful night, something therapy and medication can't seem to help. But when her college acting class is given the well-paid opportunity to work in the Darrode house, now a flashy haunted house attraction run by kooky Walston Ray (Jeffrey Combs), Claire is quick to accept, seeing this as the perfect way to finally face her fears.

Once inside, Claire and the handful of other students are given a very short tour and informed that all the spooky characters found throughout the house are actually computer generated holographic images. Courtesy of the latest technology, these holograms appear as real as can be, and courtesy of Mrs. Darrode, they're about to become deadly!!!

(cue scary music)

In a cheesy sequence that makes no sense, Mrs. Darrode's spirit somehow manages to enter into the computer system like a virus and take control of the holographic characters, turning them from realistic to downright real. And from there on out, no time is wasted in starting up another massacre.

Haunted house attractions are—let's face it—not very scary. Most of the time they're pretty corny and unconvincing but they still somehow never manage to fail at charming the crap out of the little Halloween-loving kid that we all are deep down. Dark House tries and almost succeeds at capturing that same charm, but ultimately falls flat with a cheap and awkward looking set and an atmosphere that's all wrong; Halloween is no where to be felt in this house, and considering the house itself seems to be the main character, this is a major flaw. Once Mrs. Darrode takes over the system and turns it into a real haunted house, the phony atmopshere continues on the same path when it should have obviously made a big change.

While watching Dark House, I found myself reminded of the House On Haunted Hill remake. That film revolved around another kooky tycoon, known for his scary theme parks, who invites a group of strangers into a haunted house with the offer of one million dollars each if they survive through the night. While it really wasn't all that great of a horror film, it certainly knew what it wanted to be and accomplished it; it was an over-the-top nod to haunted house attractions and films and it worked because it seemed very self-aware. Dark House, on the other hand, lacks this awareness and comes across as too silly as a result.

Written and directed by Darrin Scott, writer of the horror anthology classic, Tales From The Hood, Dark House is quite the disappointment in comparison. But it is a low-budget b-movie after all, and with the always pleasurable presence of Jeffrey combs and some passable acting and special effects (the very little CGI used looked fairly well done and all of the ghosts, thankfully, are portrayed by real people, so there's no Syfy Channel crap to be seen here), I can't quite say that it's a total failure.

Dark House is a very light, easily digestible romp that makes me feel bad for being too hard on it, but in the end, it just can't quite hold up. I know it will find an audience out there somewhere, but for the general horror fan, I'm going to have to say this über-corny house is not worth a visit.

RATING:

Dark House

Three little girls approach the front gate of the Darrode house, a spooky place where the "weird kids" live. One of the girls explains that they're just foster kids and decides to enter the house to prove there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of. But to her surprise, what she finds inside is the site of a massacre; kids strewn about in each of the rooms in a big bloody mess and the foster mother, Mrs. Darrode, with her arm shredding in a garbage disposal.

Cut to present day and 21 year old Claire Thompson (Meghan Ory) is struggling with the memories of that awful night, something therapy and medication can't seem to help. But when her college acting class is given the well-paid opportunity to work in the Darrode house, now a flashy haunted house attraction run by kooky Walston Ray (Jeffrey Combs), Claire is quick to accept, seeing this as the perfect way to finally face her fears.

Once inside, Claire and the handful of other students are given a very short tour and informed that all the spooky characters found throughout the house are actually computer generated holographic images. Courtesy of the latest technology, these holograms appear as real as can be, and courtesy of Mrs. Darrode, they're about to become deadly!!!

(cue scary music)

In a cheesy sequence that makes no sense, Mrs. Darrode's spirit somehow manages to enter into the computer system like a virus and take control of the holographic characters, turning them from realistic to downright real. And from there on out, no time is wasted in starting up another massacre.

Haunted house attractions are—let's face it—not very scary. Most of the time they're pretty corny and unconvincing but they still somehow never manage to fail at charming the crap out of the little Halloween-loving kid that we all are deep down. Dark House tries and almost succeeds at capturing that same charm, but ultimately falls flat with a cheap and awkward looking set and an atmosphere that's all wrong; Halloween is no where to be felt in this house, and considering the house itself seems to be the main character, this is a major flaw. Once Mrs. Darrode takes over the system and turns it into a real haunted house, the phony atmopshere continues on the same path when it should have obviously made a big change.

While watching Dark House, I found myself reminded of the House On Haunted Hill remake. That film revolved around another kooky tycoon, known for his scary theme parks, who invites a group of strangers into a haunted house with the offer of one million dollars each if they survive through the night. While it really wasn't all that great of a horror film, it certainly knew what it wanted to be and accomplished it; it was an over-the-top nod to haunted house attractions and films and it worked because it seemed very self-aware. Dark House, on the other hand, lacks this awareness and comes across as too silly as a result.

Written and directed by Darrin Scott, writer of the horror anthology classic, Tales From The Hood, Dark House is quite the disappointment in comparison. But it is a low-budget b-movie after all, and with the always pleasurable presence of Jeffrey combs and some passable acting and special effects (the very little CGI used looked fairly well done and all of the ghosts, thankfully, are portrayed by real people, so there's no Syfy Channel crap to be seen here), I can't quite say that it's a total failure.

Dark House is a very light, easily digestible romp that makes me feel bad for being too hard on it, but in the end, it just can't quite hold up. I know it will find an audience out there somewhere, but for the general horror fan, I'm going to have to say this über-corny house is not worth a visit.

RATING: