In my tabulation, The Final comes in at 8th place — the worst out of eight. It gets this honor not because it is a bad film — which it is — but because it is completely unacceptable.
Show/Hide synopsis
A group of outcast high school students, tired of being tormented at school, hatch a plan to crash a student party to exact vengeance on the tormentors.
Show/Hide spoilers
Seizing control of the party, the outcasts drug the punch in order to incapacitate the oppressors, chain them in irons, and begin to systematically torture them. The group had waffled over following through with the plan as a sympathetic student, who wasn’t supposed to be at the party, turned up. Most agreed that he was “meant to be there” if he was there. One of the outcasts frees this student, who runs into the woods. The outcast’s fellows knife him to death for the action.
As the sympathetic student — a black kid — tries to plead with a redneck who has taken him captive for help, the oppressed embark on a series of grisly tortures on the oppressors, including enticing certain of them with freedom if they are willing to amputate their fellow students’ fingers with gardening shears. The putative leader of the outcasts, played very poorly by Marc Donato, gives overwrought and melodramatic speeches overlooking the dance floor, at one point donning a black trenchcoat.
When the police arrive, finally summoned by the sympathetic student who has been able to convince the redneck to help, the oppressed commit suicide. The sympathetic student returns to school, and the filmmakers make clear that there are still oppressors-to-be lurking there.
Show/Hide review
This is completely fucking unacceptable as a film. Intentionally drawing on imagery of (at least the collective national mythos of) Columbine, the film attempts a sympathetic portrayal of picked-upon students who arrange to torture and kill their peers. Registering as a brutal revenge fantasy on the part of the filmmakers, we’re supposed to identify with the oppressed and, I guess, cheer for them.
Fuck. That. Shit.
This is not something that one can do in a movie, especially one targeted at the demographics most interested in horror features. Not fucking cool. Ten years after (the mythologized, yes) Columbine, Stephen King’s early masturbatory fantasy of teen retribution Rage (written pseudonymously with a desired title of Getting It On) is just barely acceptable. The Korn song “Faget” [sic] is probably not. And this piece of shit registers off the charts into unacceptable territory. The filmmakers should be ashamed at this inept, offensive, and possibly-dangerous film, and After Dark Films should be likewise ashamed. Fuck them. Gah.
Show/Hide bright spots
Emily, played brilliantly by beautiful newcomer Lindsay Seidel, is the closest to evoking sympathy among the oppressed. As for other bright spots … um? Hmm.
I think it will be the case that people with email notifications will see the synopses in the clear, so I hope that doesn’t cause problems for those who want to see the films. If it does on this first one, don’t read the snippets in the subsequent emails, instead visiting the site directly.
Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:22:13 -0600
Under horrorfest, movies
Comments feed
| Trackback
Log in
Subscribe by email
February 8th, 2010 at 14h03
I’m kind of hesitant to ask this question at all, since I can’t think of a way to ask it that doesn’t sound more combative than I mean for it to be. I’m asking you to take on faith that I want your genuine analysis as a fan of the genre, and I’m not trying to start shit.
Here’s my condensed read of your thoughts on The Final (you can correct my read if I’m wrong):
The cool kids in a high school are gorily killed by a group of revenge-driven psychopaths. Most horror fans were not the cool kids in high school, so the makers of the film expect them to be ok with this. This expectation is insulting and dangerous.
I’m more or less with you, but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on how this compares to the other films in the genre, many of which would not be inaccurately described as follows:
The super-hot girl that reminds most horror fans of the girl that they never worked up the nerve to ask on a date in high school gets gorily killed by one or more psychopaths, probably in a laughably/disturbingly sexualized fashion. Horror fans are expected to resent the way that that girl never noticed them in high school, so the makers of the film expect them to be ok with this.
If you disagree with that particular synopsis, I’m interested in that, as well. I think that we both love horror, but in wildly divergent styles. I’m a sucker for supernatural horror, and don’t have the stomach for extended torture, which seems to be the direction that horror has been headed for quite a while. As you’re someone way, way better versed in the field than I am, I’d like to hear your thoughts.
February 8th, 2010 at 14h46
I’m asking you to take on faith
Not necessary. I find this a very respectful question.
The super-hot girl that reminds most horror fans of the girl…
No, I’m entirely with you on this. But this is mostly an obsolete formula. For instance, none of the entries from this year follow this convention, except to the precise degree I’ve described in this one film, and the pain to which the boys are subjected is at least as vicious as the girls. A good number of films in the four years of this festival subvert this, having strong, victorious female characters. And for what it’s worth, I don’t watch (or continue to watch) films in which your description is valid. The last one I watched of this type was 2001’s Valentine in which Denise Richards’s character is locked, nude, under the lid of a hot tub and killed with a power auger plunged through the lid. Not cool, and not my scene.
don’t have the stomach for extended torture, which seems to be the direction that horror has been headed for quite a while
Nor do I, but I would disagree with your summation of the direction of the genre. This film — which you will note I judged worst — is the only one to employ what could be considered extended physical torture at all, and exactly one other employed extended psychological torture. And the physical torture of this film pales in comparison to that of Reservoir Dogs, which we both adore. As a side note, “revenge-driven psychopaths” is the one wrong note in your summation. The torture in Reservoir Dogs is pure psychopathy, while the torture in this film is framed as a reasonable response to trauma — precisely why I abhor this film.
Torture is manifest in the Hostel franchise (none of which I’ve seen) and the later Saw films (only the first two of which I’ve seen, stopping the third for this precise reason), yes. But “extended torture” is actually more manifest in 1970s horror and sexualized male-on-female violence in the 1980s than in the last twenty years, the ’90s by painfully self-aware near send-ups, and the occurrence in the noughties of careful auteur-level attention to the genre as valid filmmaking which, in my view, offsets the torture porn. The offsetting, of course, is easier if one does not (as I do not) watch the torture porn in the first place.
I’m a sucker for supernatural horror,
Yes, we diverge here. Generally when a supernatural element is shown to be integral to the storyline, I become much less interested. But I think you attribute to me enjoyment of sub-genres (I’d argue that “entire genres” is frequently more exact) that is inaccurate, and I’m happy to dispel that misunderstanding.
Good? I need to write up the rest. I’m looking forward to more responses from you.