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.
