The Final (film)

The Final is a 2010 horror film written by Jason Kabolati, directed by Joey Stewart, and starring Jascha Washington, Julin, Justin S. Arnold, Lindsay Seidel, Marc Donato, Ryan Hayden, and Travis Tedford.

Plot

A teenage girl is shown to be evidently disfigured when she visits a restaurant and gains the attention of surrounding people. Her emotional outburst flashes the story back to show how her situation unraveled. In high school, a boy named Ravi (Vincent Silochan) is bullied and insulted by two jocks, Bradley (Justin Arnold) and Bernard (Daniel Ross). Goth girl, Emily (Lindsay Seidel), is taunted by a group of three popular girls named Kelli (Laura Ashley Samuels), Bridget (Whitney Hoy) and Heather (Julin), who abuse her despite her pleas for friendship. Dane (Marc Donato) is another outcast who inherited an old, secluded house in the woods from his late uncle's will.

Popular boy and aspiring actor, Kurtis (Jascha Washington), invites the outcasts and popular guys to a video shoot. Favoring him, the outcasts don't want him a part of their upcoming costume party plot. At the video shoot, Bradley and Bernard confront and talk down Ravi in the washroom, whilst breaking his camera. Dane stumbles in on the situation and Bradley, labeling him a coward, intimidates him from helping Ravi, revealing Bradley had been bullying Dane as well. At school the next day, Kurtis picks a fight with Bradley upon hearing about the incident.

Some of the outcasts endure bad family lives; Ravi's family is distant, Jack's father ignores him, and Dane's parents constantly fight. At Dane's house, where they plan to lure the popular kids who were given invitations, they set up cameras, party accessories and prepare their firearms. At the party, all dressed in disguising costumes, they lace the punch bowl with a drug, causing everyone who drinks from it to fall unconscious. When the kids wake up, they find themselves chained together. The outcasts declare their revenge for years of torment and want to torture their worst enemies.

In their first act of violence, Jack injures mouthy teenager, Miles (Ryan Hayden), with cattle gun shots to his face and knee. One boy, Tommy, gets to flee for help, but steps into a bear trap in the woods and is captured by a group of three boys nicknamed "The Triplets", who help the outcasts bring him back. Immobilized and silenced by a drug, Bernard is then tortured and killed with needles by Emily. Kurtis, who attended the party after all, is secretly given a key by Ravi and luckily escapes; for such betrayal to the group, Ravi is stabbed and killed by Dane, consumed by the will for revenge.

The torture continues with Emily smearing a corrosive compound on Heather's full face and later half of Bridget's face, the latter for apologizing, but refusing to sever Bradley's fingers to spare herself even after Bradley was forced to reluctantly cut two of Bridget's right hand fingers off. Meanwhile, Kurtis flees, and he is almost shot by the Triplets when seeking help from Deputy Henessey (Mark Nutter), who takes the bullet. Taking the deputy's gun, he arrives at a neighboring house belonging to Parker (Matthew Posey), an elderly ex-soldier who suspects he is a criminal and restrains him inside until Kurtis convinces him there is ongoing trouble. Parker goes to investigate, but is caught in a trap, severely injuring his legs. Despite the injuries, he manages to kill two of the Triplets.

An increasingly psychotic Dane taunts Bradley, who attempts to apologize, but Dane is not receptive and severs Bradley's spinal cord with a switchblade, paralyzing him from the waist down. Freeing himself, Kurtis calls the police and returns to Dane's house, where he saves a boy named Riggs (Preston Flagg) from getting his tongue cut off. However, Kurtis is shot in the arm by Dane after managing to kill Andy (Travis Tedford), one of the other outcasts. Having enough, Emily shoots Dane dead before he can finish off Kurtis. Afterwards, Emily says her last words to Kelli (who had apologized to Kelli for the harm she'd caused) prior to having Jack shoot her dead. As the police burst in, Jack turns the gun on himself and tells the police, "there are more of us out there", before pulling the trigger. The next day, a news reporter recounts how the popular kids were abducted and tortured "without cause". Kelli, who remained unharmed but is consumed by guilt, swallows a large amount of pills in the school's bathroom. At school, Kurtis exchanges eye contact with the remaining Triplet. The final scene reveals that Bridget is the disfigured girl from the beginning of the movie.

Factual References

The film bears similarity to an actual 2009 plot by two Utah teenagers to kidnap high school classmates identified as jocks and bullies, then murder them with slow torture while videotaping the experience. As in the film, one of the Utah teenagers was an immigrant from Iraq who had been teased and bullied because of his ethnicity.^[2]

Cast

• Marc Donato as Dane
• Jascha Washington as Kurtis
• Whitney Hoy as Bridget
• Julin as Heather
• Lindsay Seidel as Emily
• Laura Ashley Samuels as Kelli
• Justin S. Arnold as Bradley
• Travis Tedford as Andy
• Eric Isenhower as Jack
• Vincent Silochan as Ravi
• Farah White as The Reporter
• Preston Flagg as Riggs
• Hunter Garner as Tommy
• Ryan Hayden as Miles
• Daniel Ross Owens as Bernard
• Matthew Posey as Parker

Release

The film is part of the After Dark Horrorfest 2012^[3] and was presented on November 23.^[4] The DVD was released on November 23 by After Dark Films.^[5]

Reviews

The Movie Spot gave the film a 3.5 out of 5 saying "The Final is a decent movie. And a great entry to the Horrorfest series." The film holds a 13% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 8 reviews.^[6]

References

External links

• The Final at the Internet Movie Database
• The Final at AllMovie
• The Final at Rotten Tomatoes