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.

Nerds could be an alternate title. As you can see, I have checked the "spoiler" tag, so I will be talking about a few things that happen in the movie, though I won't spoil the end (just in case you were wondering). The spoilers will be little and might even be in the description of the movie, but just in case you wanna watch the movie, without any of my comments prior to that, you should stop reading ... right now.

While the theme of the revenge isn't new, there aren't many movies, where Nerds take it out on the people who were "torturing" them in school. While this seems close to reality (though as it says, it doesn't go all the way, the "good thing and bad thing"-speech),it never gets to explicit. Which might make it even more horrible. The fact that you are not seeing that much, but are allowed to imagine things, is very twisted. Especially the scene with the knife, where you don't see the wound, but can hear loud and clear, the damage it does.

It takes awhile until the whole thing starts and you won't get any answer as to how to feel about the whole thing. You have to make up your mind yourself. Will this change the view of some "tormentors" or won't it? While the intro to the movie is kinda irritating (did they try to confuse us and make us think this was another person in the restaurant? I didn't think it was working),once it gets into gear, you are fully invested. And once the mask(s) is(are) taken off, the true identities revealed, there is even some nice acting going on ...

I love a good revenge fantasy wherein the viewer can put themselves in the shoes of the downtrodden as they dish out justice to deserving jerks, but it's unlikely that many people will experience such satisfaction with this particular film, the high-school outcasts who plan to get even with their tormentors going way too far in their quest for retribution. Not only does the film fail as a satisfying revenge flick, but it is also barely passes as a torture-porn style horror, with not nearly enough eye-watering graphic gore to satisfy the genre's bloodthirsty fans.

Where the film works best is as a cautionary tale, showing exactly what can happen if one allows a desire for revenge to become all-consuming; the film makes it abundantly clear that such a path can only lead to suffering for ALL involved. Sadly, although the film might possibly work as a deterrent for potential vengeful nerds, I doubt that bullies will get the message that picking on the weak is wrong: most of them are far too stupid to grasp that concept.