Can Saw get any edgier?

I have no clue if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would have directed a movie had they stomached high school and grew up into adults, but if they had The Final is probably the kind of movie they would eventually make. The Final begs the question, was either Joey Stewart or Jason Kabolati bullied in high school? I’m usually not one to throw personal suspicions on a director/writer just because of the contents of a movie, but I have a feeling this one comes from the heart.

The Final is the first and last movie directed by Joey Stewart preceding a life of assistant director gigs. The writer/producer is Jason Kabolati, whose latest film was 2018’s A Mind of Its Own, which is a romantic comedy about a man whose penis starts talking to him. So, you know, this movie is in the hands of dignified people. Again I’d hate to assume that this movie is the result of its creators being bullied in high school, but it really does feel the part.

If you want to know what The Final is without seeing it, just imagine if the Columbine shooters had the opportunity to write Saw in their own image. A group of high school students including Emily (Lindsay Seidel), Jack (Eric Isenhower), Ravi (Vincent Silochan), Andy (Travis Tedford), and Dane (Marc Donato) get bullied relentlessly at school. You may recognize Travis Tedford as Spanky from the 1994 Little Rascals movie and various roles in The Amanda Show.

The Final was apparently the final straw for Tedford, because he abruptly retired from acting after this flick. Seven years of looking for work and then this being the film you get will do it to you. He plays Elite Dangerous and posts on Reddit a lot. Did you know Raven-Symoné was in The Little Rascals? That’s pretty Raven.

Anyway, the school is all full of piss and vinegar as the popular kids plan for a really cool party out in a cabin in the woods. Only instead of party favors and weed, the party is serving pain and suffering. And also those Totino’s party pizzas that will give everyone explosive diahrrea. The outcasts spike the punch with Cosby juice and everyone passes out to wake up chained to the floor. They cry and plead and beg, and wonder why the world would offer them such a cruel fate, to the unknowing irony of how hard they make life on others. And then Dane says “I want to play a game.”

Alright he doesn’t do that.

The next most of the movie is composed of the high school bullies being systematically tortured before the plan goes tits up and the group starts to turn on each other. The most insightful the film gets is at the end when the torture spree is covered by the news who tactfully report that it all happened for no reason. Kinda like real life.

I think The Final forgot its own point and just decided to keep going. A lot of the film is taken up by the main outcast Dane talking and talking and talking and talking about dumb shit and doing pretty much nothing. The further the film went on the more I hoped the jock would break free of his chains and just start whooping ass. The film ignores its own premise so much that several other outcasts show up between the school scene and the cabin that I had no clue where they came from or why they were particularly there. For that matter, I had a hard time really feeling for anyone after Ravi showed up.

And I say that because the other characters get heckled and mocked and insulted, but Ravi gets physically abused and his stuff gets trashed. You can tell that the writer and director have never met teenage girls because they don’t actually sit around saying things like “I’m so hot, we’re so hot, you’re so hot, let’s go to the party and get some hot dick.” They do seem more in tune with the jock bullies however, making me think this is a film from the heart.

Rating: D-