Final Stab

Yarr, there be minor spoilers ahead. (I forgot that's something you're supposed to do. I hope I didn't give stuff away in other reviews. ... Oh well. Too late now.)

"That sounded like it came from the basement." "Basement?"
Soap opera + straight to video horror movie = Final Stab.
Estranged sisters! Mediocre acting! Secret gay lovers! Awkward dialogue! Tragic pasts! Characters that exist only to be killed! A needlessly complicated plot that falls apart if you think about it! More talking than action! Long slow motion shots of the masked killer walking toward the camera! Final Stab has got it all.
Director David DeCoteau is the man behind a movie that is legendary amongst ... well, mainly among my friends Kristin and Tom and me; a straight to video gay vampire movie called The Brotherhood. It's legendary because it's not very good, not exactly terrible and endlessly entertaining (it's the kind of movie you can't help but MST3K at).
So when I found out he did a (I can't believe I'm about to use this phrase) post-Scream self reflexive slasher movie (somebody please punch me) I had to see it.
And it's not as good as The Brotherhood. But, really, what is?
Final Stab is about a girl named Kristin (hey!) who is throwing a murder mystery party weekend to get back together with / broaden the distance between her and her estranged sister, Angela. Or maybe it's to get revenge on Angela's boyfriend Charlie, who spurned Kristin's drunken advances. Or maybe it's to drive a wedge between Angela and Charlie, or to make Charlie go crazy because he witnessed his parents' murder several years ago and has been having nightmares. Or some other motive, I don't know. Kristin is up to Something and she roped all her snobby rich friends into the party to help her.
But then someone starts going around killing people for real, although it takes until almost the end of the movie for anybody to figure that out.
The identity of the killer is not a surprise at all because, by the time it's revealed, there's only one suspect left. Not that anybody really wonders about it. At all. It's not really an issue in this movie. Sure, everybody's dead but those left alive only seem mildly concerned. Nobody even bothers to call the police even though it's established that everybody's cell phones are working. Gotta love that self-absorbed slasher fodder.
My favorite part, though, is three characters named Bud, Earl and Cosmo. Bud really hates Kristin for unmentioned reasons (well, nothing broader than "She's a bitch" and variations thereof) and he drags his friends Earl and Cosmo up to the house where she's throwing her party, and they skulk around to find out what's going on / ruin Kristin's good time.
Guess who are three of the first four characters to die?
Now, the reason this is my favorite part is: none of these guys interact with anybody but each other and the masked killer. They serve absolutely no purpose at all. They're as superfluous as Billy in Spookies; they exist simply to disappear.
And that, my friends (I almost typed "my fiends;" I almost wish I'd kept it), is why I enjoy David DeCoteau movies.

End of line.
-Sally