End of Term – Review
End Of Term is directed by Mat Menony and stars British acting greats Julie Graham (The Sarah Jane Adventures, Shetland), Peter Davidson (Doctor Who, Good Omens) and David Bamber (Valkyrie, The Bourne Identity). The film arrives on digital on 2nd October 2023, right in time for Halloween.
History repeats itself at the Ford Barrington Art School and a group of students find themselves being relentlessly tormented by the lingering spirit of Garth Stroman, an artist who had a disturbing vision 50 years earlier. As graduation day draws near, the celebrations descend into a nightmarish world of medieval torture – all in the name of art.
The film starts out in a standard, UK police interview room style, the intriguing young lady with big werewolf scratch scars on her face that they are speaking to seems suitably disturbed.
The scars are so in your face, even though they’re on her face, that they really became a overwhelming part of the film for me, as they are massive and I found myself over analysing why they were so big when she is never cut that much during the film. Anyway, back to the rest of the film.
Chelsea Edge is great as Melissa, she carries the opening scenes really well and looks genuinely worried/disturbed by what’s been going on. The interview acts as a through line and gives us a fair bit of exposition as we jump back and forth between the present, and the events that led her to be scratched up, those scratches really are something to behold, did I mention the scratches? I feel I should also add, there are precisely zero werewolves in this film.
The film moves along at a fairly slow pace which would usually add to the feeling of dread at the beginning, but the main plot here being the visit of Melissa’s sister and the slightly dodgy, stilted dialogue and wooden performances killed this part of it for me. I didn’t like anybody immediately.
The rest of the film follows a fairly standard slasher movie narrative and is perfectly watchable and everyone I thought was going to be awful in the acting department were actually pretty good, and again Chelsea Edge’s performance between the two versions of Melissa in the film makes her almost seem like a different person, really good.
The end of the film comes straight out of left field and has some great make up effects and provides a satisfying denouement but then it nips back to the present day in the police station and well, The Usual Suspects it is not.
End of Term is a solid school based slasher with some great performances from the cast and a fairly satisfying end to the story. It doesn’t out stay its welcome, but you probably won’t be interested in a revisit.
Those scars though man, those scars…
Watch the trailer below
