“… cashes in on the Saw bandwagon, but does it in an interesting enough way that I can give it a pass.”

In honour of me completing my first university exams today, last night I watched Exam; luckily my exams were nothing like that in the movie. For those who haven’t seen it, Exam is a movie that jumped on the Saw bandwagon by presenting to you a group of people, a mystery, and all of it is wrapped in a nice thriller presentation. In this film, a group of people all gather in a room to take an exam for a job position; the only problem is, the papers they were given are blank.

So there isn’t a whole lot to discuss with Exam, but I did like what I got. I found that the world was built really well for the film being set in only one room. I liked the dialogue that alluded to something a lot more sinister going on outside of the walls, but never actually showing it left a lot up to imagination of the viewer. And although I felt that the film did slow down toward the middle with the same thing being repeated ad nauseam, I did feel that the film kept tensions high enough to keep me engaged in the film. One thing that I can mention as a mark against Exam is the fact that all of the characters are really bland. A few of them get some interesting backstory, but most of them exist just for the sake of existing. This kind of goes hand in hand with the performances which were fine, but overall nothing was spectacular about the characters in Exam. I will also say that the payoff in the movie was a little weird for my tastes, but overall I felt it was satisfying enough for the movie. I don’t want to say more because Exam really is one of those movies that you should go into blind.

Overall Exam cashes in on the Saw bandwagon, but does it in an interesting enough way that I can give it a pass. Sure the movie is pretty surface-level, but if you’re looking for a movie that you can put on and have a pretty good time with, Exam is what you should go for.

I give Exam a B