Exam - And I thought GCSEs were hard!

The Exam is an interesting little beast: filmed entirely in one room, eight applicants for a mysterious and powerful company have to sit their final entry exam. Only one will be employed. It quickly becomes apparent that all is not what it seems and shocks and surprises quickly follow.

Okay, so The Exam is pretty low budget - any film set in the same, simply location is always going to be, plus you probably won't have heard of any of the actors (maybe Colin Salmon, but he's only `the invigilator'). It's `story-based' with us, the audience, being as in the dark as the applicants as to the company's true motives. It's mainly talking (and bickering!), but it's quite well done.

There are plenty of twists in the tale - some you may predict (I didn't, but there seem to be some on internet message boards who have) and others you won't. It kind of reminded me of `The Cube' with its simply setting and eight strangers trying to solve a puzzle of unknown origin.

It's not perfect; there are a few moments where coincidence plays a big part in moving the story along, but, on the whole, I found it pretty clever and entertaining. I won't go into too much detail as much of the enjoyment is from finding things out as you go along. However, this could also be a drawback as, although I enjoyed the film, I'm not sure whether I could watch it again, as I'd know all the twists and turns before they came.

If you like the sound of something a little more low budget and `talkie' over action, then you might like this.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that