Final Destination: New Line Cinema
Rating: USA: R/ UK: 15/ Austalia: MA

It’s no secret that I’m not a huge fan of the 90’s-style, self-referential slasher film. Aside from the original Scream most of these films are just as unwatchable as the 80’s slasher films they’re trying so desperately to lampoon. In fact, in some ways they’re even worse. The 80’s slasher films were rarely good, but at least they were earnest—they existed to showcase some fine special FX work and gratuitous T&A and didn’t make any bones about it.

The 90’s style slasher flicks are often more offensive because they think they’re so damn clever. They’re smart-alecky little films that think they’re being iconoclastic when they’re really nothing more than slightly gussied up versions of what they’re parodying. Having seen Carpenter’s Halloween doesn’t make you an expert on the genre—and referencing it endlessly doesn’t mean you’ve made a good horror film. Ultimately, these films are just as gimmicky as their 80’s brethren—only the gimmick has changed over the years. In the ‘80s, you needed a cool killer to build a franchise around. In the ‘90s (and even into 2000 if you count this film and Urban Legends: Final Cut) the gimmick revolves around deconstructionist parody and a cast of bankable teenaged stars. Any way you look at it, the new approach doesn’t really make for good horror cinema.

Yet while my disdain for these films is well documented (I liked Scream and that’s about it), I still manage to catch these films eventually—and I always go into them hoping for the best, even though they rarely deliver. All of which brings us to Final Destination--a film that had a fair amount of potential, but fails to live up to it because it becomes trapped by the constraints of the new style of horror film.

Alex (Devon Sawa) is all set to leave for his senior trip—a ten day stay in France. However, lots of odd little things start happening—a clock flashes his flight number (180) on red LED screen, John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High plays in the airport, a display board shows the word ‘terminal’, etc. All of this bad mojo plays on Alex’s mind, but he boards the plane anyway. Soon, they’re in the air—only something’s wrong, and moments later the plane rips apart before exploding in mid-air.

If that really happened, though, it would pretty much be the end of the film. Instead, we learn that Alex has been dreaming the events on the plane…but when he wakes up, everything from his dream starts happening again, causing him to panic and shout to anyone who will listen that the plane is about to blow up. An altercation between him and another student (Carter: Kerr Smith) causes Alex and 6 other people to be kicked off the plane—which promptly takes off then explodes.

The problem is, Alex has accidentally glimpsed Death’s secret plan, therefore, by living, he and his classmates have cheated Death—and Death’s none to pleased about it. You can pretty much figure out the rest on your own—Death decides to settle the score, so he picks off the survivors (Amanda Detmer, Kristen Cloke, Chad Donella, etc.) one by one with a series of murder methods that would make even Rube Goldberg proud, until only Alex, love interest Clear (Ali Larter), and Carter remain. Can these three stop Death? Gee, I wonder…

The idea of someone glimpsing Death’s grand plan is an interesting one, and this film has the opportunity to work with this premise in the early stages, but rather than do something interesting with it, the film is merely content to let the events play out in standard slasher film fashion. Logic holes abound here—things like ‘if Death wants to kill these kids (and a teacher) so bad, why not just have them choke when they’re eating, or why not kill the four remaining survivors when they’re all in a car together?’ Of course, that doesn’t happen, because then, again, it would be movie over. So, instead, Death goes out of his way to stalk the survivors one by one, utilizing some of the most complicated murder schemes I’ve ever seen in order to knock them off. If Death had to work this hard to capture the average soul, we’d all live to be about 800 years old.

About the only thing the film does manage to do right is that it never shows Death in person (well, it might show him one scene as a mortician played by Tony Todd, but that’s it—and that scene is open to interpretation). I was relieved that we weren’t forced to watch a CGI version of the Grim Reaper chasing folks around at the climax. Instead, Death is personified through weird shadows, a cool breeze, or Denver’s Rocky Mountain High. It’s about as subtle as this film gets.

Speaking of subtlety, former Chris Carter protégés James Wong and Glen Morgan should look it up in the dictionary. The opening segment (with all of the foreboding omens) is cool at first, but quickly goes way overboard. Foreshadowing is nice, but it’s not foreshadowing anymore when you clobber me over the head with it…

Wong’s direction is nice, though—there are some decent transitions (including ending one scene by going up with a crane shot and beginning the next by going down) and the film looks slick and professional visually. Yet, like most of these productions (which also look really slick from a production values standpoint), the visuals can’t hide the fact that film is a relatively soulless affair—a paint by the numbers horror film that’s predictable from the first shot all the way through to the final frame, a frame that will invariably leave things open for a sequel. There’s just no passion here, and it shows.

The acting is serviceable—Sawa does the ‘cute but disheveled’ thing well enough, and he’s not as obnoxious as some of his 90’s style horror film brethren (e.g. Skeet Ulrich, Josh Hartnett, etc.). still, he’s not exactly the most interesting character around.

Of course, when you compare him to Ali Larter, he’s Laurence Olivier. Larter’s performance can be best described in one word: bland. Larter’s never convincing in this film—not when she’s playing the odd duck bookworm, nor as the romantic love interest. She tends to skulk her way through scenes as if she’s lost, or as though she believes that showing as little emotion or range as possible will somehow make her character play as ‘serious’. The rest of the cast is pretty much forgettable—which I’m counting as a plus here since it means that no one was so awful that they stand out in my memory, although Kristen Cloke was close.

There’s not much gore to be found here—yet another staple of the new slasher films. The opening plane explosion is good, but still doesn’t rival the plane explosion passage from Bret Easton Ellis’ novel Glamorama (which is perhaps the most terrifying description of a plane crash I’ve ever seen or read). Another character is decapitated by a piece of flying debris, which is probably the best effect shot in the film. Finally, a girl gets plowed by a bus—that’s about it for gore. Gore fans will likely be disappointed by the lack of onscreen carnage in Final Destination.

In the end, Final Destination had the potential to be a good film. It takes the new slasher formula and mutates it (largely dropping the parody aspects), but soon falls back into the same tired old rhythms. Just because your killer is Father Death himself doesn’t make your story any grander—and because of this, Final Destination plays out in standard slasher film fashion. It’s not the worst of the bunch (a la Urban Legend), but it’s nothing to write home about, either. If 90’s horror is your bag, give this one a look—otherwise, don’t bother….move along, there’s nothing to see here.




Recommended: No