Final Destination (2000) New Line/Horror-Thriller RT: 98 minutes Rated R (violence and terror, language) Director: James Wong Screenplay: James Wong, Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick Music: Shirley Walker Cinematography: Robert McLachlan Release date: March 17, 2000 (US) Cast: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Kristen Cloke, Daniel Roebuck, Roger Guenveur Smith, Chad E. Donella, Seann William Scott, Amanda Detmer, Tony Todd, Brendan Fehr, Lisa Marie Caruk, Christine Chatelain, Forbes Angus. Box Office: $53.3M/$112.8M (World)
Rating: ***
The horror-thriller Final Destination honors the tradition of Dead Teenager Movies by introducing us to group of high-schoolers then picking them off one-by-one. The twist? The victims aren’t killed by a mad slasher but in a series of bizarre accidents a la the Omen movies. Only it isn’t Satan causing the accidents that bring about the deaths, it’s Death himself. At least that’s what a creepy mortician (Tony Todd) tells the main characters when they come looking for answers. The fact that Candyman himself plays the mortician sets Final Destination a couple notches above the average teen horror flick.
It all starts with a horrifying vision. Several students from a high school French class are off on a field trip to Paris. As the plane gets ready for take-off, Alex (Sawa, Idle Hands) has a premonition that it will explode and kill everybody on board. Naturally, he freaks out and demands to be let off the plane. It results in a fracas and seven people- six students and one teacher- getting kicked off. A few moments later, the plane explodes mid-air just as Alex predicted. Everybody wants to know how he knew. FBI agents believe he had something to do with it. Teachers, parents and classmates treat him like he’s a freak. Then the survivors start dying off in strange ways. The first victim gets accidentally hanged in his bathroom through a bizarre chain of seemingly random yet connected events (e.g. leaky toilet, spilled shampoo and a few other things). His death looks like a suicide but Alex knows different.
The only person who believes Alex is Clear Rivers (Larter, Varsity Blues), a depressive artist who voluntarily left the plane when the others got kicked off. They soon figure out that the survivors are dying in the order they would have died had they remained on the plane. The mortician, who’s identified in the credits as “Bludworth” but never in the movie, explains that Alex cheated Death by interfering with his plan and now Death has come to collect what he’s owed. Alex has to figure out a way to break the chain in order to save the lives of the survivors yet again.
The body count in Final Destination isn’t especially high if you don’t count the ones who die in the plane explosion. Only five major characters get their ticket punched. It’s the ways in which they die that are cool. A girl gets hit by a bus. Somebody gets stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife. Another is decapitated. Somebody gets crushed by a falling neon sign. There’s some blood, but nothing on the level of future Final Destination installments.
Directed by James Wong (writer of several X-Files episodes), Final Destination is a clever horror movie. Has anybody noticed that several characters are named after famous horror actors and directors? The main character Alex Browning is named for Tod Browning, the director of Freaks (1932). The French teacher Valerie Lewton is named for producer Val Lewton (1942’s Cat People). Terry Chaney (Detmer, Saving Silverman) is named for Lon Chaney (the silent film classic Phantom of the Opera). FBI Agent Schreck (Smith, Tales from the Hood) is named after Max Schreck who played the title role in Nosferatu (1922). You must know who Billy Hitchcock (Scott, the American Pie movies) is named for. If you don’t, turn in your movie buff membership card RIGHT NOW!
The acting in Final Destination is good for this type of movie. Instead of hiring a bunch of random young actor whose looks surpass their talent, Wong hired ones that can actually act. Sawa believably conveys a teen frightened by his newfound power and unsure how to deal with it. Larter’s depressed act is very convincing. Kerr Smith (Dawson’s Creek) plays jock bully Carter Horton who punches Alex out every time he sees him. It’s his way of exerting control over his own life, a power he swears Alex took away from him when he saved his life. The whole cast does a good job really.
The screenplay by Wong, Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Riddick, is well-written and surprisingly intelligent in giving its teen characters dialogue concerning matters other than drinking, partying and sex. In their own way, these kids carry on deep existential discussions about death, immortality and “fate” (really a code word for God). The opening sequence on the plane- i.e. Alex’s vision- is terrifying and intense; I guarantee you Final Destination will NEVER be shown on an airplane. True, some of the scenes are clichés- e.g. the car stopped on railroad tracks- but Wong makes them work. In the end, Final Destination is solid work. It’s a scary, suspenseful piece that combines existentialism with cool, Rube Goldberg-like death scenes. It’s definitely one of the best horror films of the 21st century.
