Horror Movie Mini-Reviews: The Final Destination (2009) and Final Destination 5 (2011)

* The Final Destination (2009)

Nick goes to a car race and has a premonition of a horrific crash. His panic causes him and some other people to be ejected from the event, saving them from a painful death. Afterwards, they start to die in accidents one by one, leading Nick to try to save them before it's too late.

The Final Destination is another decent entry in the series. There are way too many 3D gimmicks, but the characters and deaths are both pretty well done. I was super excited to see Justin Welborn, but his role is so small here. His death is the most hilarious thing about the film. He's a white supremicist attempting to harrass an African American security guard by burning a cross on his yard and ends up dying in the middle of the street by his own car while it blasts the song Why Can't We Be Friends. It's a bit over the top, but effective and funny. The salon death is like a race of so many different factors to see which one will kill the woman first. One death seems totally stolen from the pages of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, another has a man's flesh being cheese grated through a chain link fence, and yet another is the fault of a shoe being caught in an escalator. Who hasn't thought of that at least once in their lives?

The flaws of the film come in the character interactions. Janet almost died in a car wash, one of the weirdest almost death scenes, and she gets mad at the others for being worried about dying. It's like she completely ignored what happened to everyone else. Some of the CGI doesn't look great and the 3D film within the 3D film looks just awful on a normal TV. The ending is incredibly nihilistic and steals a little from the previous film, but it works better here. The x-rays of deaths from all the different Final Destination films during the beginning and end credits look great. This isn't the best film, but it gets back on to what made the first film successful.

My rating: 3.5/5

* Final Destination 5 (2011)

Sam is on the way to a company retreat when he sees the bridge collapse. He leaves the bridge with those he can convince and the rest die. As usual, he sees the pattern of deaths and tries to save his friends and coworkers.

Final Destination 5 is the second best of the series that follows the tried and true formula with a couple twists at the end. The characters are just well drawn enough to care slightly about some them while others are so bland you don't care if they live or die. Sam is an adorable cook who seems genuinely caring. I struggle to remember his girlfriend at all. Tony Todd as the mortician has the biggest role in this film and it serves the film well to have this ominous character singing hymns and dropping wisdom for the hapless characters. The kills are cringe inducing, especially the laser eye surgery gone wrong and the accupuncture death. Even the gymnastics death is one where so many factors could be the fatal flaw and it's fun to guess which one it will be.

The two twists at the end are well done. The first is the twist on the lore. When one of the accident survivors was supposed to die, another tragically died in his place. He seemed to be rejected from the cycle of death, giving another character the idea to kill another on purpose in order to save himself. The other twist is that this film takes place before the first film and leads to the fateful plane crash that started it all. The clues are so small that I didn't even notice them the first time. The second time, it was more apparent since I was looking for them in the flip phones, 90's musical references, and outdated language. Definitely give this one a try even if you've written off the series.

My rating: 4/5