In this five film series James (X-Files) Wong and Glen Morgen make sure no single broken pilot light goes close-upped. This is what it sounds and looks like when you're briefly aware of all the sharp surfaces you open yourself up to day-by-day. The bad trip paranoid nightmare of 21st century living.
The stories all start the same: a group of teens or teens, young adults and some just plain 'adults' caught in the web, are at an event or about to board a plane, visit a race track, drive cross a bridge or board a roller coaster. A grisly event is played out as if real, and it's awesome! Everyone dies brutally ---but then we zoom out of the dreamer's eyeball, back to right before it starts; the dreamer starts freaking out, saving his or her immediate cronies, plus some random cross-section of other people, pissing off the unseen specter of Death in the process, and creating the need for its little Rube Golderg-style mouse traps to come. Showing flair both as a Young Person's Guide to Home Safety manual come to life, and as a series of unpretentious, witty junk horror films, the series prefers its blood to be a dark shiny CGI red, with plenty of gore, but no sick-in-the-gut feeling over suffering of the torture porn kind, no real dread to bum us out as such. Since the killer is Greek tragedy style Fate/Death it's what Pauline Kael would call a 'dirty kick' --recreating in the viewer, however briefly, the jouissance of childhood, of being keenly aware of all the sharp objects around, the bugs and stingers under every rock, the power of giant adults to squash us without noticing. It makes us suddenly feel alive.
The stories all start the same: a group of teens or teens, young adults and some just plain 'adults' caught in the web, are at an event or about to board a plane, visit a race track, drive cross a bridge or board a roller coaster. A grisly event is played out as if real, and it's awesome! Everyone dies brutally ---but then we zoom out of the dreamer's eyeball, back to right before it starts; the dreamer starts freaking out, saving his or her immediate cronies, plus some random cross-section of other people, pissing off the unseen specter of Death in the process, and creating the need for its little Rube Golderg-style mouse traps to come. Showing flair both as a Young Person's Guide to Home Safety manual come to life, and as a series of unpretentious, witty junk horror films, the series prefers its blood to be a dark shiny CGI red, with plenty of gore, but no sick-in-the-gut feeling over suffering of the torture porn kind, no real dread to bum us out as such. Since the killer is Greek tragedy style Fate/Death it's what Pauline Kael would call a 'dirty kick' --recreating in the viewer, however briefly, the jouissance of childhood, of being keenly aware of all the sharp objects around, the bugs and stingers under every rock, the power of giant adults to squash us without noticing. It makes us suddenly feel alive.
Dig, it's about a soldier with a bandaged face who can assume all sorts of disguises behind enemy lines, but who is he? Can he ever fall in love... with a face presumably so hideous? I had every issue, a full run. I was so proud, but who was impressed? Not girls, certainly--and if I had a face to show them, it wouldn't be the one that hides in his room reading comics.
I've lectured to enough stone-quiet college kids nowadays to know my brand of morose teenagerdom is both more and less relevant than ever. Luckily kids today have a chemical buffer, salve for their pain that stops them from being too sad, maybe, but also stops them rising up in those brief fiery manic releases that come from prolonged suffering, those moments of transformation that can only come when there's nothing left to lose, a feeling that then tends to dissolve as soon as we finally--through this new confidence--have something we want to keep. Is that why we were able to escape our sad ambivalence in the first place? Just so it could get the thrill of recapturing us?
I've lectured to enough stone-quiet college kids nowadays to know my brand of morose teenagerdom is both more and less relevant than ever. Luckily kids today have a chemical buffer, salve for their pain that stops them from being too sad, maybe, but also stops them rising up in those brief fiery manic releases that come from prolonged suffering, those moments of transformation that can only come when there's nothing left to lose, a feeling that then tends to dissolve as soon as we finally--through this new confidence--have something we want to keep. Is that why we were able to escape our sad ambivalence in the first place? Just so it could get the thrill of recapturing us?
That's just one reason why the Final Destination series wouldn't work as well if set outside the USA. Other nations, perhaps being so much older than ours, are less embarrassed about dying, less prone to demonize death and immolate the soothsayers in their midst, shoot-the-messenger-style. In the US we think of death like it's dandruff or an STD. We treat life like a banquet but we get indignant at the check.
Was unprotected sex really worth all this death? If our ancestors used condoms we'd be forever incorporeal, free. That sticky flytrap substance rooted us to time/space!
"The only way to survive is to look beneath the visible world"
Either way, it's not death's fault your parents were sloppy.
Sure, this is just old-fashioned Puritan dread, the kind that--to use the Fosse vernacular--ensures after every Ben Vereen musical ascension into Jessica Lange's heavenly arms there shalt also be a zipped-up body bag and Ethel Merman. This is what Wong and Morgen understand, which is why the 'pre-cog' hero of each film is treated like a monster by at least a few of the saved and/or their parents. These resentful survivors are the 'normal,' Christian, white, NRA American types, the ones who are afraid of--and embarrassed by--death, yet also obsessed by its potential as a legitimate alternative to the sins of the flesh. These God-fearing Americans, death is dirty, sex is obscene, though they have ten kids and five guns, or the politician who hates gays so much he just has to cruise the bus stops. American heads are buried so ostrich deep in an assortment of desert dirt dogmas that these weird inconsistencies seem perfectly natural to them. Hating and fearing the person who saves their lives, voting for more war while rejecting health-care, wishing terrorists came to their town so they'd finally have a reason to use their assault rifles, while screaming against immigration.
I get that --my teenage buddy Alan went that route in the 80s and I very nearly COULD have, if not for pot. Weed makes you immune to rage.... temporarily. It's why the older generation's so scared of it! Read my pamphlet, man... hey where you goin'?
'Touched by premonition in these movies, the accident survivors indirectly cause most of the killings they're trying to avert, barging into the their homes at odd hours, freaking out over some new gleaned kernel of intuition, triggering the sleeper's death. They even risk their own lives trying to protect the ones who treat them like a combination Snowden/alarm clock. Instead of dying safe within their constrictive view of what it means to be Americans, these survivors resent the kids who force them into a state of cosmopolitan ennui, like a goddamned European existentialist. Thanks, "Omabo!"
But what makes these films 'fun' is that preconception and paranoia go hand-in-hand, and that's what makes us a nation of horror movie-quoting psychics. We've seen so many horror movies that we always know when something's about to happen. A perfect meta-textual William Castle gimmick, Death in these films can almost hear us shouting at the idiots onscreen and it's tickled to death to be a part of the action. It loves to fake us out and surprise us. And best of all, it doesn't traumatize or implicate us in its devious design. It stays invisible, a force in the fabric of the diegetic reality, that no single figure of malice presents itself to concretize our fear, so it's never scary, just fun in an amusement park ride kind a way. Without even a mask, Death's just a lovable, twisted, silent, invisible Rube Goldberg coincidence time-space serpent, occupying the same 'no space' omnipresence of we viewers.
Here they are in order:.
FINAL DESTINATION
(2000) - **1/2
The plane crash opener is solid, but this film falls off from there. Devon Sawa is too solemn and sweaty and it makes no sense why he would still go out of his way to save the life of the main dick who torments him, or why the dopey fed who suspects him of foul play doesn't bother to research past premonition cases. And Sawa does himself no favors by racing into the houses of those he reckons are about to die, indirectly causing their deaths, getting their blood all over his clothes right before the cops arrive. I've known dumb kids like this in real life and one of the reasons I've never been arrested is I always just walk away when they start acting like this. Why should I stick around now?
On the plus side: the love interest, a girl with the great character name of Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), exudes fresh odd final girl Wednesday Adams-style resilience which makes up for Sawa's glum posturing. A highlight is their visit to a mysterious undertaker (Tony "Candyman" Todd) who dispenses cryptic advice and there's a great middle section with Devon alone in a cabin, 'death-proofing' every last corner and jagged edge of his one room fort, Death occasionally sending in a mysterious wind to try to blow over some jagged edge in a closet or something.
Overall this first effort gets by more on originality and chutzpah than ingenuity. The series got a lot better once it limited death's palette to the freaky but possible, requiring much more Rube Goldbergian ingenuity on behalf of the writers, and scaling back the douche bag element.
'Touched by premonition in these movies, the accident survivors indirectly cause most of the killings they're trying to avert, barging into the their homes at odd hours, freaking out over some new gleaned kernel of intuition, triggering the sleeper's death. They even risk their own lives trying to protect the ones who treat them like a combination Snowden/alarm clock. Instead of dying safe within their constrictive view of what it means to be Americans, these survivors resent the kids who force them into a state of cosmopolitan ennui, like a goddamned European existentialist. Thanks, "Omabo!"
But what makes these films 'fun' is that preconception and paranoia go hand-in-hand, and that's what makes us a nation of horror movie-quoting psychics. We've seen so many horror movies that we always know when something's about to happen. A perfect meta-textual William Castle gimmick, Death in these films can almost hear us shouting at the idiots onscreen and it's tickled to death to be a part of the action. It loves to fake us out and surprise us. And best of all, it doesn't traumatize or implicate us in its devious design. It stays invisible, a force in the fabric of the diegetic reality, that no single figure of malice presents itself to concretize our fear, so it's never scary, just fun in an amusement park ride kind a way. Without even a mask, Death's just a lovable, twisted, silent, invisible Rube Goldberg coincidence time-space serpent, occupying the same 'no space' omnipresence of we viewers.
Here they are in order:.
FINAL DESTINATION
(2000) - **1/2
The plane crash opener is solid, but this film falls off from there. Devon Sawa is too solemn and sweaty and it makes no sense why he would still go out of his way to save the life of the main dick who torments him, or why the dopey fed who suspects him of foul play doesn't bother to research past premonition cases. And Sawa does himself no favors by racing into the houses of those he reckons are about to die, indirectly causing their deaths, getting their blood all over his clothes right before the cops arrive. I've known dumb kids like this in real life and one of the reasons I've never been arrested is I always just walk away when they start acting like this. Why should I stick around now?
On the plus side: the love interest, a girl with the great character name of Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), exudes fresh odd final girl Wednesday Adams-style resilience which makes up for Sawa's glum posturing. A highlight is their visit to a mysterious undertaker (Tony "Candyman" Todd) who dispenses cryptic advice and there's a great middle section with Devon alone in a cabin, 'death-proofing' every last corner and jagged edge of his one room fort, Death occasionally sending in a mysterious wind to try to blow over some jagged edge in a closet or something.
Overall this first effort gets by more on originality and chutzpah than ingenuity. The series got a lot better once it limited death's palette to the freaky but possible, requiring much more Rube Goldbergian ingenuity on behalf of the writers, and scaling back the douche bag element.
FINAL DESTINATION 2
(2003) - ***
A step up, with a great catastrophic highway accident opener --one of the best. This time the teenager gifted with grisly premonitions is female (A.J. Cook), and the return of Clear Rivers (Ali Larter) from part one adds extra final girl glory (the scenes in her padded cell are hilarious) and there is nice random assembly of highway commuters. including an obnoxious cokehead biker and a douche who just won the lottery. Your money's no good here, pal. Death works pro bono. So they best heed the useless sage-isms from Tony "Candyman" Todd, and realize Hollywood NEEDS a black Bela Lugosi or black Boris Karloff or black Rondo Hatton and Todd could maybe he all three, if we'd let him into our hearts with his gentle embalming catheter.
I like when the dwindling survivors all decide they have to move in together and start death-proofing a studio loft, as if preparing for a Big Brother-style reality show season where death acts like a mute host, voting contestants off with a vengeance for the slightest of careless mistakes. That said, the endless hostility between the bikers, hipsters and greedy yuppies as they try to cohabitate and agree on house rules does grate on the nerves. There's a good reason why these types shouldn't mix!
FINAL DESTINATION 3(2006) ***1/2
The Citizen Kane of FD movies, this is the one that got me into the series because it's always on IFC. Chill indie hipster icon Mary Elizabeth Winstead is ideal as the survivor-psychic, this time of a roller coaster accident watched over by a giant amusement park Satan. It's perfect casting as "usually chill" people like her so hate to be suddenly the center of attention that when she freaks out in her seat before the ride starts, we realize we've nver seen the normally unflappable Winstead acting so undone, even in the sequel/remake of THE THING! She has interesting rapport withe her younger sister (Alexz Johnson), a normal nice jock type who lost his girlfriend like she lost her boyfriend. But there's no time for flirting, Winstead sets the bar high for keeping a high-strung (she has serious fear of losing control) funerary mood throughout; most of the other high school grads--the two vapid tanning salon hotties; the creepy faux-hipster with the camera who follows them around; a cool couple of dismissive emi-Goth wiseasses riding around in forklifts, etc. Deaths are foretold via photos Winstead took while waiting in line for the coaster (for the yearbook) which is peppered with skeletons and devils and looks pretty cool--and very clean. Tony "Black Rondo Lugosi" Todd supplies the mechanical voice of the big devil statue. It all adds up to a particularly wry entry, with classic horror fan in-jokes (characters have last names like Romero, Freund, Dreyer, Ulmer, Wise, Halperin). Like a friend riding shotgun, Death even scans for relevant songs on the car radio ("There is someone / walking behind you") to announce the launch of a new Goldberg chain of freak accidents that leads to some CGI gory reward. The calamities are particularly spectacular and peppered with details that keep it one step above the average post-Scream cliche. The roller coaster takes a long time to gradually go off the rails, vividly hitting every bump, sending small objects like cameras flying as projectiles. Car crashes, tanning bed accidents and Home Depot stockroom nail gun disasters follow and everything leads up to a clumsy but amusing fairground fireworks finale with a runaway white horse, and an amok goth wiseass mourning his hot girlfriend co-worker via violence, and of course lots of great screaming and horse whinnying. And a second climax in the NYC subway; Todd's voice returns for the announcements. "End of the line- next stop." It's cool that Winstead came to where she belongs for college, NYC, where cool women abound in hipster droves, all debts paid.
THE FINAL DESTINATION (2009) - **
I have no idea why the powers that be decided to call this 'The Final Destination.' Is four a bad luck number in junk sequels? It would be forgivable if it didn't use 3-D as a crutch (my guess "Final Destination 4 in 3D was confusing). And the climax, set in a 3D (of course) theater showing a movie with a big explosion that will happen literally at the same time unless the hero stops it blah blah, isn't nearly as meta. as 'the Tingler is in the theater!' I can imagine William Casle hiring a lookalike actress to freaking out in the audience right before the big boom, like in Demons. And there's a great but under-explored side bit with a recovering alcoholic security guard who tries to use being marked for death as an excuse to relapse, laying out his AA big book, one-year chip and big brandy snifter (see my review of 2012 - Day of a Million Relapses!) on his dining room table. It would have been great if he did relapse, instead of just forgetting all about his.... delicious..... snifter and trying to hang himself instead. Yo, drink your damn drink! It may be a longer slower form of suicide. but you can leave the noose in case of emergency.
A stylistic choice of using CGI x-ray bone
breaking animation (and unrealistic CGI blood) instead of straight-up gore and the usual screaming is a big mistake in my opinion, lowering this sequel a step way down from the hipster glory of its predecessor, but never a dull moment.
FINAL DESTINATION 5
(2011) - ***1/2
This go-round kicks off on a suspension bridge with a busload of hot young or comic employees bound for a corporate retreat. The craziness that ensues looks good even in 2-D; the tacky X-ray bone-grind gore is gone and replaced with the tactile analog variety we love, and, while less rooted yet casual than the third installment, it's still got a nice hint of indie hipness about it, like a big budget Roger Corman production directed by Joe Dante back in the 70s if set in the 90s and made in 2011.
This time it's discerned that if you kill someone while on your borrowed time, they can take your place in death's account book. So the ubiquitous distraught douche decides it's only fair he kills the hero's girlfriend since his died on the bridge, etc. The ending brings us all the way back around to the first film in the series for a nice surprise loop-de-loop, showing death's wicked sense of humor and maybe his whole raison d'etre for starting this whole catch-and-release mess to begin with.
FINAL DESTINATION 5 (2011) - ***1/2
This go-round kicks off on a suspension bridge with a busload of hot young or comic employees bound for a corporate retreat. The craziness that ensues looks good even in 2-D; the tacky X-ray bone-grind gore is gone and replaced with the tactile analog variety we love, and, while less rooted yet casual than the third installment, it's still got a nice hint of indie hipness about it, like a big budget Roger Corman production directed by Joe Dante back in the 70s if set in the 90s and made in 2011.
This time it's discerned that if you kill someone while on your borrowed time, they can take your place in death's account book. So the ubiquitous distraught douche decides it's only fair he kills the hero's girlfriend since his died on the bridge, etc. The ending brings us all the way back around to the first film in the series for a nice surprise loop-de-loop, showing death's wicked sense of humor and maybe his whole raison d'etre for starting this whole catch-and-release mess to begin with.
Special mention to the most stunning girl in maybe the whole series, Olivia (Jaqueline MacInnes Wood) who is killed while strapped into a Lasik eye surgery machine. I predict big things for this lanky, at-ease-in-her-own-skin taller Elizabeth Hurley-Tanya Roberts-Sophie Marceau-ish lass. Wikipedia says she's already a 'fan favorite.' For what is' worth (which is nothing) back in the late-80s, I loved a girl who looked a little like her, all tall and kinda dumb but sweet, back when I was a decadent college rock star (like her older boyfriend here) and now she's old and looks like Anna Magnani, which is fine, I guess. Don't let yourself go, Jacqueline! Life is short, don't date alcoholic bass players or marry some guy 20 years older who is still a musician. And for god's sake don't drink the punch, or go to a second location with people you just met, and leave when your friends do, no matter how good a time you're having. There is always someone.... walking behind you....
As Poe once wrote,
"how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?"
No, Poe!
"how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?"
No, Poe!
They all must go.
Your hand that holds them too,
crumbling and decomposing,
til all that's left,
are words and images
depicting the death,
you know was coming.
Did the knowing help?
Did you know your words would?
They worked almost as well
as alcohol.
