Back in the late 90's the horror genre had gotten a slight revival with Wes Craven's 'Scream', however things were starting to become stale at a faster pace than before, with rip off after rip off spinning off the press. Jeffery Riddick and Glen Morgan, two screenwriters then wrote a concept script for the 'X-Files' TV show and 'Final Destination' would be born. Now here we are sixteen years later with four sequels with a possible reboot on the way but how does the original hold up? I think for those who may have seen the sequels first, it will likely disappoint. This film was more about the suspense and the eerie supernatural elements rather than the blood rushing over the top 'Mouse Trap' kill scenes that we would see in later entries.
For those who are unfamiliar with the series, a group of young teens escape an early death after witnessing a premonition of a horrific accident, in this film's case a plane crash. They believe themselves lucky, until death starts coming for them with a vengeance. The film had a unique style to it that even at the time separated it from other teen horror films of the time. It's dark atmosphere really keeps your attention. From the moment the film begins, you get a sense of looming horror at every turn, something many films now don't even attempt. Most films slowly ease you in, but 'Final Destination' lets you know right away something isn't right about this world and it's not going to let up anytime soon.
The cast is more believable here too, with Ali Larter standing out and even Sean William Scott does really well here when most would consider him just a goofball. While I said this film is much more toned down, that's not to say there isn't some horrific stuff here. I won't spoil any here, but I must say two specific ones stand out and even made John Denver music scary, a similar effect would come later with 'Insidious'. The film does have its flaws however, with most stemming from genre tropes and general mistakes. The franchise has a coroner character played by Tony Todd in every film, and while I really have no issue with Mr. Todd and he's definitely creepy, he serves no purpose other than a cameo/exposition dump on the characters and that's it. These scenes in all of the films really slow it to a crawl when they could have easily discovered the supernatural motives themselves.
I also think that for a film with a very clever and new idea for its time it reduces almost every character to a mere body count tally when we should feel more for them than we do. One scene deals with a father confronting the main character Alex when his son is taken by Death. This should have been a very deep emotional scene where we feel for the father and understand his blame, but since we didn't really get to know the deceased that well, we just brush it off like another slasher victim. The scene in the photo above as well suffers from this problem and while the scene is very over the top I still wished to have known this character a little better.
So overall, I say that I still enjoyed 'Final Destination' after all these years. It holds up well as a serious, dark thriller with a great story but I now can see the many holes through the rose colored glasses and know it's a flawed film. However, with some of the most generic, bland and recycled films in the genre since 2000, I'd say those flaws are easy to ignore so check it out if you have yet to do so, and check out the whole franchise if you liked it.
No comments:
Post a Comment