This is about getting your hormones excited, as if they wouldn’t be already at this age, on a night out before making-out. Final Destination 5 is nothing more than foreplay for today’s bored teenagers and what better way to get them off than with the cheap thrills of blood letting, hilarious decapitations and awesome death blows on a bunch of young adults that would look more comfortable in a GAP advert. The financially successful laugh-in-the-face-of-death franchise is back in 3D to fill its coffers from kids with more time and money than sense and adventure.
Only in a post 9/11 America, could the horror-comedy genre become so credibly bankable that audiences forget they have seen it time and time again. Up-and-coming fresh and questionable talent, geeky technology used to scare the shit out of us and lots of stadium rock concert noise and atmosphere is what they want. The latest instalment is a blood thirsty farce, no question and no disappointment either. This time the powers at be have added a seemingly extra thrill; the idea that we might have way of cheating our ‘final destination’. Extending the tension by about as long as it takes to complete an eye roll. Lets face it, kids don’t come for plot twists in these movies. They want a perfectly oiled piece that moves at two very simple speeds ‘stoner’ tension and ‘red-bull’ action when death comes calling.
After the utterly seductive and self-referential opening credit sequence, which received much cheer from the faithful, the film immediately ups the ante with a spectacular suspension bridge disaster that spares eight lucky-ones after our ‘psychic’ hero warns them of their impending doom. With death not liking to be cheated, the inevitable but extremely inventive culling begins, all brilliantly exaggerated for comic effect in 3D. It really doesn’t get any more complicated than that. Characters are thinly ‘fleshed’ and rightly so; imbued with the right amount of smugness, narcissism, and arrogance that makes their grim fate feel more than just humorously justified. This is schadenfreude American style. And with the momentum a stop/start affair, it should leave plenty of time to clean the splatter of your 3D lens or to take a convenient trip back to the snack bar before the reaper reappers.
No one of note features in this instalment other than First Time Director Steven Quale, who gets to the guts of the terror core franchise in no time at all and also the brilliant team on SFX, the opening title sequence and the accompanying soundtrack absolutely rocked and should be savoured. Number 5 delivers and will keep this genre ‘alive’ for some time to come.
Final Destination 5 is out in cinemas 26th August 2011.
Director: Steven Quale
Stars: Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Arlen Escarpeta
Runtime: 92 min
Country: USA
Film Rating: 
