THE FINAL DESTINATION

What's that gnawing sound? Oh, just my leg caught in the escalator.

Just when you think you've escaped death's clutches... Ooops! (and in 3-D this time!)  Somehow I had escaped seeing any of the Final Destination films, though, like most, couldn't escape the trailers that were replete with graphic and horrific accidents right out of any "-phobe's" worst nightmares. I would say these films are perfect for people who are too scared to leave the house, but then I might point out the ceiling fan that could drop on your head, or the curling iron that could electrocute you. You get the idea.

I actually saw the opening sequence of this latest installment, THE Final Destination (my emphasis) while on a plane. As a race car careened off the tracks, landing in a ball of flame on a panicked audience that ran stampeding for the exists of a falling-apart stadium, I paused. "Hmmm..." I thought to myself. "Would they dare show a plane crash scene in a film that is an in-flight movie?" I decided not to risk it, so waited to see the rest of the film later on DVD (and the DVD comes with a set of "klassic" blue and red 3-D glasses!).

Seeing a woman get decapitated (in a very splashy, squishy explosion) by a flying car tire in the first scene pretty much sets you up for the rest of the film. In fact, each scene is simply a set-up, and I'm not talking about the very weak character development. You pretty much know that the nubile and/or six-packed hot young people (with names right out of a 70s horror movie: Nick! Lori! Hunt! Janet!) are basically screwed when they cheat death the first time, so why waste time with all that chit-chat? Instead, the filmmakers start each sequence by planting clues about the carnage to come: there is an errant pebble, or a lit cigarette, or a wobbly fan. My favorite was the ripped-from-the headlines swimming-pool drain menace. (Ew!) They give you the clues, and you watch them topple in sequence like a row of dominoes (with gross squish of gore at the end).

Once the formula of each scene is established, The Final Destination actually gets kind of boring. And that is saying a lot when a film is barely 80 minutes long. Like the poor saps in the film, The Final Destination wears out its welcome long before its time. But I have to admit, the scene of a malfunctioning shopping mall escalator chewing up a victim will be seared in my mind every time I step on one of those menacing mechanical monstrosities!

DVD NOTES

Along with the two pairs of 3-D glasses (the flip-disc contains both 2-D and 3-D versions of the film), extras include deleted scenes, alternate endings, plus a peek at the next Nightmare on Elm Street movie.