For the last week of Spooky Month, RFMC is looking back at the films of the “Final Destination” series. Our final destination: Halloween! Next up is the fourth entry, “The Final Destination” (2009):
The vision
Director David R. Ellis and co-writer Eric Bress return from part two as the saga cashes in on the 3D trend in the year of “Avatar.” Their strengths are the inventiveness and staging of the kill scenes. Their weaknesses are everything else. Plus, the special effects are notably terrible, and my friend who saw it in the theater assures me this isn’t unique to the 2D home version
“FD4” starts in rote fashion as the inciting incident is a crash at a racetrack – sneak-previewed in Nick’s brain — that takes out most of the crowd with bad green-screened effects and hurtling objects that defy physics. Then we follow four white college friends who immediately slot into stereotypes – a reasonably normal couple along with an uptight girl and a jerk.
SPOILERS FOLLOW as I take a closer look at “The Final Destination”:
Good performances (?)
Bobby Campo (“Scream: The TV Series”) (pictured) looks like a young Tom Cruise, and he’s serviceable in the lead role. He’s not good enough to make me care what happens to Nick, but no one could be. The acting in “FD4” is never notably good, but it’s always better than the material.
The most “too good for this” is well-established actor Mykelti Williamson, whose security guard George at least does something unique for the saga: He tries to kill himself before Death gets to him.
Oh yeah, she’s in this
Krista Allen is the cast member I was most familiar with. She’s in the fan-favorite “X-Files” episode “War of the Coprophages” as a scientist named Bambi. Mulder crushes on her, much to Scully’s amusement. Here Allen plays a flustered soccer mom labeled as MILF/Samantha.
Tony Todd’s role
The horror legend who plays mortician Bludworth in parts one and two and a disembodied voice in part three stays far away from this one. I wish I had too.
Death becomes them
As noted, the kills are the “best” part of “FD4.” Screenwriter Bress particularly taps into things that were scary when we were kids, but in real life almost never cause tragic accidents. A mid-film segment finds Janet (Haley Webb) trapped in an automatic car wash, intercut with boyfriend Hunt (Nick Zano) being sucked into a pool drain “Alien Resurrection”-style.
But “FD4” tops it later when Nick’s girlfriend Lori (Shantel VanSanten, pictured) is pulled into the mechanical works of an escalator. Technically, this is one of Nick’s premonitions, but no one could possibly care about the distinction by that point.
Final thoughts
So, yes, credit where it’s due for the imagination behind the kills, plus the final-act setting at a 3D movie theater. But even though the concept was likely that this is “all in good fun,” “FD4” comes off as distasteful. Every “FD” film should theoretically have this problem, but it jumps out here. Because this one so blatantly does not care about characterization or plausibility, it’s shrill, unappealing, and the worst of the series.
“The Final Destination” (2009)
Director: David R. Ellis
Writer: Eric Bress
Stars: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano
Photo credits: New Line Cinema