For the last week of Spooky Month, RFMC is looking back at the films of the “Final Destination” series. Our final destination: Halloween! First up is “Final Destination” (2000):
The vision
Writers Glen Morgan and James Wong (who also directs) had bad luck with their 1990s cult fave “Space: Above and Beyond” being canceled. Then their “Millennium” Season 2, although loved by fans, was retconned by Chris Carter in Season 3.
Still, that “X-Files” and “Millennium” vibe is on display as they finally get a hit franchise (although it’s debatable whether they planned for sequels) with “Final Destination.” It grew out of an unused “X-Files” script by Jeffrey Reddick.
A slick teen-horror vibe also creeps in, which makes sense, as we’re following a high school French class on a flight from New York to Paris. Alex’s (Devon Sawa, “Idle Hands”) premonition of a plane explosion kicks off a plot where the survivors are stalked by Death itself.
SPOILERS FOLLOW as I take a closer look at “Final Destination”:
Good performances (?)
She’s known for her whipped-cream bikini in “Varsity Blues,” but Ali Larter (pictured) has an interesting sad vibe in that film, and again here as the oddly named Clear (not Claire, although that’s what it sounds like in the film). Without amazing writing, she can come off as disinterested. But I think Larter is plugged into the mood of what “FD” is, in its best moments.
Despite the vibe, Mulder and Scully aren’t on this case, so Alex has to deal with a Bad Cop-Bad Cop duo. Roger Guenveur Smith reads every line like he’s chewing pudding, perhaps thinking he’s in a dark comedy – which “FD” arguably is, to some degree.
Oh yeah, he’s in this
Brendan Fehr (pictured) is so good as Michael on “Roswell” that it seems like he should’ve had a big career. Instead, he has steadily acted in bit parts while his co-stars landed bigger roles. Here, Fehr plays a bully (although only the second-worst bully, behind Kerr Smith) who is among the plane-explosion victims.
Tony Todd’s role
Tony Todd, only recently removed from the “Candyman” films (part three was one year before this), is on hand as a mortician (aptly named Bludworth) so well-versed in death one could suspect him of being Death. But the film opts to not go there.
Death becomes them
For my pick for Death’s best kill, I have to go with the first one. Chad E. Donella (pictured), a good character actor also seen in “Disturbing Behavior” and the “X-Files” episode “Hungry,” plays poor Tod, who slips on a wet floor and gets strangled by a wire clothesline in the bathroom.
Here we see one of the saga’s two primary types of kills: a bunch of things (a razor, a scissors) are fake-outs, then we get the actual cause, which plays out like Rube Goldberg device. The second type of kill is a quick, shock-value offing, like when Amanda Detmer’s Terry gets run over by a bus “Scary Movie”-style.
Final thoughts
The teen-horror vibe ultimately overcomes the moody, meditative vibe, and if 1998’s “Disturbing Behavior” (another “X-Files”-teen mashup) was too short, this one is too long.
I have to grant that this idea – teens stalked by an invisible Death who makes his kills appear to be freak accidents – was fresh at the time (and my original “A” review shows I liked it more back then). It’s rather rote on a repeat viewing.
Morgan and Wong maintain the fatalistic vibe up until the grim epilog. But “Final Destination” drifts from its “X-Files” aesthetic with its need to explain everything. Alex is burdened with exposition about the order in which Death will kill those who got off the plane.
On this viewing, I wanted the survivors to have a happier ending. Maybe the characters in the sequels will have a chance at that. If there’s no way to beat Death’s design, five films of fatalism will be a bit much.
“Final Destination” (2000)
Director: James Wong
Writers: Glen Morgan, James Wong, Jeffrey Reddick
Stars: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith
Photo credits: New Line Cinema