THE FINAL DESTINATION

US, 2009, 82 minutes, Colour.
Bobby Campo, Shantel Van Santen, Nick Zano, Mykelti Williamson.
Directed by David R. Ellis.

If it ain't broke... then re-make it.

We have had three Final Destination movies, each with virtually the same plot (sometimes with the same characters): one of the young adults has a dream with not only a premonition of a disaster but actually seeing what happens – which fills out the running time to show the same events twice – and knowing who escaped death. However, Death seems to have different ideas and spends the rest of the film dispatching the survivors as gorily as possible while the hapless premonition visionary and close friends try to break the chain of order in which people are supposed to die. They always make a wrong presumption about this which means that Death inexorably follows through.

Well, that's given away the plot – but most audiences venturing into this fourth episode (with a THE added for distinction just as two THEs were removed from the latest Fast and Furious to make it distinctive) will know exactly what to expect. The 'where' is different, a speedway track with devastation galore (and shown twice). But the distinctiveness about this film is the use of 3D. Not only are the destruction and deaths more vividly presented, they are literally almost in your face (severed heads, spiked faces, poundingly crushed bodies...).

One of the characters, a really obnoxious one, claims early in the film that he really goes to the track to see an accident which, if any of the fans notice, is a comment on why they are watching the film. (And he has quite a demise, being sucked through the draining system of an emptying swimming pool – buckets of blood and gore.)

Of course, technically it is all expertly done, vivid 3D effects. It provides some momentary gasps and jumps but it more than a little sadistic and pessimistic, everyone, likeable and unlikeable, being sacrificed to the special effects driven plot.

1.The series? The horror franchise? Each film more successful than the other? Using the same formula? The audience appeal?

2.The formula: young people, a dangerous context, premonitions, people being killed spectacularly, gorily, real life, trying to break the chain, the succession of deaths? The pessimism of the characters being killed – only for a parallel set of characters to arise for the next film?

3.The American setting, the racing car situation? The arena, the cars, the special effects? Ordinary life, the succession of deaths? The musical score? The 3D – self-indulgent with its gory effects?

4.Nick, Lori, Janet and Hunt? The racetrack? Nick and his visions? The crash, the detail of the spectators being killed, the debris? The roof caving in? The reactions of his friends?

5.The minimal characterisation, Nick as hero, Lori, Janet as selfish, Hunt as a womaniser? Sympathy and lack of sympathy?

6.The security guard, his being blamed for the deaths? The attempt on his life? His death? The freak accident – chained to his truck, the redneck bigot and his comeuppance?

7.Nick, the friends, saving them? The number of people that he rescued?

8.The spectator in hospital, his breaking the chain?

9.The succession of deaths, the lawnmower accident? The discovery of the events in the earlier films? The return to the racetrack, Nick and his memory, trying to get the exact order of people killed? George and his help?

10.The CCTV footage, the mechanic, Hunt and his death, Janet rescued and the experience in the carwash, their later deaths? George, the sudden death as he crossed the road?

11.Nick, Lori and Janet? The girls at the cinema? The disaster averted?

12.The three, surviving, self-congratulations, the truck ploughing into the café and their deaths?

13.The popularity of this kind of horror genre? The what if? Playing with fate, destiny and death?