Death Goes Goldberg: Final Destination (2000)

Final Destination (2000)
Rating: ****
Starring: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter and Kerr Smith

For its time, Final Destination (2000) marks the new millennium with a unique take on the dead teenager movies, one that is a "slasherless" slasher movie, if you will. Wherein Death itself found a way to toy with the longevity of our lives with much creativity and, most importantly, terror.

The scene starts one 13th of May; Alex Browning (Sawa Devon) is about to board a plane with his class for a school trip to France. He, however, is getting the vibes that something isn't right; strange song selections, unusual wisps of wind, ominous labels marking "the end". By the time he's on board to fly, it was too late as an engine explodes and incinerates everyone in sight, him included. But just when you think this is the end, it isn't.

We suddenly moves away from an unblinking eye and reveals all of the deaths we've seen was no more than a premonition. Alex then starts to warn others in hysteria about the disaster, but only a handful of people got off. After being thrown off the plane, they see to their absolute horror that their flight does, in fact, explodes, killing hundreds.

The incident turns Alex into an outcast as many parents and friends of the deceased, as well as even some teachers feel uneasy being near him. But after a month, those who survived the crash starts to die off one by one. Alex is now convinced that Death is making sure these loose ends to their cosmic design are dealt with and he must now work out the Grim Reaper's new plans to end them, preventing further accidents from happening while dodging the FBI, who begin to suspect Alex may have a thing or two to do with these fatal accidents...

Rather than a whodunit, Final Destination (2000) is better called a "howdunit" slasher, with our main casts trying to figure out who will die off before the other and how.

It's this "how" where the movie gets to be its most creative, putting Rube Goldberg's cartoony machine ideas to a more vividly and terrifying twist as everyday objects and situations are put to use in Death's fatal designs. While not altogether brutal, these deaths are scary from the fact that some of it can happen in real life if you're not too careful. Simple objects can lead to one disaster isn't really that rare nowadays, as simple miscalculations can kill you, an idea so terrifying that it even scar my psyche enough to make sure I don't change the temperature of my drinking mugs so suddenly or else I'll get a damn hot shard to my neck. 

To keep the suspense going and the audience guessing, the superb editing here succeeds most of the time in executing the intensity to the accidents as they build-up, making the complicated death scenes as terrifying as they are fascinating in their escalations. Special effects on these deaths are majorly serviceable thanks to some nice practical effects, with little to no CG. All in all, Final Destination (2000) retains a mood and atmosphere focused on lingering dread, getting tenser and tenser until it reaches its climax, all the way down to its crazy conclusion.

Devon Sawa plays Alex Browning here, who suddenly finds himself in a Hitchcokian situation where weird shit happens to ordinary folks like him. He's the very definition of a teen hero in a horror flick, lost between the real world and his own, trying to find a way to save a life not because he wants to, but because he needs to, a similar twist of fate another character he played in another supernatural slasher, Idle hands (1999). Other casts includes Kerr Smith as Carter Horton, a jerk-jock who picks on Alex for the reason of just existing in his life, as well as Candyman (1992) actor Tony Todd in a more ambiguous role as William Bludworth, a coroner who knows more about death than anybody else.

Final Destination (2000) was and still is a certified hit. Definitely too good to just end with one movie, thus becoming a big franchise filled with grander, gorier deaths. Looking back at this original is like a quick glance on a promising start that truly delivered; while some of the sequels fail to beat the standard fears this film achieved, they are each special on their own terms, just as this movie is held special by many horror fanatics for a unique premise so big, its catastrophically good!

Bodycount:

280 passengers incinerated in an exploding plane

1 male accidentally snared and hanged himself in a bathtub

1 female run over by bus

1 female penetrated by a knife to the gut

1 male decapitated from the mouth by a flying metal shard

1 male crushed by a giant sign

Total: 285