Final Destination [DVD] [2000]

Product Details

While hardly a spiritual upgrade of the slasher film, this high-concept teen body-count thriller drops hints of The Sixth Sense into the smart-alec sensibility of Scream. Helmed by X Files veteran James Wong, who co-wrote the screenplay with long-time creative partner Glen Morgan, Final Destination is an often entertaining thriller marked by an unsettling sense of unease and scenes of eerie imagery. It suffers, however, from a schizophrenic tone and a frankly ludicrous premise. A high school Cassandra, Alex Browning (Devon Sawa of Idle Hands), wakes from a pre-flight nightmare and panics when he is convinced the plane is doomed. His ruckus bumps seven passengers from the Paris-bound plane, which immediately explodes into a fireball on takeoff, but fate hasn't finished with these lucky few and, one by one, death claims them. Wong brings such a funereal tone to these early scenes of survivor's guilt and inevitable doom that the already far-fetched film threatens to veer into unplanned absurdity. Thankfully, the tale loosens up with a playful morgue humour: one of the victims winds up the splattered punch line to a grim joke and elaborate Rube Goldbergesque chains of cause and effect become inspired spectacles of destruction. Final Destination is a pretty silly thriller when it takes itself seriously, and the filmmakers play fast and loose with their own rules of fate, but once they stick their tongues firmly in cheek, the film takes off with a screwy interpretation of the domino effect of doom. --Sean Axmaker

On the DVD: A superb commentary from writer Jeffrey Reddick, director James Wong and producer Glen Morgan goes into great detail about the film's background. From the team's involvement with The X-Files through to the fight to keep their title "Flight 180", they're pretty candid about the movie's secrets (cameos and character names) and bringing "Death" to life. There are also eight minutes of deleted scenes from an expunged sub-plot that led to their original ending. The explanation for its rejection comes in a 13-minute featurette ("The Perfect Souffle"), which demonstrates the result of Hollywood's reliance on test screenings. There's a trailer, cast and crew biographies and two games--"Your Psychic Eye" and "Death Clock"--which are scary enough by themselves. Rounding this exceptional extras package off is a 20-minute featurette on real-life premonitions. --Paul Tonks