Final Destination 5

Director: Steven Quale (2011)

Starring: Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Tony Todd

Find it: IMDB

The least final of all the destinations. Final Destination 5 ignores the previous movie's title reboot (surely this should have been called The Final Destination 2?) and continues the franchise as it's always been - this time with Tony Todd back whispering weird warnings at the film's ill-fated friends.

Where the previous films were all about the school/college kids getting themselves killed in stupid accidents, this fourth sequel has grown up a little. Final Destination 5 is a works' outing gone terribly wrong. It makes a nice difference to see young professionals getting themselves killed instead of just another bunch of obnoxious kids. The cast of Final Destination 5 are still pretty obnoxious, but at least they can hold down a job. Which is more than we can say for headless Stifler or Mary Elizabeth Winstead when she got killed on a train. David Koechner offers welcome respite from all the prettiness, playing the hunky young things' boss.

The opening disaster is possibly the best ever seen in a Final Destination movie. It feels positively apocalyptic; a giant bridge collapsing whilst laden with screaming idiots and traffic. It's still business as usual though, and the movie progresses in much the same manner as its four predecessors. There a few new ideas here and there, but nothing revolutionary. Tony Todd offers the soon-to-be-dead a tip hitherto unmentioned in any other Final Destination. Given how well it works, you'd think he'd have mentioned it at some point to Ali Larter or headless Stifler.

The first half of Final Destination 5 is the hardest to watch of all the films. A gymnastic set, an acupuncturist and laser eye surgery set the stage for some truly grisly scenes of carnage. Anyone who's ever stood on a pin or upturned plug will sympathise. The eyeball squeamish (like myself) will not enjoy the laser eye bit (which actually ends up like a replay of the Final Destination 2 dentist sequence). Next to the elaborate set-pieces come the more throwaway surprise deaths. Both really work, despite an over-reliance on wet plug sockets and bad CGI gore.

Alas, the final quarter tries to do something semi-new, and the film flounders. Instead of Death trying to kill the Pretty Young Things, there's a subplot with a confused cop and a stupid shootout in a restaurant. Not to sound smug (well okay, maybe a little bit) but I saw the 'twist' coming from the start. It's cute though.

Of all the horror franchises out there, Final Destination might be the most consistent. For one thing, every film is exactly the same. But most importantly, it's guaranteed to entertain (if, that is, you're the sort of person who finds other peoples' misfortune hilarious. Me, I piss myself with LOLs every time those injury claims adverts come on TV). It's like a Faces of Death version of You've Been Framed.

Final Destination 3

Director: James Wong (2006)

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Kris Lemche

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

Poor Death. Every time it looks like he can put his feet up and chill, along comes another bunch of stupid psychic kids and another stupid destination. No wonder he seems so vindictive; he's just trying to do his job and kids like Alex and Kimberly and now Wendy (Winstead) come along and screw things up for him.

In addition to aeroplanes and dentists' offices, Final Destination 3 gave me more to be a big girl's blouse about; rollercoasters (which I already hated) and sunbeds. For me, the sunbed sequence is probably the most horrible in the whole series. Not that I would ever be seen on a sunbed anyway. My skin is gross enough already without being made to look either skin-cancer ridden or like David Dickinson's walnut chode-bag.

But aside from housing the most gruesome pair of deaths in the whole franchise, Final Destination 3 suffers rather painfully from a case of diminishing returns. We know the drill by now, and the rest of the deaths aren't fun or gory enough to hold up to the previous films. There's also Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton), a character who does nothing but irritate with every moment he remains alive. His eventual death is nowhere near gruesome enough to offset how much of a pain in the tits he is all the way through.

With the return of original director James Wong goes David R Ellis's s sense of fun and glee (I know, The Final Destination didn't have much of that either, but it's still marginally better than this). There's also an atrocious moment in which the kids link events in the movie to those of 9/11. A picture of the Twin Towers is produced, the shadow of an aeroplane looming over the landmarks. It's as heavy handed and callous as the opening of Postal. Even more so, since you're supposed to be taking this seriously.

The film trundles towards a tired, predictable climax with no twists or surprises along the way. It's passable and even a little amusing at times, but maybe this Destination was one port of call too many. Next up: THE Final Destination (which wasn't).

Final Destination 2

Director: David R Ellis (2003)

Starring: AJ Cook, Ali Larter, Michael Landes, Tony Todd

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

I saw this movie before I'd seen the original. And furthermore, I saw this three times in a row. At the cinema. And I've seen it about once on DVD and three or so times since on television. Final Destination 2 is not only my favourite sequel in the series but it's my favourite overall instalment too, beating the original in terms of fun, gore and inventiveness.

This time there's an enormous pile-up on a motorway, averted by a premonition from Kimberly (Cook) who pulls her own car over and saves a bunch of lives in the process. Again, Death is displeased and forced to clean up the spillage. Cue some of the best carnage this side of an episode of Casualty. Thank you, Final Destination 2, for forever making me terrified of the dentist. Every death in this movie is a classic. My particular favourites are the car crash in the field (hmm, if I thought Death himself was out to get me, the last place you'd see me would be in a fucking car) and the guy who slips on spaghetti and gets poked in the eye with a ladder.

Tony Todd and Ali Larter make welcome returns. The bodycount is increased, there's more gore and there's quite a bit of tension to the final act. Admittedly, I hate the sequence which tries to tie everyone and everything into the events of the first film, but a cool kill bit is never far away, distracting from such silliness.

I love Final Destination 2. Alack, the sequels are mostly downhill from here, but even then there you'll find an entertaining bit of splatter or two to perk things up. Bless them though, they've still not recognised how stupid they sound, putting numbers near the word 'final'.

Final Destination

Director: James Wong (2000)

Starring: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Stifler, Tony Todd

Find it: IMDB, Amazon

I first watched the original Final Destination movie the night before I was set to board an aeroplane for only the second time in my life. Already a nervous flyer, I don't think it helped much. Also, I was sat sandwiched between my most loathed college lecturer and the head of form for the whole journey, so that too. Subsequent journeys have coincided with episodes of LOST and Con Air and Snakes On A Plane and even that episode of Supernatural with the demon on the plane. I'm an idiot when it comes to pre-flight TV. Final Destination though, is the ultimate disaster movie.

It's a slasher movie where you never see the actual slasher. After a freak premonition, teen idiot Alex (Sawa) is convinced that the plane carrying him and his buddies on a school trip is going to explode and kill the lot of them. He kicks up a ruckus and, as soon as he and a bunch of other passengers are booted off the plane, it explodes. Lucky escape, right?

Only no, because Death doesn't like being cheated. This is mean, jobsworth Death, not dryly witty Terry Pratchett Death or sexy Neil Gaiman Death. This Death wants his deaths. What follows is like a really gory version of those daytime TV insurance adverts where people fall off ladders and slip over all the time. Whilst the deaths here aren't quite as memorable as some of those in the sequels, there are some standouts. A kid being strangled in the shower is particularly grisly, and the beheading of Stifler is just hilarious. I'm going to go ahead and say that Seann William Scott is one of the most underrated actors of his generation, and I'm not even joking there.

Final Destination is a great, fun little movie and its first sequel is even better. The franchise is entirely disposable, but therein lies the appeal. It's not snowed under with mythology, its characters aren't all hateable and it's not disappeared up its own ass. It makes me think twice about acting like a knob around sharp implements and kitchen equipment. Final Destination probably saved my life.

The Final Destination

Director: David R Ellis (2009)

Starring: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Nick Zano

Find it online: IMDB

Hoping that like Rambo and Rocky before it (and a Mission: Impossible after it), losing its numerator might make it sound definitive or slightly original, The Final Destination winds up being almost a complete rehash of the three movies which had preceeded it. It isn't terrible, but it's nothing special either.

Although it has picked up a little since the disappointing third movie. The big opening set piece this time is a car crash (yes, another one) at a race track. You know the drill. Kid has a premonition of something horrible happening and escapes said horrible thing, dragging a ragtag group of fellow survivors with him. Afterwards, Death starts picking them off one by one. Although he can't just give the kids a sudden heart attack, stroke or case of adult death syndrome. No, he has to shuffle them off the mortal coil in really ambitious, spiteful ways, as though their surviving is a personal insult. Well, no-one likes to be reminded of their mistakes. This time though, he does it in 3D. "Death saved the best till 3D?" Who knew he gave a fuck. Apparently Death has all the artistic integrity of a Hollywood hack.

Or anyway, he did it on 3D in cinemas last year. I watched it on TV, in boring old 2D. And Death is no James Cameron (although, judging by his wrath, he comes close in the ego stakes). The CGI looks cartoonish and really, really fake. And the constant flinging things at the screen really grates after a while. I'm sure it looked cool in 3D cinema, but otherwise it looks silly. As we speak, home cinema is the biggest argument against 3D movies. Or at least gimmicky 3D movies like this one. It really detracts from the experience upon replay. Even more so than the My Bloody Valentine 2D release.

That said, the individual deaths and scenes of carnage are back to the cartoonish gory glory of FD2, thanks to the return of that movie's director, David Ellis. He and his crew do a great job of dragging out the individual death bits. There's nothing to rival the gruesomeness of no.2's ladder-in-the-eye moment, or no.3's sunbed deaths, but a swimming pool kill does bring to mind a short story in Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted (if you've read it, you'll know. That shit will be etched on your mind evermore). And as the movie thunders towards its explosive climax, it manages to take in a lovely escalator moment and a fun bit of cinema splatter.

The forthcoming 5nail Destination (yes, they really are apparently calling it Snail Destination for the time being) proves that this is far from a 'definitive' movie, nor even probably a Penultimate Destination. After all, Death's gotta lotta tricks up his sleeve. He can drag this one for as long as we keep paying for it.