Final Destination

I’m watching these in anticipation of going to see the new in the cinema on Monday, having only vaguely heard of the premise but never actually seen a Final Destination film.

I’ve always been somewhat curious about these films, which entail a Heath Robinson series of unlikely events that lead to people’s deaths. How is it even a film? What is the story? What are the characters, if everyone keeps dying?

The answers are: it’s barely a film, there’s not really a story, not everyone dies.

Perhaps I’m being a little harsh, there sort of is a plot. The film begins with a group of students on a plane. One of them feels so strongly it’s going to crash that he gets kicked off the plane and a few people follow him off. It then crashes shortly after take-off with the rest of the students on board.

The crash sort of hangs over the rest of the film and gives it a little bit of a through-line as they try to unpick who died and who didn’t. They also have to live with survivor’s guilt which gives it a touch of emotional weight.

But if I’m honest, I struggled to stay awake through this. I just could not have been less interested and all the deaths sort of glossed over me.

Bodes well for the five more films to come!