Sick Kills and Gruesome Humor

Rating: 7/10 (7 November 2013)

I never would have thought that "Final Destination" would have become one of the most enduring millennial horror franchises. The original wasn't a bad movie. It was a fairly clever update of the slasher formula which owed more then a little to "The Omen." (Both series dispatch their victims through convoluted Rube Goldberg-style accidental death traps.) However, it was horribly earnest and, beyond the wacky death scenes, it had little else to offer. I think the only reason the "Final Destination" series has had the longevity it has is because, unlike the "Saws" and "Paranormal Activities," the series hasn't burnt itself out with yearly installment. The movies are elaborate enough to force a few years between each installment. The reason I say this is because none of the movies are all that good. Except for this one. (And part five but I'm not talking about that one right now.) And it's good the same way a "Friday the 13th" sequel is good. From a writing perspective, these movies are Dumb. The entire premise is kind of dumb. Lots of people survive near death experiences every year and most of them aren't brutally killed afterwards in ridiculous, contrived manners. There's a reason that, despite five films being made, none of these movies have ever attempt to build up any kind of mythology, aside from throwing out more ways to escape "Death's design" that most certainly do not work. It's never been said but can certainly be assumed that the psychic visions that open each film are provided by Death. So why does Death give people these vision just with the intention of then brutally murdering them afterwards? Why does Death brutally murder people anyway? It's Death! He can off you in any way! Why make such a show of it? The only real thing we can gleam from all of this is that the Grim Reaper has an utterly brutal sense of irony and is also a passive aggressive jerk hole. Tony Todd's character shows up every couple of movies to sinisterly hiss some bit of vague misinformation, as if he really knows what's going on.
So the story is utter nonsense. Like a "Friday the 13th" film, each entry in the series has the same blueprint. Character has vision of horrific accident that gorily kills loads of people, some how manages to avoid said accident, himself and his friend proceed to suffer horrible accidental deaths Or deaths that seem accidental anyway. Part two is no different. The characters aren't great. They roughly break down into stereotypes: Final girl, an initially skeptical love interest, stoner guy, snarky chick, Mom, Son, Angry Black Man. Some of the characters get a smidge of personality. Angry Black Man panics nicely. My favorite moment is when Stoner Guy knows he's the next in line to die. He tells Final Girl to, after he dies, go into his apartment and remove all his drugs and porn, anything that will "break his mom's heart." It is a surprisingly touching moment in a movie that otherwise dispenses with any character moments. None of the actors are bad, with one exception: Ali Larter, the returning survivor from the first movie. Holy spit, how did this lady become a star? She's wooden, wears one slightly constipated expression throughout, and can never make a single line sound convincing. The "Resident Evil" movies clearly deserve her.
None of that matters anyway because the entire movie is built around the death scenes. And, holy cow, they are incredible. The opening freeway pile-up is hugely intense. The motorcyclist sliding across the glass is uncomfortably realistic to anyone who has survived a bike crash. The entire sequence will make you nervous every time you pass a truck hauling logs. It's a heck of way to open the movie. The kitchen sequence is the first sign of the movie's darkly humorous wit. It's an over-the-top, extended game of misdirection that has an amazingly nasty, unpleasant payoff. Characters explode into ludicrous giblets with little provocation. A battering log smears a man to splattering meat and blood. In the best kill in the movie, a teenage kid is squashed by a falling plate of glass, dissipating into an explosion of blood and gore. Person one second, puddle the next. Even for a seasoned gore fan like myself, it's almost too much. The dark humor shows up again when the Jaws of Life have the opposite effect. My second favorite kills involves a flying barb-wire fence dissecting a guy into four parts. The stunted look on the guy's face is almost hilarious, even if the globs of intestine are nasty. The movie never quite tops those moments even if the hospital set last act rolls along at a decent pace. The gore comedy mentality continues into the final scene.
And that's why "Final Destination 2" is awesome. The death scenes are some of the wettest ever put to film and any mean spirit intentions are grinned away by the movie's dark wit. That's one of the reasons why three and four disappointed me so much. They returned to the dead serious tone of the first entry. Only five featured the same sick kills and gruesome humor. Hopefully the inevitable part six will continue that tradition.