Sweet suspense

Rating: Null/10 (27 September 2000)

Way down here in the corner of the world; New Zealand, this movie has just been released, so naturally as soon as I knew it was in theatres I had to see it. The trailer didn't really do the film justice however the trailer was the one thing attracting me to see it in the first place. Although I saw the trailer while sitting in the cinema awaitng 'Scary Movie' final destination was one movie at the back of my mind labelled the next must watch. I myself cannot scare easily, well not in the sense of horror movies, I found the Exorcist boring and pathetic disregarding the fact its old and Scream original but more humorous than frightening. Although I do like the parody. As I went into the cinema I thought this movie would be another slash/horror one, with 'death' in the shape of the grim reaper dressed in a black cape holding an axe, popping out of closets and ripping the cast in half, however the movie was nothing of the sort. It wasn't scary except the plane scene which seemed convincingly real, but was extremely suspenseful which threw many questions at me while i was watching. 'Who was next?', 'How would s/he die?', etc, the fact that Alex had visions and took notice of hints that death gave him were extremely entertaining.
The cast were good with great acting. I had never thought too much of Kerr Smith, mainly because of his character on Dawsons Creek but he is very talented (and gorgeous) and I don't think he will get enough credit for the talent he produced in this film. Ali Larter was excellent as well, I remember her from Varsity Blues, typically one of my guy friends I went with to see this movie, recognised her from the whipped bikini scene. In most movies nowadays the writers tend to not use the lead actress enough but I found they used her sufficiently and at the end of the movie her having the same feelings Alex did was a great twist. Devon Sawa as always was great as the lead, he proved that carrying a movie was not too tough. Seann William Scott was one of my favourites from American Pie and Road trip but I feel they didn't use his character enough in the film. The directing was great, I loved the way the camera panned around Alex whenever he felt death, that was one of the main suspense factors.
I don't think it was much of a teen movie as I had suspected, it was very adulty for say and been rated R down here meant many teens couldn't see it anyway, (without sneaking in of course). The writing was excellent and very original, I think that the main problem for this film is that it was released at the tail end of the teen horror backlash. Many may not see it because of this and like me may think it will be another one of 'those'. It is not. A great flick and I might just have to go see it again, just for the ending which is one of the best endings I have ever seen (it made me laugh while whispering 'what') I give it a 9