Top-notch teen date thriller entertainment

Rating: 8/10 (14 November 2000)

Great fun teen horror thriller with an unknown cast and a very original twist on the slasher movie genre. A party of US smalltown high school kids are setting off for a trip to France when Alex (Devon Sawa) has a sudden, fearful premonition that their aircraft is about to explode on take-off (be warned, nervous fliers, this is probably the most chilling crash sequence since Alive). He flees the plane and in the panic five of his schoolmates and a teacher go with him. And sure enough, minutes later, the airline is blown to smithereens. So far so exciting, but if this is a slasher movie, where is the killer? Well, we're getting to that. As they try to rebuild their stricken hometown after the horror of the accident, the surviving kids start dying off and Alex soon realises that, having cheated Death once, destiny is trying to catch up on its homework. In a a sense, Death itself is the killer.
And for another twist, Alex works out that the victims are dying in the same order that they would have been killed had they remained in their seats on the airliner. And so, by the logic of rather silly paranormal movie lore, he leaps to the conclusion that by breaking the pattern of mystery killings, he can escape his otherwise certain doom. All this nonesense is delivered with frenetic pace and no small amount of directorial wit from former X-Files back-room-boy James Wong. Although it's not original in its use of pressure-cooker suspense (the train speeding towards the car stuck on the level crossing, the loose mains power cable whipping in the wind as teen X struggles to escape electrocution just millimetres away) but to his credit, Wong never ends these scenes quite the way you expect. Final Destination is delicious date movie entertainment; compares favourably with such comical teen thrillers as Scream and The Faculty and boasts a glorious surprise ending which will leave you with a wickedly satisfied smile on your face.