INTENSE, and genuinely scary

Rating: Null/10 (17 March 2000)

intense is a word that some people may not be able to associate with the current trend of teen slasher flicks. Many of the current brood of cinematic horror depends to much on humor and excessive gore and skimp on the story, shocks, and plot twists. I am quite proud to say that FINAL DESTINATION does NOT fall into these holes...at least not too much. Everything about this movie is intense and well paced. It also does something that few other horror movies do well and that is play with the audience's expectations, in a few death scenes the crowd braces itself for the oncoming death only to have it yanked away for a little longer, then have it taken away again until finally delivering the goods, and deliver it does. the deaths, while not wholly original, are very well done and, in some cases ABSOLUTELY, JAW-DROPPINGLY SHOCKING. Most importantly, the death scenes aren't particularly gory but they start off believable and realistic and get less believable as the film goes on, i took this to be an example of just how far Death will go to keep his/her plan. Finally i was very impressed with the ending, it's not set in stone but it still leaves you wondering if everything is over. All in all a very good movie...even better when you consider the CRAP that has passed for horror as of late.