Tries hard, but doesn't quite make it

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2001)

'Final destination' starts out very fine indeed! From the ominous title-sequence, accompanied by Shirley Walkers effective score, until the inventive first murder, the atmosphere is thick with foreboding and threatening omens. And the airplane accident must surely be the most terrifying ever to be put onto celluloid! Scary stuff, to be sure!!! However, the movie goes downhill from there. The murders become more and more unconvincingly contrived (the bus-accident is a very well handled shock, though) and characters, grown-ups as well as adolescents, behave increasingly silly. Anyway, it's well above average for this kind of horror-thriller even if the final isn't as surprising as the filmmakers probably intended. Competent all the way with an unusual premise to begin with and, above all, a very nice surprise from a genre that seemed to have outlived itself after all the latest Screamclones.