Oooh, suits you.

Rating: Null/10 (24 May 2000)

In the wake of the post modern teen slasher blood fests that were Scream 1, 2 & 3, I Know What You Did Last Summer, H20 and the other million, it is rare to catch a Late 20th Century, Early 21st century horror that seems up to the task of the genre. That is creating tension and scaring the bejesus out of its audience. Final Destination (Aside from the very lack-lustre title sequence that has been done to a death) succeeds on almost every level.
Wonderfully acted by a cast of relatively unknown actors, (Kerr Smith of Dawson's Creek and Aly Larter of House on Haunted Hill being the only real known stars) the story is tried and tested, what Wong has to do is tell it in a new, better way.
The opening 25 minutes, right up to the planes explosion, are adrenaline packed and succeed in drawing you into the spiders web that is the story. A guy who predicts a plane crash and saves the lives of six people only to then realise that you can't cheat death, it will come back and get ya. The little details make the film good, the silhouetted toy that appears to be hanging (a la Bone Collector), the cameo by Tony Todd (a la David Warner in Scream 2), the subtlety of the gusts of wind (a la Twister), all add up to create the environment that we desire.
The film does have its shocks and its scares but on the whole isn't a film about trying to physically scare its audience. The outright scare sequence are few and far between. Instead of physically scaring his audience, Wong strives to create dramatic and uneasy tension. The fate of the seven people has already been written, the question is, can they change the script?
One criticism of the film would lie in its traditional 'pre-ending-ending' Seemingly wrapping things up, then stopping, looking around and saying, hold up, there's more. The film could and probably should have had the conviction to stray away from this cliched finale and come up with something new and original. This minor quibble however does not detract from the overall greatness of this film.
Final Destination? The cinema, to watch this film...