Terrific Start Devolves Into Sub-Mediocre Slasher Pic.

Rating: 2/10 (5 October 2012)

First let me say I am 71, thus not the intended demographic for this film. But I had seen Devon Sawa in "The Boys Club" from 1995 and really liked that film, so I decided to watch this 12 years after its original release. I remember almost going to see it when it opened, but never got around to it.
That said, after the first 15 minutes of this movie, I thought I was going to thoroughly enjoy this seemingly original idea along the lines of "Sixth Sense". But soon it just devolved into a teen slasher film, with the killer being "death cheated", overly explained by the coroner about 30 minutes in. Then Devon has to come to discover death's plan and try to fool it, supposedly ending the plan through interrupting it. This allows for a lot of grisly close calls and murders which seemed to me totally ludicrous, with objects self propelling and fires or explosions trying to kill the intended victim.
I confess that I don't believe that any events in one's life are preplanned by fate other than genetic tendencies, so the premise itself was one I could not accept. But if the story had instead emphasized the guilt of having survived and how that affected them psychologically, perhaps a better film could have emerged, where the viewer could question whether there was intent or just coincidence. But that would have required some subtlety and an intelligent script, which were not in evidence in this pedestrian film. The clever surprise at the end was not enough to add more than one point to the rating. So a 2 from me instead of a 1. By the way, Devon Sawa did a good job, considering the poor material he was given. Hard for me to believe this sub-mediocre effort spawned numerous sequels or remakes. I wonder if I would have liked this more were I in my teens or twenties. Probably, since when I re-watch some of the films I thought were good back in the 50's, I often wonder how I could have possibly enjoyed them.