Death as conceived by Heath Robinson

Rating: Null/10 (2 November 2000)

**SPOILERS**Had high hopes for this one but after an impressive enough opening, this descends into silliness. Not a bad premise along the lines of 'you cannot escape your fate'. A bunch of kids jump off a plane after one of their buddies has a harrowing vision of the plane's fate. The plane explodes and then fate picks off each of the survivors one by one to balance the books so to speak. Fate/death clearly revels in his work and dreams up the most unbelievably complex plans to get the job done - no blood clots or tumours here - just a bunch of Heath Robinson-type scenarios - teacher dies by impressive combo of burning vodka, exploding computer, butcher's knife and gas explosion! The writer clearly slept through the class on the pitfalls of expository dialogue or perhaps just underestimates the intelligence of his audience. ie lead kid draws schematic map of how each of his mates is being picked off and then exclaims triumphantly: "So, that's death's design!" So bad it's good? Not quite. If you want real horror, check out the re-release of The Exorcist that has more chills in the opening credit music than this has in the whole 97 mins. I wish they'd stayed on the plane...