It’s been 14 years since the last Final Destination movie, so if you’re unfamiliar with the concept, a quick catch-up: Death has a plan for you. In each movie (five so far), a young person sees a vision of themselves dying, typically in a huge disaster that kills many others. They manage to dodge their fate, but Death is petty and doesn’t like his plans ruined, so he finds new ways to bump off everyone who should have died, usually involving elaborate Heath Robinson-esque traps, just to drive his point home. It was always an extremely strong idea, but the movies didn’t entirely live up to the premise. This, though. This might be the most fun one yet.
It begins with the best death sequence of any of the movies. In the 1960s, a young couple head out on a special date to a new restaurant. We won’t spoil just what goes down, but from the moment you see that the restaurant is at the top of a slender tower – ‘completed five months ahead of schedule!’ a staff member breathlessly boasts – you can feel something awful coming. The sheer volume of awful things coming, however, is astonishing. It’s a scene that bounces you between wincing, shrieking and laughing, impressively balanced by directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein.
After this belter of an opener, it initially looks like that the best might be over. In some very clunky scenes, we’re introduced to Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana), a modern day college student who’s plagued by nightmares of the restaurant incident. Determined to find out why she’s having these visions, she heads home and learns the secret of a grandmother who ruined her family’s life by raving about death. All this happens in the space of about ten minutes, in scenes that lurch through inelegant exposition. Thankfully, it soon becomes clear that this heightened plotting is a choice. It then settles into an extremely enjoyable, vastly over-the-top mood.
It’s daft as hell and a heck of a good time
Stefani learns that Death is coming for her entire family, and she knows in which order. What follows is an equally hilarious and horrifying game of trying to dodge fate, with lots of twists, switcheroos and bloody kills. Family resentments bubble up as Death draws closer. It’s like the world’s bloodiest therapy session.
The deaths aren’t repulsive in a Saw way, but amusingly repellent. Lipovsky and Stein enjoy themselves lingering on all sorts of mundane objects – a trampoline, a beer bottle, a leaf blower – challenging you to work out how they might all come together to turn someone to pulp. It never happens in the way you expect.
This movie does exactly what a horror reboot should, taking the best bits of the original and heading in a smart, inventive new direction. There’s minimal reliance on nostalgia. It’s daft as hell and a heck of a good time.
In UK and Ireland cinemas Wed May 14. In US theaters Fri May 16.