Final Destination 3D (2009)
Directed by David R. Ellis
Written by Eric Bress
Starring Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Mykelti Williamson
Release Date August 28th, 2009
Published August 28th, 2009
It was George Carlin who pointed out, in reference to a ludicrous airport announcement and not the movie series, that Final Destination is redundant. All destinations are final. Yet, here we are on the third sequel in the Final Destination film series. This time, we are told, this is The FINAL Destination and to celebrate the filmmakers have dressed up the manufactured gore in 3D technology.
A group of non-descript models turned actors and Forrest Gump's pal Bubba star in this latest sequel that sets up a series of rube goldberg-ian death scenarios and runs people through them with an allegedly escalating amount of suspense. Unfortunately for director David R. Ellis, the 3D tech can't shake the 'been there, done that' factor.
Someone named David Campo picks up the mantle as the latest idiot psychic who, gifted with precience is able to rescue people. The first film it was a plane crash. Number a two a massive car wreck. The third film got inventive with a rollercoaster accident. This fourth outing a NASCAR event blows up. Coincidence or commentary on the sport, you decide.
Bobby Campo as Nick saves his friends and a couple of other people and sets up a grizzly series of events as death comes back around to pick up the crumbs of his destruction. The first happens just after the event as a flaming tire takes a young woman's head off. And thus begins a series of what the audience I was with felt were some of the funniest scenes of the year.
Death after death the audience howled as if at a Chris Rock show. I don't exactly know what it is about a guy on fire being dragged down the street or another man being hit by high speed ambulance or a woman crushed in machinery gears, but the audience I was with thought it was all brilliant fun. Nevertheless, they were rolling in the aisles.
I was thinking that I have lost my taste for such things, for the mechanics of modern horror. But, that can't be it. There is no bigger fan of the Saw series than I. I also loved the 3D good time of My Bloody Valentine. True, I dislike most modern horror offerings but it has nothing to do with hating the genre.
The problem with the modern horror movie is the gore smeared on the screen is used to hide the poverty of ideas. Horror filmmakers have become so consumed by presenting human suffering and what modern tech can help them to do in terms of the presentation of viscera that they have stopped worrying about creating compelling stories and characters.
David R. Ellis, like his weekend co-hort Rob Zombie whose Halloween 2 also opens this weekend, is part of a generation of horror filmmakers who think blood and guts are the end all be all of horror. Who needs a story when technology allows you to follow a projectile right through a woman's eye-socket or get a unique perspective of a man being impaled.
It's as if all of modern horror were based on a misreading of the Saw movies. People assumed that the Saw series was successful because of the elaborate death scenarios. In fact however, Saw succeeds on the stone cold logic and endlessly compelling character of Jigsaw who never merely kills anyone. Jigsaw has an aim and his victims a way out. The logic and the lesson are horrifying but fascinating in the way they expose human nature.
Final Destination 3D could not care less about logic, ideas and especially about human nature. The only insight into humanity come in the various ways they can find to take a human's insides and spread them on the outside. Gore is part of the genre. You accept that going in. For me, however, I need more than just gore. Final Destination 3D is noting but. If that is enough for you, so be it.
