EVERY BODY DIES! 

I hope you liked that anxiety inducing trailer, because now the full version of the movie is out and instead of having anxiety for two minutes you can have it for almost two hours. The movie franchise that made you unrealistically afraid of logging trucks, to pool cues, to lawn sprinklers is back ready to make you wanna  live in a bubble for the foreseeable future. 

If my OCD wasn’t bad enough, then I watch this movie. Now I will really make sure the stove is off and my front door is locked and my phone is charged, and my alarm is set and all the lights are off, and the heater isn’t on, and I unplugged the iron. I’ll never get a face piercing because that will get inevitably ripped off at some point in my life. 

Despite all that I still live life on the edge, currently my tire pressure gage light is lit up on my car and I sleep under a fan

I wouldn’t necessarily call the final destination franchise a horror movie. I did have a hard time locking down the tone of the movie. Am I supposed to laugh? The gore and death is so over the top, and the deaths are so inventive, and the deaths are fun - but I was the only one that laughed. The whole rest of the audience was very stoic - yes, these deaths are very serious! But like by the third funeral jump cut, I was giggling like a schoolgirl.  Am I a psychopath? I laugh in the face of death! Because the movie does have B-movie energy. At one point a giant magnet pulls a guy’s groin piercing off! Sure it’s horrific! But it’s also ridiculous! 

The acting doesn’t help, it seems like everyone knows and is in on the joke. Everyone is either slightly overacting or so serious that it feels comical. Because let’s be honest here, everyone knows that when they sign up for this movie, they are going to die in a horrific but equally creative way. This isn't the Juilliard school of acting, it’s not Shakespeare. It’s a fun gig. Isn't it an actor's dream to have a killer death scene? The standout here was Richard Harmon. He seemed to actually have some acting chops. Dude was chewing the scenery like it was bubble gum. He was the only guy in the movie that seemed to be having fun and enjoying that he was in a movie where arms get ripped off and heads get impaled. Everyone else seemed to be as serious as a heart attack. Just take a moment to cruise through the IMDb for this movie, everyone is screaming! I know that death is coming for you, but would a smile kill you? 

I was confused as to what happened to the main character’s dad. Apparently in the plot, he’s not part of the curse, so at a certain point of the movie he just kind of fucks off and we never see him again. He just sort of Simpson’s meme’s his way out of the movie. I did feel that was a missed opportunity. He was not part of the curse, so he would have been instrumental in potentially helping the curse stop? The movie did keep saying that if you fuck with death, it fucks back - maybe he’ll come back for the sequel “Final Destination: Empty Nester” 

The art and the beauty of this film is to enjoy the level of creativity that goes into the deaths. Some are telegraphed well in advance, like in the trailer, then you as an audience member have to sit with the anxiety of how and when it’s actually going to happen before the character inevitably gets turned into a blood sac. Then other deaths are so sudden and violent that they shake you and you don’t see them coming. It’s at these moments the movie feels more horror in nature than comedic. I would suppose that is intentional. I did find myself yelling out “dear god!” quite a bit out loud in the theater because the movie is stress inducing. I think you’d have to be more of a psychopath to be able to just sit back and go “meh, it doesn’t phase me.” 

Honestly, this is the first Final Destination I watched since I was in high school and seems to make sense that this franchise would make a comeback as all the early two thousands are making comeback films. I’m looking at you “I know what you did last summer.” This is the first one that I have seen since the very first Final Destination and it’s a welcome change from other horror movies. This one does seem to have more of a coherent plot, instead of a bunch of hot people just getting killed, there is a reason they are getting killed and there is a  way or pathway to stop it. Because this franchise shares the same problem the “Smile” franchise has: when does it stop? If there is a curse, at what point is the curse lifted. How do we solve the unsolvable puzzle? How do you kill the unkillable demon? Are we all just cursed with sequel after sequel? How do we make it stop? Where “Smile” as a franchise, doesn’t seem too interested in answering these questions, “Final Destination” does. At what point does the sequel “Seriously this is the final destination” come out? Guess we’ll find out in the next sequel? Apparently we as movie goers just have to suffer through the sequels in perpetuity. 

Overall, I liked the film. I thought it was a good fun ride. I didn’t feel the movie was too long, or too overcomplicated. It is a good movie to sort of kick off the summer movie season and have some demented fun at the movies.