Stuntman-cum-director, David Ellis, makes one hell of a genre jump from his directorial debut, Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco, to his second full-length feature, Final Destination 2. Though Ellis’s sequel does nothing of consequence to expand upon the mythos put forth in James Wong’s original, as it severs from the suspense of the main character’s Cassandra complex, Final Destination 2 nevertheless creates tension via an acute sense of editing atop providing a signature instance of why we go to the theater: great, purely gratuitous, special effects.
Kimberly Corman (A.J. Cook), while awaiting to turn onto the interstate, has a premonition of a multi-vehicle collision involving many gruesome fatalities. She becomes even more disconcerted when, after her hallucination becomes reality, one of the people which where spared from the tragedy dies in a ghastly manner later that same day. The ironic similarities involving Flight 180–which took place a year prior involving someone who had a vision, followed by a sequence of grisly deaths of those who had initially been saved–make Kimberly apprehensive. She searches out the only survivor of the previous calamity, Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), in hopes of evading what she believes would otherwise result in her inevitable demise.
If forced to encompass the whole of Ellis’s feature in one trite phrase, most would undoubtedly utter “car crash” for Final Destination 2 is–to many a “substantive” filmmaker’s chagrin–the hallmark of movie making in that it issues what is perhaps the best automotive pileup sequence in all of film to date. What else can be said of Ellis’s sophomore effort? Truth be told, little else. But again, how about that car crash?
To be fair, Final Destination does attempt to follow in the footsteps of the paterfamilias of the series but, sadly, missteps in that Ellis and Co. opt to focus upon the visceral murders, hoping that the audience’s knowledge that death will be forthcoming will compensate for the void where, in the original, such was generated as a consequence of the main character’s Cassandra complex. (An aside: Interestingly, Final Destination 2 posits that said character, Alex, died at age 19, though he is stated as being 17 in the original, which, by the sequel’s decree, took place a year prior . . . .) However, the film’s editor–Eric Sears–does a very admirable job of supplementing in this department by readily proving that an audience’s apprehension is as dependent, if not moreso, upon a film’s pacing as it is the events depicted within the storyline.
And, again, to Ellis’s credit, he does qualify the events in the sequel by correlating what came before with what is currently taking place. A rare feat indeed, especially in the horror genre, where the phrases “historical sensibility” and “narrative continuity” are oftentimes oxymorons. Furthermore, after Wong upended horror cliché by telling us exactly what would follow (as does Ellis) in his slasher film sans slasher, Ellis trumps the old adage that the series is, in Roger Ebert’s terms, a “Dead Teenager Movie,” for he kills off almost every teenager within the first third of the film before proceeding with a liberal dose of black humor while putting a slightly clever, but nonetheless inconsequential, twist upon the formula regarding “Death’s design” which was established in the original.
But, alas, we are now forced to return from whist we came: David Ellis’s film is truly a product of gratuitous, arbitrary filmmaking for it offers nothing of consequence while failing to add anything of significance to its predecessor. This isn’t to say that his work is by any means disappointing for, like James Wong’s original, it gives its audience exactly what it paid for–a fun outing. Yet I doubt that many will voluntarily return to Final Destination 2 in its entirety. Instead, a majority of Ellis’s viewers will indubitably revisit the feature in order to fast forward to the aforementioned car crash sequence before–when the final wobbling, orphaned hubcap slowly comes to a stop–hitting the replay button.
Conservation piece: In James Wong’s original, most every character is named for a famous horror director or actor. However, in David Ellis’s follow-up (much like the 17/19 conundrum concerning the deceased character of Alex), we only have “Corman,” two “Carpenters,” and a “Lewis” amid a “Burke,” “Dix,” “Peters,” “Jennings,” and “Hudson.”
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
