Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on January 31, 2003, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
Forgetting the inherent contradiction of sequelizing something with Final in the title, the original Final Destination would seem to be a hard movie to follow up without being too similar to or different from the first. What else could the filmmakers do but present another series of characters avoiding a spectacular disaster, and then struggling for their lives when the cheated Death comes calling? The only way to make the new feature distinct was to change the tone and emphasis—either focus in tighter on the characters or go all out with even more intricate demises. The people behind Final Destination 2 attempt the first, are more successful at the second and end up with a movie that’s got a wicked pulp-comic kick, if not much resonance.
One point in its favor is that Final Destination 2 gleefully bucks the trend toward tamed-down, PG-13-level horror that Hollywood has embraced these days. Taking advantage of the MPAA’s apparent lenience toward violence not committed by humans, director David R. Ellis and scriptwriters J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress (working from a story by them and Destination creator Jeffrey Reddick) whip up a series of Rube Goldberg setpieces with increasingly splat-tacular payoffs. They get off to a rousing start as road-tripping college student Kimberly (A.J. Cook) has a vision of an elaborately horrific traffic accident, a vehicular massacre that allows Ellis, a longtime 2nd-unit action director, to really show off his chops. Kimberly winds up saving herself and several other motorists from their doom, but of course Death isn’t letting them go so easily and begins manipulating objects and situations to claim the survivors.
The fun of the movie is not just in its creative gore (any number of original props are put to murderous use), but in the way Ellis and the writers tease us with the gruesome possibilities in each scene, similar to the “where’s the bomb?” sequence in Blown Away. There’s a giggly anticipation as each character walks into a setting where any number of horrible things could happen to them, and Gruber and Bress throw in all manner of false alarms while Ellis cranks up the tension, to the point where the preview audience was applauding each bloody punchline.
That applause, of course, suggests that the crowd wasn’t terribly invested in the characters, and it’s hard to blame them. Although the film is stocked with a wider variety of potential victims than the previous movie’s high-school students, most of them are written and played so broadly that it’s hard to feel anything more than superficial concern for them. Cook, a veteran of the low-budget likes of Ripper and Wishmaster 3 making a jump to the big leagues, does maintain sympathy and a believable level of concern. Less effective is Ali Larter, returning as a now more fatalistic Clear Rivers; her character’s resignation to Death’s pursuit of her seems to have drained the life from Larter’s performance. It’s nice to see Tony Todd again as the mortician with a working knowledge of Death’s means, though it’s a shame he doesn’t have more to do than give the protagonists a few cryptic survival tips.
Through Todd’s role and other means, the writers add some new “mythology” about how the creation of a new life might short-circuit Death’s design, how the principals escaped Death once before because of the fatalities in the first movie and yada yada yada, but it’s all pretty much red herrings. The appeal of Final Destination 2 is to see how creative the filmmakers can be with their mayhem, and on that level it works. It isn’t a great movie, and it’s not really scary in a get-under-your-skin kind of way, but in the ways that count to dyed-in-the-wool gorehounds, it delivers the goods.
Watch Final Destination 2 on VOD.
