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March 8, 2004
Final Destination
Just a quick note or two about Final Destination, a mediocre horror movie about a high school kid who has premonitions in which he is able to see that someone is about to die. The premonitions start when he has a vision that the airplane he's taking to Paris will explode soon after take-off. Because of his vision, he and five other passengers survive, but according to the logic of the film, they have "cheated death," essentially creating an aberrant timeline that must be corrected. Soon afteer the crash, the survivors begin to die with the kid, Alex, identifying a "pattern" that explains the order in which each survivor is destined to die.
I don't find the film interesting other than the model of time that it constructs and its strange emphasis on deaths by electrocution (perhaps an issue I could revisist), but the DVD itself includes some interesting special features. Most significantly, the DVD has a documentary on test screenings in which New Line employees discuss their methods for testing a film, explaining that they had originally produced a much different ending but that the original ending didn't appeal to "postmodern Scream audiences" (their words, not mine). Might be a useful way of talking about how high-concept movies are made or for thinking about horror film audiences more broadly.
One strange inclusion: a card prediction game, based on the Zener card test, in which the viewer tries to guess which of five symbols will randomly appear on a card.
Posted by chuck at March 8, 2004 1:06 AM
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Comments
I actually think FD 2 is better.... But I have a soft spot for bad horror/thriller/scary movies that don't take themselves seriously.
Posted by: Scott at March 9, 2004 2:56 AM
Yeah, I appreciated that the film didn't try to do too much. Of course, I'm writing a conference paper, and FD didn't really interact with any of the categories I'm addressing.
I did find it amusing that all of the main chracters have last names based on early horror film directors (Hitchcock, Browning, Murnau, etc).
Posted by: chuck at March 10, 2004 1:21 AM