THE FINAL DESTINATION (FD) SERIES

The premise of the entire series is pure and simple. It deals with DEATH. It is invisible. You will not see long haired “done-to-death” ghost scenes or spirits flying around with scary faces. How apt since this is the month of the Hungry Ghost festival in the Lunar Calendar (for the Chinese) and also close to Halloween.

The franchise theme is as mentioned DEATH. If a person is destined to die, he/she WILL die somehow or another. Regardless the demise of that person is delayed or intentionally intervened from “death’s design”, DEATH will still come after. Simply, if you are meant to die, you still die (insert Vincent Price laugh).

I am part of a cult following of this franchise. I am fascinated of how each person who “cheated” death in the beginning dies in their own creatively way. In addition that, before a person dies, there are signs here and there in the movie avid fans will notice and relate to (e.g. to the previous FD movies).

I have the full DVD region 1 collection of the 1st 3 Final Destination series. The bonus features are astounding. For example in the 2nd FD, the viewer can choose how the person dies. Incredible, is it?

I was amazed by the 1st movie and enjoyed the 2nd film the most by far. The highway car crash scene is priceless! Ali Larter was in the 1st and 2nd film before portraying the famous femme fatale Niki Sanders in Heroes.

I think all who have followed the movie will look forward for the opening sequence. It is not a matter of who dies or otherwise at first but how creative can the writers get for a memorable opening sequence (like a James Bond movie). Then only how each character who “cheated” death dies. How is he/she is killed. The tanning salon death scene in FD 3 is another memorable death scene. It was censored heavily in the cinema but not in the DVD.

The 2nd movie and the current FD4 are directed by David R Ellis whilst the 1st and 3rd instalment were directed by James Wong (of X-Files fame).

I was at the preview screening of FD4 recently and I must say I was a tad disappointed because they recycled some death concept from the previous instalments. Personally I think the writers are running out of fresh ideas on how to kill off each character creatively. There are some fresh sequences but nothing compared to the older series with better originality. Of course, to compensate that, the writers and producers ensured enough of blood and gore for the squeamish.

It was also censored quite abit by the scissors happy censorship board who incidentally banned Halloween 2 from nationwide release.

Rating wise I am giving this new FD4 a maximum of 3 out of 5 stars due to my liking of the series.