Final Destination 4 (2009)

Elevator Pitch: We need to have a look at the premise for this franchise. It is that a number of people survive a cataclysmic event due the a premonition by one of the people involved. There after because they should not have survived fate chases them down and they die in a number of unusual ways. This film is a little different from the others because it is in 3D so the plot, which involves the survivors of a motor racing event where the audience is destroyed, requires bits of car to be projected towards the audience. There is also a tricky presentation of possible means of dispatch which fail to be followed by more conventional killings. But as usual no-one survives.

Content: There is a bit of nudity and sex which sort of has a point since it illustrates what a complete arse Hunt is, ensuring that we don’t care when he is disembowelled by a swimming pool emptying system. (We still wonder why anyone would have sex with him). The climax involves Nick, the young man who sees the future envisaging an explosion behind the screen of a mall cinema, where his girl friend and another are watching a film. Despite being nailed by a nail gun (one of the franchise’s favourite dispatch methods) he manages to prevent the disaster but of course that’s not the end of it.

A View: Probably if you watch this on your TV there will be no 3D, but I don’t imagine it makes much difference. Despite being panned by the critics, at best a two star outing, it made a lot of money and was a Box Office No 1 in USA for two weeks.  The critics hoped that this was to be the last film but there has been another. Actually for some reason I find these outings watchable, and psychologists have been working why we have this view. So for a bit of splatter even without the 3D it could be OK.

Additional Info: In some countries this film is called “The Final Destination” implying that it will be the last. Not true, there has been FD5.