Final Destination 3 [***–]

As far as campy horror flicks go, I’d say that Final Destination 3 is an example of when a franchise should take a step back and re-evaluate. Now I’d have given it 2 stars, but there was some gratuitous boobage, and the ways that the victims were killed was slightly amusing.

Back in 2000 when the original Final Destination hit screens, I loved it. The simple concept of death having a design, and if a person cheats death – eventually it catches up in a pretty inventive and bloody manner – was something I hadn’t seen before. The sequel also wasn’t bad, maybe it was the hope of seeing Ali Larter’s cans, or it was actually entertaining, the movie was campy – but good. It didn’t approach the level of insulting my intelligence. Then comes Final Destination 3. It’s bigger. It’s badder. It’s stupid.

The only redeeming qualities of this picture are the cringe factor and the bare breasts which are sadly turned into KFC. Starting out in the typical FD manner, a teenager has a bloody vision of a disaster that costs their peers lives with prejudice. It was very well done, but a big mistake IMHO is that the whole deja-vu / weird feeling effect was overdone and lame. I try to take every sequel on its own merit, which is why I’m not going too far into comparison with the prior films, but this was overdone. The girl could have taken the pictures, gotten on the coaster, saw the calamity, and then freaked. The intro was drawn out way too far.

Then the deaths… By far the most outstanding aspect of these movies are how the people get taken out. Most of the effort in these productions has been put into killing the kids, and it shows. Still, I can’t quite figure out why the guy in the box truck kept backing up to the fast-food joint – didn’t make sense. Also, the pickup truck in that scene could have EASILY rammed the car in front of it and pushed it out of the way… instead they kick out the windshield, get out of the way, and calamity ensues.

Still, when it comes to campy horror flicks, Final Destination still delivers – but the franchise is definitely showing its age. We know the formula for these films and simply dragging out the variables is not a solution. Bigger, faster, more death, more destruction is needed should they shit out yet another sequel. Anything less should just go straight to DVD.

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