Premonition Dooms Colleagues in High Body-Count Horror Flick
Fair warning: Final Destination 5 is a relentlessly-gruesome horror flick of no redeeming value which splatters loads of blood and guts virtually right in your face courtesy of the genre’s best 3-D special effects since Piranha. Provided you have a strong stomach and an appetite for such gratutous gore, this high attrition-rate affair does knock off its characters in shocking, scream-inducing fashion.
As the film unfolds, we are introduced to 25 employees of Presage Paper Corporation preparing to spend the weekend together at a corporate retreat. Among the motley ensemble is Sam (Nicholas D’Agosto) who is considering leaving the company to pursue his dream of becoming a chef in Paris where he has just been offered an internship at a 5-star restaurant.
Because of his recent poor sales numbers, he is encouraged to quit by his best friend, Peter (Miles Fisher), although that possibility doesn’t sit well with his girlfriend, Molly (Emma Bell). In fact, she breaks up with Sam just before they all board the bus. Also of consequence are intern Candice (Ellen Wroe); blind as a bat Olivia (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood); womanizer Isaac (P.J. Byrne); assistant plant manager Nathan (Arlen Escarpata); and their hard-boiled boss, Dennis (David Koechner).
En route to the getaway, the bus becomes stuck on a suspension bridge undergoing construction repairs. Sam suddenly has an ominous premonition and alerts his colleagues. They jump up and scramble to safety before wires start snapping, the roadway disappears and the bus and other cars plummet into the river below.
86 people die in the freak accident, including 17 from Presage Paper, although the aforementioned 8 miraculously manage to escape. However, at the memorial service, an uninvited, shadowy figure (Tony Todd) among the mourners eerily warns the survivors in a creepy whisper that “Death doesn’t like to be cheated.”
The grieving octet reluctantly returns to the office to stare at the empty cubicles of the dearly departed while awaiting grisly fates as each is knocked-off one-by-one in the order of Sam’s prescient vision. There isn’t much of a plot to what ensues, but plenty of senseless vivisection to satiate the bloodlust demo.
Death takes no holiday!
Very Good (3 stars)
Rated R for profanity and gruesome violence.
Running time: 92 minutes
Distributor: New Line Cinema
