Harefooted Halloween: Final Destination 2

What I Liked: Those damn deathtraps get amped up like they should.  I mean the opening sequence with a massive highway pileup, loose timber logs twice the size of telephone poles, crashes, flips and explosions galore is an incredible spectacle.  Good news, spectacular explosions are all over this thing.  Not to mention other nasty shit that of course, all comes out of left field due to plentiful misdirection.

They got the tone just right.  While the first film took the material fairly seriously, especially in the first act, you could sense the atmosphere getting a bit lighter as it went.  As I mentioned previously it ends on a joke.  This time the filmmakers lean more towards the comical and playful.  They know the people are here to see the deathtraps and are looking for a good time so they focus on that.  Only the barest story is set up as a framework to tie the outrageous “accidents” together.  This shouldn’t work because we’re opting for cheap thrills at the expense of character and story.  However, the deaths and everything leading up to them are handled cheekily enough that it kinda works.  For example one victim is in a dentist’s office all gassed up for a procedure so he’s conscious yet can’t move.  Above him is a mobile of plastic fish and one falls right into his mouth blocking his airway.  Or another victim gets into an elevator with a man carrying a box full of prosthetic arms, some with hooks.  Her hair somehow gets caught on one of them and she can’t get it undone.  It’s weird but amusing choices like these that give the horrific fatalities a humorous edge.  There were two gags in particular where I laughed out loud.

What I Didn’t Like: Unfortunately the characters aren’t nearly as likeable this time around.  They’re all strangers and mostly adults of different ages and backgrounds which is a nice change of pace instead of a group of teenaged classmates.  But they’re here to be fodder so they’re given a distinct singular trait so you can tell them apart and nothing more.

Most of the budget must of went to designing and executing the elaborate death sequences because the rest of the production has a tad of a cheap feel to it.  That’s a minor negative though because they put the money in the right places in my opinion.

Devon Sawa does not return as Alex due to some sort of dispute between him and the studio.  This is fine except they kill the character off between films making it difficult to bring him back if they choose (spoiler, to date they have not brought him back).  It’s also sorta insulting he dies by a brick to the head which is such a lame sounding way to get rid of your main character that kicked off the franchise.  Oh well.

Overall Impressions: Now this is what I’m talking about.  The previous picture has some weight to it which appropriately makes sense since they were trying to sell a horror concept to audiences based around catastrophic tragedies where dozens or hundreds of people will perish.  But now that we have that one out of the way we can go wild with the freak accident ideas and have some fun with it.

Director David R. Ellis (who had an insane career as a stunt man (Lethal Weapon, Road House, Days of Thunder) and second unit/assistant director (Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone, The Matrix Reloaded)) manages to balance the deaths out with enough humor and winking at the camera that you’re never bogged down by dread or disgust.  He knows the type of movie he’s making (a sequel about a bunch of folks getting killed in ridiculous and intricate ways) and dials in the climate fittingly.

This one falls into the category of movies that technically aren’t better than the original but you would rather watch most of the time anyway.