The first trailer for Final Destination 5 has arrived, and even though I can’t help but sneer at it, I feel the need to post it here because I’ve been keeping a watchful eye on this completely unnecessary sequel since it was first announced. One would think that after five instalments, the titular destination wouldn’t seem so final anymore. Anyway, way back when the film was originally announced, the studio was calling it 5nal Destination, which I thought was both hilarious and terrific. The only way for a waning horror franchise to drag itself back from the brink of total disaster, in my opinion, is to embrace how ridiculous and campy it is. The makers of Piranha 3D are actually pulling it off brilliantly with the sequel Pirahna 3DD, and I was hoping that I could say the same about Final Destination 5…but no. It looks exactly the same as every other Final Destination movie, and it still seems to be trying to play its ludicrous premise completely straight. Oh, Tony Todd. You’re so much better than this.
On a related note, am I the only person who thinks that maybe all of this could have been done better had the series removed the supernatural elements and just called itself Haywire? Seriously, stuff going haywire and killing you could be way scarier than some mysterious force referred to as “Death Itself”.
On another related note, apparently these movies have been consistently released 3 years apart until this most recent one, which was released two years after The Final Destination (warning: destination may not be final). Have we seriously been treated to 14 whole years of these movies? That’s pretty sad.
Final Destination 5 comes out August 12, 2011.