Director: James Wong
Year: 2000
Country: USA/Canada
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural Slasher
Plot:
When a vision saves him and his friends, a teenager intending to go on a class trip to Paris learns that the strange accidents befalling them are the result of Death coming to claim them for escaping the plane crash, and sets out to prevent their deaths from continuing to kill them off.
Review:
This one ended up being quite an impressive and enjoyable effort. Among the numerous qualities here is the fact that there's a ton of high-quality suspense here which runs throughout this one, since there's a lot of focus here in making the scenes suspenseful. Due to the ploy of not knowing when Death is going to strike and where, there's a big part of the film that gets really chilling as this one really plays up the accidental nature of the setups to drive home how randomly it strikes as the bathtub sequence, the attack at the teachers' house where all sorts of fun accidents are unleashed to keep playing up what's going to be the final killing blow and their encounter in the car out on the highway as they try to pull a friend out of a trapped car-seat with a train approaching them in the intersection which is incredibly fun. These are suspenseful setups that take the concept of his visions and really bring a thrilling underlying to the scene.
There's plenty of suspenseful times elsewhere here, as the opening buildup on the plane before the takeoff which reveals itself as a startlingly realistic dream which sets up the remaining storyline about the clues and the possible manners of stopping the events from continuing, the save at the garage and the encounter out in the woods all come off just as good as the actual kill scenes in here which manage plenty of thrilling scenes all throughout here. As well, there's plenty of action here with this one that are just as much fun as the suspenseful ones which keeps this one moving along so well as each of these scenes plays out as truly fun action scenes that take the suspenseful setups into quite enjoyable levels as there's a great bit about actually getting the death scene going which goes all the way to the finale where that comes off really well.
The other big plus here comes from the film's ingenious plotline where it continually manages to feature some great twists featuring the way Death is presented here as a physical, thinking entity that plans out life in advance without anything being done, working through this concept here in knocking off the survivors in a special order which is a truly original and unique idea that gets played out in a rather enjoyable manner. Along with the fine gore-packed kills, these here make this more enjoyable enough to hold out over the film's one flaw. There's almost nothing to like here about the federal investigation into the incidents, which gets tiring with all their interludes that go nowhere and never really get resolved, with the attempts to pin everything on him without having any real info to finger him on. Otherwise, this is only what keeps this one down.
Overview: ****.5/5
A near-perfect modern horror classic, this one manages to keep quite a lot of enjoyable aspects present that make for a really effective genre entry with only a few slight drawbacks that slightly hold it back. Those with an interest in this era of genre fare, who appreciate this style overall, or who are fans of the creative crew, will have a lot to like here, while most others out there should heed caution.
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