The Final Destination (2009)

Written by Eric Bress (Final Destination 2) and directed by David R. Ellis (who also worked on that film, as well as Snakes On a Plane), this was both the best performing and worst-reviewed of all the Final Destination films. Instead of being called Final Destination 4, they were with a name that made it seem like it may not be a sequel, which it isn’t.

Eight years after the disasters of Flight 180, the Route 23 pileup and the Devil’s Flight, a group of teens are at the McKinley Speedway when one of them has a premonition. You may have a similar one if you’ve seen even one of these films.

This one adds 3D to the equation, which really would have made more sense in the third movie. Tony Todd’s absence in this movie really takes things down. At least the opening credits replaying all of the kills from the last three movies is pretty cool.

Like all of the films in the series, there are references to horror actors and directors. The first movie used Lon Chaney, George Waggner, Tod Browning, F.W. Murnau, Max Schreck, Val Lewton, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Don Siegel and Alfred Hitchcock. The second had names that paid tribute to Roger Corman, John Carpenter and Robert Dix. And in the third, Benjamin Christensen, Edgar G. Ulmer, Herschell Gordon Lewis, George A. Romero, Robert Wise, Karl Freund and Victor Halperin. Seeing as how they used up nearly everyone across three previous films, this one pays tribute to Dan O’Bannon, Sean S. Cunningham, Andy Milligan and Jim Wynorski.

I can also tell you that the movie in this movie, Love Lies Dying, is really the end of The Long Kiss Goodnight with music from Dark City.

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