There is something strangely appealing about teen horror movies, though I am unsure if this appeal is from nostalgia for my teen years, or an admiration for the humorous and creative ways the movie characters die.
Regardless, when watching a teen horror movie, I expect to laugh out loud, remark on the stupidity of at least one of the lead characters, be disgusted by at least one “gut explosion”, and enjoy the requisite topless scene. On all counts, “The Final Destination” did not disappoint.
Film 
For those unfamiliar with the “Final Destination” franchise, the premise is pretty simple. At the beginning of each movie, a group of young people (and expendable side/minor characters) escape Death due to a premonition of one of the characters. Then, for the rest of the movie, Death hunts them down relentlessly.
What has made this franchise a cut above (pun intended) some of the other teen horror franchises is the non-specificity of death. Virtually any character can die in any scene from virtually anything located in their environment. For example, “The Final Destination” starts at a stock car race, an environment where an excellent assortment of flying debris and explosives are available. Construction sites (indoors no less), can link together innocuous items such as a pair of glasses, sawdust, a nail gun, and the ever-present barrels of “flammable” material. Even car washes and swimming pools are not safe.
However, “The Final Destination” also shows a smirking self-awareness. When one of the minor characters is being teed up for their eventual demise, we see slippery material on the floor, a can of hairspray ready to explode, a loose ceiling fan, a faulty barber’s chair, plus many pairs of scissors. Although the movie overtly teases us into imagining multiple gory resolutions to this scene, we still are surprised at the way the scene resolves itself. The scene where a tow truck-driving racist skinhead meets his fate will have you laughing out loud.
The 3-D presentation of this movie is surprisingly good for an anaglyph (red/cyan) 3-D transfer. As anyone who has experienced good 3-D (polarization) knows, anaglyph 3-D presents a substandard 3-D image, and struggles with resolving red/cyan images on screen. In “The Final Destination”, the 3-D effect was the best I’ve ever seen at home using anaglyph, though the color had its understandable issues.
If you are familiar with the “Teen Horror” genre, and you enjoy these types of movies, “The Final Destination” is a solid middle-of-the-pack movie. Not the most creative, funny, or gory of movies, but entertaining. Fortunately, this movie also never pretends to be anything other than what it is making it enjoyable for what it is.
Video 
The video in this move was quite mixed. On the good side, outdoor scenes were shot beautifully, with great color saturation, nice depth of field (especially obvious on the 3-D version), and a natural looking amount of grain.
On the bad side, the low light scenes did suffer from excessive grain, and could have used some clean-up during the transfer process. Although grain should have a softening effect in low light and indoor shots, at 1080p this excess grain almost makes the shots appear out of focus.
One other observation is that the Blu-Ray format does highlight any weaknesses in the source material. In the case of “The Final Destination”, some of the effects are not very well done, and these flaws in both the CGI and the filmed effects are quite obvious.
Audio 
It is difficult to find any flaws in the audio presentation of this Blu-ray, though it does not have enough dynamics to be considered a reference disk.
The use of music in the movie was good, and it was mixed in clearly and appropriately. Dynamic levels were extremely well-balanced, with dialog (and screaming) always present and clear through the centre channel. All channels had very good separation, with the rear channels being fed appropriate amounts of sound during the right times in the movie. Bass was good, with the subwoofer adding impact without booming.
Overall, this was a very-well mixed move that made proper use of the 5.1 channels.
Special Features
Interestingly enough, “The Final Destination” did not include a commentary track, likely due to the space constraints of including both a 2-D and 3-D movie on the disc. Instead, it included a behind the scenes look at a number of the death scenes in the movie, and how they were created. However, I was surprised to see that with the effort put into filming the scenes (versus CGI) that they didn’t look more realistic.
The main disc also included two alternative endings (one of which wasn’t really an ending), some storyboarding, and the valuable deleted scenes. In the case of “The Final Destination” the director did a pretty good job, with only two of the deleted scenes being a better fit for the movie. On one, they clearly picked a “gross out” death over a more realistic one.
The second disc contains a digital copy of the movie.
To the movie fan in me, the bonus features in this set were slightly better than average. Although there was not a great quantity of them, they were all in HD, and they all provided a very-good glimpse into the world of the filmmakers.
Final Thoughts
“The Final Destination” is a reasonably typical movie for the Teen Horror genre, though its use of quality 3-D makes it more rental-worthy than most. Unfortunately, it suffers from the affliction most sequels have; there is simply not enough creativity or originality. Although the movie would have difficulty holding up under repeated watches, it is really not that bad, considering it never attempts to be anything other than what it is.
