Released in 2000, the original FinalDestination had themakings of a classic thriller. Thrills, spills, and, of course, the type ofcringing scenes that made audiences jump out of their seats and want more. Theplot was simple, yet effective: Preparing to get on an airliner with the restof his French class for a school trip, a high school student has a premonitionthat the plane is going to crash. He panics, and the scene he creates changes theminds of a handful of other students.

When the plane finally does endup crashing, and all aboard die, you figure those who opted out at the lastminute had cheated death in a stroke of luck. This, however, is not the case,as each person is subsequently killed in a distinct manner, resulting in anaudience scare with each death. You wouldn’t think there was much more to bedone with that idea, but as director David R. Ellis demonstrates, sticking witha successful idea and throwing in a couple of key plot twists can work, nicely.

Final Destination 2 proves much grislier and bloodier thanthe original. As death stalks its victims one by one, each death proves to bemore gut-wrenching and gory then the previous almost to the point of beinghumorous. Be warned, this flick is not for the faint of heart, and queasystomachs might want to pass.

This time around, it’s amind-bending, violent traffic accident that the ‘fortunate’characters avoid. The audience gets to see it all, complete with decapitationsand a series of exploding fireballs. There are a series of clever omensinserted along the way–as the teens pull out of the driveway, there is aleakage on the driveway of transmission fluid that eerily resembles blood.Also, as the band of kids drive along the road, the radio plays ‘Highwayto Hell,’ and a boy in the next lane holds up two toy cars and bangs themtogether cheerfully.

But the whole accident was justa vision. The prophet in this movie, Kimberly, (Canadian actress A.J. Cook)regains her composure, turns on the radio and lo and behold, she finds thatblasting on the radio is ‘Highway to Hell.’ Ellis uses this techniquethroughout the film, as he piles glaring omens atop scary warnings, littledetails onto tiny tip-offs until everyone is a nervous wreck, left wondering,’?Who’s next and how?’

Ellis plays catch-and-releasewith the audience for 90 minutes, something that, in my opinion, makes thismovie even more appealing than the first. Even when we know that someone is agoner, there are quirks and twists in the execution–death, it turns out, is acomedian.

I was a little late to catchonto the Final Destinationhype, and ended up watching the two films practically in succession. Althoughit’s not imperative to watch the first installation in this set of filmsto appreciate the second, I would definitely recommend it. One of the keys of FinalDestination 2 is itsability to play on and connect with events that occurred in the first movie,and tie them all together in one intricate design. If you’re looking foreye cringing thrills and scares (and some laughs thrown in as well), definitelycheck this film out. I give it 3 stars out of 4.