A reaction which goes down none too well with his school mates, and even less
so with aircraft security who unceremoniously bundle him, four of his class and
two teachers back into the airport lounge.
As complaint, taunts and violence are hurled at Alex, as the plane takes off,
Alex's ridiculed premonition becomes harder to ignore as the plane explodes,
killing all on board.
Alex, and the rest of the survivors, soon come to realise that, you can cheat
death, but you can't avoid it.
This is an interesting and different horror story as the cast are killed off,
one at a time, not by some axe wielding maniac, a bloke with nails knocked into
his head or by the local psychopath who could do with a manicure, but by Death
itself.
Alex, stunned by further premonitions, foretelling the deaths of each one of
the survivors, comes to realise that Death has a plan. And there is no escaping
the plan; the plan may have changed but their destiny is unavoidable.
And death comes in steady waves; horrific at times, downright predictably at
others.
Too predictable might be a fair adjective to describe the whole film, once we
get past the initial air crash, but it had a pace and delivery which kept us
wondering, who's next ? And, how ?
The demise of Terry, Carter's, p--sed-off with the whole thing, girlfriend,
ended her days in a spectacularly well choreographed scene, although, even
then, the clues up front take a lot of the impact away if spotted.
The special effects then, as in most of the film were well done and didn't
overpower the movie; the effects budget was well spent.
Rather less well spent was that on the script writers and advisors who managed
to deliver the immortal lines, "Don't get out the car; the tyres are grounding
it", whilst Clear, the closest thing to a romantic liaison in the feature, was
trapped as sparking, electric cables were hurled around by the frenzied Grim
Reaper.
Now, I don't know what the Yanks make their tyres out of over there, but in the
rest of the world they're rubber. A pretty good insulator by most accounts, and
one of the reasons why being in a car is so safe during a thunderstorm.
It's a real shame that such an obvious error crept into the film; small things
like that can just rip the magic away.
There were other problems too, not least the complicated and esoteric way Death
has chosen to take those he missed first time round. I'm quite sure that a few
heart attacks would have done the job - ah well, I suppose it is just a movie.
Even so, despite the minor criticisms, which didn't really ruin the film, it
did have some interesting points to make - How do we know when we're going to
die ? Has life's path already been written down for us ? Is everything planned
such that, no matter what we do, we conspire against ourselves to bring about
the conclusion we so wish to avoid ?
It'll make those who try and hide indoors on Friday the 13th's even more
paranoid than they were, and there's probably a few people who are a little
more wary about taking to the skies.
So, all round, an interesting and watchable film, and a welcome slant on the
murderer hiding in the closet or cellar movie, with a fine, young cast who
delivered well.
There were also some good moments of black humour hidden amongst the carnage;
the John Denver songs in particular, being rather well played out, right up to
the final, sudden ending on the streets of Paris.
One Hundred and Eighty, as they say in darts clubs around Britain.
