A scene from FD5, NOT a memeber of the test audience...
Rating: 
It’s a well-known horror cliche that the monster always comes back to life when you think it’s dead. The same can be said of horror franchises. Despite the fourth instalment of the Final Destination series being named ‘The Final Destination”, the franchise hs cheated death to return for another outing.
Final Destination 5 uses the familiar trick of ‘the prequel’ to escape Death’s cold clutches, and so again we are treated to a group of hapless individuals dying in the goriest of ways twice over, the first in the opening premonition gambit, the second as The Grim Reaper throws a bit of a hissy fit and kills of the survivors with all the ingenuity of, well, a horror franchise.
Arriving on Blu-ray, Triple Play, Blu-ray 3D, DVD and Ultraviolet Digital Download. the Boxing Day release sees the film come to our living rooms. Now, Beehive City doesn’t have 3D in its living room, so the opening credits of FD5 were remarkably tedious, as random objects – hammers, glass, nothing fluffy – come flying… nowhere really on a none existent dimensional plane. Luckily, DVD and Bluray players are equipped with skip buttons and FD5 gets on with what the franchise does so well – the set-up.
The gruesome ‘deaths-that-don’t-occur’ montage of the obligatory Final Destination premonition scene have previously partaken in the kind of oneupmanship that borders on parody. But with the prequel premise, all bets are off, and the audience is treated to a jaw-dropping, if impaling-heavy (thanks 3D!), suspension-bridge set-piece that’s as inventive as any in the series so far.
But after this opening, it all becomes a bit run-of-the-mill as the cast attempts to figure out what the audience already knows and the director throws as many red herrings into the mix to prevent us all from guessing the nature of the deaths. Necessity is the mother of all invention, and it’s obvious the writers thought long and hard about how to prepare this fresh meat for the afterlife. Optometrists, day spas and even the Olympics should all see trade drop after this film, but none beat my personal favourite Final Destination death (the flying barbed wire fence), which you get treated to in the closing credits.
The extras on the disc we received extended to a 5-minute featurette, ‘Circle of Death’, about how the film was made that doesn’t really get past the idea that its a prequel, but I’m relaibly informed the release will also include Alternative Death Scene and Bridge Scene – Special Effects.
All-in-al, Final Destination 5 is a worthy addition to the series and one that won’t disappoint fans, but won’t win many new followers either.
Final Destination 5 is released on Blu-ray, Triple Play, Blu-ray 3D, DVD and Ultraviolet Digital Download on 26th December.
