When it comes to the Final Destination movies, the Grim Reaper has to work overtime.
The premise of this successful thriller series is a group of teens who escape death when one of their number has a premonition.
In the original 2000 flick, a plane crash claimed the friends and classmates who failed to heed the warning.
Three years later, a lucky few escaped a massive highway pileup and now, another three years later in Final Destination 3, Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) tries to warn her classmates the roller coaster car they are about to ride at a carnival midway is destined to crash.
The creepy thing about these films is that the survivors are not really saved.
They've just had their fate postponed and actually suffer more gruesome and terrifying deaths than those who allowed fate to take its course.
Each new film in the series has to up the ante, which means screenwriters James Wong and Glen Morgan had to dream up some pretty nauseating death sequences.
The luckless teens are roasted, beheaded, impaled, crushed or splattered against buildings and moving vehicles.
Far more clever was Wong and Morgan's decision to give Wendy a digital camera at the amusement park.
She is taking photos for the school yearbook and the photos of each of the survivors hold clues as to how they will die.
It's school jock Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman) who plays Watson to Wendy's Sherlock Holmes.
They have to solve the puzzles before it's their turns to die.
The opening sequence on the roller coaster is genuinely tense because of the dynamite editing.
There's also great death scenes in the warehouse of a home builders store and at the county fair.
Merriman and Winstead have basically two emotions. They're either grieving or terrified.
It's their co-stars who have much more fun playing teen stereotypes, especially Kris Lemche as the goth cynic.
Films like Final Destination 3 are really just a variation of 1980's Friday the 13th, the granddaddy of slasher flicks. Teens with questionable morals or manners are dispatched by masked ghouls. Little has changed in 25 years except the production values.
Wong and Morgan honed their skills on The X-Files, Millenium and The Commish and it shows in their ability to create suspense and tension as well as carnage.
(This film is rated 14-A)
