If you don't fear roller coasters, tanning salons or exercise machines, you haven't seen "Final Destination 3."
The horror series, in which nubile teens are sent to often hilarious deaths by an array of seemingly innocuous contraptions via ludicrous, Rube Goldberg-ish chain reactions, is showing no signs of decline in its third chapter. If box office grosses keep up, the franchise will continue unabated, never reaching its own final destination.
Whether or not you're a fan, it's tough not to appreciate the infallibility of the concept as a business model. The "monster" is the invisible Hand of Fate, which lacks an agent and cannot demand royalties. The acting budget is cheap because the protagonists are faceless placeholders set to absorb the audience's fear and amusement. So long as the supply of fresh-faced actors and writers formulating their elaborate screen deaths replenishes, there will always be another sequel in the hopper.
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"FD3" opens at an amusement park, in which McKinley High is holding its senior carnival. The Grim Reaper is lurking in the background looking to harvest this band of neophytes with the shameless zeal of a military recruiter, but even if he weren't around, the setting would still be mighty creepy. There's a roller coaster with a gigantic demon sculpture hunched over the entryway, and the "S" keeps shorting out on the neon sign above one of the barker games, labeled "SKILL."
If the corn dogs and fried candy bars don't kill you, the busted hydraulics on the devil ride will do the job.
A vivid premonition of coaster chaos hits yearbook photographer Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as she's about to take a ride. She freaks out and gets off, causing several others to follow along, but those who remain, including Wendy's boyfriend, suffer the grisly end she foresaw.
In the "Final Destination" films, Death takes getting cheated personally, and it proceeds to take out the kids it missed one by one, in the order they were sitting on the roller coaster. Since Wendy and her friend Kevin (Ryan Merriman) sat in the back, they're able to stand by as the others die off and deduce the pattern. The pre-ride pictures on Wendy's digital camera provide vague clues of how each student will die. It's definitely bad news if your head is cut out of the frame.
Director James Wong, who also made the original "Final Destination," is in fine form, shaping up his combination of horror and comedy, although he occasionally crosses the line into revolting gore. Crystal Lowe and Chelan Simmons, who play self-obsessed airheads, are particularly abused, strung out for shameless nudity and then dispatched in a disgusting manner.
The rest of the film is largely armrest-squeezing fun, with screams and laughter emanating with equal frequency from the audience. The movie gives you the fun and fright of a roller coaster, which is nice, since you may not be riding those anymore after watching this.
review
Final Destination 3
***
Rated: R for strong horror violence/gore, language and some nudity
Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Texas Battle, Chelan Simmons
Director: James Wong
Family call: It's not at all for children — or the squeamish.
Running time: 92 minutes
Opens Friday at: Park Place, El Con, Century Park, Foothills, Cinemark, Desert Sky, Cinemark
