It’s another “oldies” week here. We’re starting off with the really dated “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein” from 1957. A year later, we’ll visit the cemetery in “I Bury the Living.” A few years later, we’ve got undead problems with “Count Yorga, Vampire” and “Dracula and Son,” both from the 70s. Last, we’ll look at “Final Destination 2” from 2003.
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Mainstream Films:
1957 I Was a Teenage Frankenstein
Directed by Herbert L. Storck
Written by Herman Cohen, Abem Kandel
Stars Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates, Robert Burton
Run Time: 1 Hour, 14 Minutes
Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Professor Frankenstein, a descendent of that Frankenstein, has a full facility at his disposal with all the high tech equipment available in 1957, as well as an alligator pit in his lab for disposing of bodies and parts. His ego is big, and so are his plans for advancing science regardless of the cost. This one is decent but low effort, maybe a little rushed at points with such a short run time. It’s entertaining enough, but more campy than classic.
Spoilery Synopsis
Professor Frankenstein talks about transplanting eyes and other organs. One of the scientists in the audience says some of his claims are simply impossible. “Dead tissue cannot be activated,” says Dr. Randolph. Frankenstein says one day soon, his theories will be proven.
Later, Frankenstein and Dr. Karlton, his physicist friend, talk about proving their ideas. Frankenstein wants to assemble a body from different cadavers. “On my own. In my own laboratory.” Frankenstein talks about that great ancestor whose name he bears. He thinks the key to success is to use young bodies, which are much more resilient— wait! A car crashes outside right in the middle of his explanation. Two cars, and they were full of teenagers, who were all killed. Such a shame and mess, who will notice one missing?
Soon, the two scientists have snuck off with one of the bodies and put it in Frankenstein’s own private morgue. He puts the body in a drawer and turns down the temperature. Karlton wants out, but Frankenstein has blackmail material, so he’ll help with the project as required.
The two men go upstairs to a party. Frankenstein says he’s going to return home to England soon, and Margaret, his girlfriend and nurse, looks unhappy. He cheers her up by asking her to move in with him as his fiancee.
Karlton “activates” the body as Frankenstein amputates his hands and leg and Margaret works the phone upstairs as the new “watchdog.” Frankenstein disposes of the leftover parts by feeding them to an alligator in a closet.
Frankenstein and Karlton sneak into a funeral home and take the parts they need after another tragedy. They sew the leg and hands onto the corpse at home.
Frankenstein and Margaret go for a drive and park at a popular make-out spot for the local teenagers. She wants to do what the teenagers do.
The animated corpse is healing well, and Frankenstein wants the creature to speak. He does speak, and then he cries. Margaret suspects something is up. She’s also obsessed with their impending marriage and displeased with how little of the professor's attention she gets. He slaps her in the face when she gets more uppity than he likes. She doesn’t go along with that very well, and she starts snooping into his work. She makes a key to the basement, opens the morgue drawer, and the corpse sits up. She runs off without locking the door behind her.
Frankenstein and the monster talk, and it’s clear that Frankenstein is on a power trip with his obedient creation. The monster does his weightlifting and other workouts. The monster is tired of living in the lab; he wants out into the world. Frankenstein cuts off the bandages to show him why he can’t, and we see that the monster is really a monster from the neck up. Yeah, he’s a mess.
The monster wanders out of the unlocked lab anyway and goes upstairs to the regular house and then down the street, where he peeps in the window at a young woman. She sees him and screams, so he breaks in and silences her. A bunch of people see him as he leaves.
The police question the witnesses, and they're going to check the houses in the neighborhood. Frankenstein reads about the attack in the news, and he knows what happened. The monster promises to behave from now on. When the detectives stop by, Frankenstein lies to them.
Margaret invites a jeweler over to shop for rings, and Frankenstein throws him out rudely. This results in another fight. She tells him that she knows what he’s been up to, and they make up.
Not long after, Frankenstein tells his monster that he thinks they’re safe now. Except for Margaret, who could derail the monster getting a new face. She’s going to ruin everything! The monster agrees to “stop her.” He lures Margaret into the lab, where the monster kills her. Margaret soon feeds the alligator.
Frankenstein and the monster go out to choose a new face. They go to the makeout spot and the monster picks out a guy whose face he likes. They take Bob’s head home and put his face on the monster.
Dr. Karlton comes over to talk, and he wonders what happened to Margaret. “She just up and disappeared.” He mentions giving the monster a new face, and Karlton wonders where that face came from.
The problem is that someone here is likely to recognize Bob, who was a popular local boy. Frankenstein wants to take Bob to England, packed in crates with a false bottom. He wants to disassemble Bob and ship the parts to England… separately, for reassembly later.
Bob climbs on the table, ostensibly to get his stitches removed, and they strap him down. Before they can sedate him, Bob senses that something is wrong and attacks the two scientists. Karlton runs away, but Bob feeds Frankenstein to the alligator.
Karlton returns with the police, and Bob backs into the machinery that electrocutes him. We close on a shot of a well-fed alligator.
Brian’s Commentary
The first half hour or so is very similar to most other Frankenstein films, albeit more modern, taking place in the 50s. After that, it goes its own way.
Dr. Frankenstein is supposed to be British, but he’s got a perfectly normal American accent.
The monster here is just a big guy in a rubber mask, so this was pretty low effort in that regard. Unlike “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” which came out the same year, this one doesn’t really rely on the “Teenager” angle very much, and better yet, there’s no musical numbers in the middle of the film.
It’s low-budget and low-effort. By this point, Frankenstein had been relegated to Abbott and Costello movies, this kind of thing, and other “silly” films. The following year, Hammer made their version, which rejuvenated the whole franchise by taking it seriously once again.
It’s fine, but it’s not really a classic.
Kevin’s Commentary
I would say this Frankenstein is the biggest jerk of all the Frankensteins I’ve seen, with a thirst for knowledge and medical progress that drives him above everything else. His lack of humanity and empathy and concern for others is appalling. But it makes for a satisfying finish when his creation turns on him. I was more entertained than not, and they do take it seriously with no comedy, but it’s one worthy of mockery.
1958 I Bury the Living
Directed by Albert Band
Written by Louis Garfinkle
Stars Richard Boone, Theodore Bikel, Peggy Maurer
Run Time: 1 Hour, 17 Minutes
Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This had a Twilight Zone vibe and a dash of Alfred Hitchcock, with a poster that’s pretty sensationalized compared to the actual movie. It moves along well, and it’s very well made. Until an ending that disappointed us both. So mixed reviews.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open in a cemetery, where two men walk into the caretaker’s office. Robert Kraft is the new administrator, the other man is McKee who has been the caretaker for decades, and they talk about him being pushed into retirement, and they can find a young replacement. Kraft says he’ll still get paid and it will be great, but McKee seems reluctant. They both admire the elaborate map of the cemetery on the wall. He uses a white pin on the map to show a pre-sold plot, and a black one to show where the dead are. McKee shows him where a pistol is, just in case of emergencies.
Stuart and Elizabeth Drexel drive up; they’re just married, and they got a cemetery plot there in the Immortal Hills as a requirement of Stuart's inheritance before he can access the funds.
Robert complains to George, his uncle, about serving at the cemetery, but the old man insists that it's a family tradition of service to the town. It’s good for business. Plus he’s going to have to do it if he wants to inherit the department store. Mr. Watson, the undertaker, calls to congratulate Robert on his new position and to let him know that the Drexels have suddenly died.
Mr. Jessup comes to the cemetery office; he’s a reporter and Bob’s friend. Robert looks at the map, and he may have accidentally marked the young couple for death by mistakenly putting black pins on their plots instead of white ones. Nah, couldn’t be. Ann, Robert’s fiancee, comes for a visit. Robert absent-mindedly puts a black pin on the Isham plot. Elsewhere, Mr. Isham suddenly dies.
At the end of the week, Robert comes by to sign paperwork, and he notices the name “Isham” on the intake form. McKee points out that the map had a black pin on it already.
Jessup assures Robert that it’s all just a coincidence. Robert has deja-vu when he hears the sound of a headstone being carved.
George gets annoyed; when he was in charge, he put the wrong color pins on the map all the time and nothing happened. Bob actually believes he killed those people with the black pins on the map. The two go to the cemetery office and George starts to change the pins on Henry Trowridge’s plot, just to prove that it means nothing. No, Robert takes the pin and does it instead.
That night, Robert waits by the phone, worried about Trowbridge. Robert phones the man’s wife, and she goes to get him. At almost midnight, Henry is found dead. His wife tells Robert right then on the phone.
Robert calls Lt. Clayborne from the police. He tells them his theory, but the Lieutenant doesn’t believe it at all. All four dead people died in different, random places, and there’s no sign of any foul play with any of them. Jessup and the Lieutenant say it’s all just a coincidence.
Robert’s not convinced. Is it the map, or is it him? George wants Robert to take a vacation for a while. George and Ann both think Bob is losing his mind. George, Charlie, and Bill, the whole Cemetery Committee, insist that Robert change all their pins to black tonight, to prove to Robert that he’s wrong.
Robert doesn’t like it, but he does it that evening. McKee comes to him and warns him that bad things may happen; he seems to know more than he’s saying. The map seems to grow in Robert’s eyes as he sits by the phone. He calls Lt. Clayborne and Jessup to tell them what he did. He tries to call the men on the Cemetery Committee, but none of them answer the phone.
Robert soon learns that two out of the three are dead except for George, who comes to the cemetery to look at the map. Robert picks up the gun; why hasn’t George died? George pulls his own pin out of the map and leaves.
Robert leaves two hours later and finds George in his car, dead. He goes back inside the office and calls the police. The Lieutenant tells Robert to put a black pin on the map for Mr. Mittel, an importer. Mittel is perfectly healthy and all the way overseas in Paris right now, so he probably ought to be safe. Right? This is just a risky test. Lt. Clayborne thinks just maybe Robert has a special power to kill with the pins, something like Voodoo.
Robert wonders. He has the power of death with the black pins. Does he have the power of life with the white ones? He switches all the recently dead people’s black pins with white ones.
Outside, we see the graves being disturbed from underneath. Meanwhile, Robert starts a fire in the cemetery office when his heater breaks and has to run outside. He sees the empty graves and knows what’s happened.
Robert gets the call that Mr. Mittel died in Paris. The effect has a very long range. McKee comes in and says neither the map nor Robert has any power. He has been killing all these people. McKee resented being forced to retire, even with a full pension.
Robert says no, he caused McKee to kill those people. McKee is no killer, and Robert made him do it through the power of his mind. McKee falls over dead just as the police and everyone break in.
Clayborne and Jessup come in. Mittel didn’t really die; they put his wife up to calling to see what McKee would do. McKee then dug up all seven bodies. Robert still believes it was the pins.
Brian’s Commentary
It influenced Stephen King, who wrote “Obits,” a similar story about a man who kills by writing obituaries. The story has been done numerous times since, in films such as “Death Note” and others.
It’s a very weird concept, and it’s well executed here. I wondered early on what would happen if Robert switched a black pin for a white one. Would the dead rise? Fortunately, the filmmakers wondered the same thing, and that’s where it ended up going.
The explanation McKee gives at the end doesn’t make any sense. Actually, the whole ending doesn’t make much sense. All those men died of fright?
It’s very much like a Hitchcock film, with the suspense building as Robert continues to learn more and more about what’s really going on. The ever-growing map is a very cool prop as well.
It’s surprisingly good up until the last five minutes, but the ending is confusing and doesn’t really work for us.
Kevin’s Commentary
The acting, script, suspense, and cinematography were all excellent. I really, really liked this until the ending, which made no sense. We literally saw one of the guys just keel over, not killed by McKee. The police saw no signs of anything unnatural in any of the deaths. And there’s no way McKee, an older and pretty out-of-shape looking guy, could have nearly and completely dug up seven graves in such a short time. I probably wouldn’t recommend it.
1970 Count Yorga, Vampire
AKA “The Loves of Count Iorga, Vampire”
Directed by Bob Kelljan
Written by Bob Kelljan
Stars Robert Quarry, Roger Perry, Michael Murphy
Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was originally intended to be a softcore porn movie. You can still see some hints of that here, but mostly it’s a serious horror film. It’s an updated vampire tale set in the modern age of 1970. It’s a little on the predictable side, but we thought it was quite good.
Spoilery Synopsis
We watch a coffin being loaded onto a truck from a ship and driven through time as we get a voiceover that talks about vampires and their powers and abilities (in case you’ve never heard of vampires). The truck with the coffin arrives at a big house in the country.
We cut to a group of people sitting in a circle as they prepare to do a seance. The group isn’t taking the whole thing very seriously, but Donna wants this to happen so she can talk to her dead mother. The man leading the group, Count Yorga, is also very serious about the seance. Things take a creepy turn, and there’s a lot of screaming.
Donna faints, and Yorga takes care of her, but Michael doesn’t like any of this. Yorga hypnotizes her secretly, and the others have no idea. He leaves shortly after without eating or drinking anything.
Later, Donna explains that Yorga was her mother’s boyfriend for the three weeks before she died. He talked Donna out of having her mother cremated. He didn’t come to the funeral, which is odd.
Some of the guests drive Yorga home, and they meet his creepy servant, Brudah. He invites Paul and Erica in for a drink; she’s interested, but Paul says not tonight. They drive off but soon get stuck. Funny, the road wasn’t wet before. They don’t go back to the count’s house, they have sex in the back of the van.
Soon, Count Yorga comes to the van, and it’s now obvious that he’s a vampire. Paul is knocked out, and Erica loses all memory of what happened.
Erica’s lost a lot of blood and is dizzy. Dr. Jim Hayes tells her to eat lots of rare steaks to fix that. “It must be the two bite marks on her throat,” which she can’t explain.
Paul and Mike talk about hypnosis and how good Yorga was at it with Donna. Erica also lost her memory; could the two be connected? They go over to Erica’s house, which is a mess, and they find her eating her cat. Paul donates blood for a transfusion to Erica administered by Jim and Mike.
We cut to Count Yorga’s castle, where he has two women sleeping on stone slabs. When he comes in, the two women wake up; they’re vampires too, and one of them is Donna’s mother.
Jim talks to Paul and Mike about vampires. Yorga is supposed to be from Bulgaria, and that fits the profile. They talk about how unlikely that is, but they don’t really rule it out, either.
Yorga looks out the window, and somewhere else, Erica wakes up and walks to her window and opens it. Then she waits on her bed as Yorga arrives to bite her again. When Paul comes upstairs, Erica is gone.
Mike calls Jim, and they head up to the castle. Jim’s girlfriend mentions he read about a baby drained of blood in the newspaper. Jim calls the police with this information, and they have the expected response: they hang up on him.
Count Yorga is expecting Paul to come to the house, and he even unlocks the door for him. Yorga jumps out and strangles Paul before Brudah breaks his back. Yorga tells his servant “You can expect more guests.”
Jim, Mike, and Donna knock on the door. Their plan is to keep Yorga occupied until the sun rises. Yorga invites them inside, but he says he hasn’t seen Erica or Paul since the seance last night. Jim is a blood specialist, and Yorga is intrigued by that. Jim asks about the mystic arts, and Yorga admits that he’s interested in those things.
They note that it’s 4:30 a.m. and the sun should be rising soon. Yorga knows what they’re up to as the men drag out the conversation. Yorga claims to have seen a werewolf, and he absolutely believes they exist. When asked, he also believes in vampires. He insists on retiring for the night, so the guests have to leave.
At home, Jim tells Mike they have to kill Count Yorga, but Mike isn’t on board with that. Jim says if he is a vampire, he’ll turn to dust and there won’t be any evidence. They plan to go back and do the deed in the early afternoon. That morning, Yorga telepathically calls for Donna to come and join him.
Mike and Jim both oversleep; it’s nearing sunset already. Donna drives to the Count’s house. It appears that Brudah forces himself on her before dragging her inside. He apologizes to Master Yorga for not being able to help himself, but Yorga seems pretty dismissive about it. Meanwhile, Mike and Jim break up furniture to make stakes and crosses at the last minute.
Inside the castle, Yorga now has a nice collection of women on slabs. He finds Jim on the doorstep and invites him inside. They talk more about vampires. He takes Jim to see Erica, who is now a vampire as well.
Meanwhile, Mike sneaks in the back door and finds Yorga’s empty coffin. He hears Jim calling for help and runs upstairs. The three women wake up and surround Jim. By the time Mike finds them, it’s too late for Jim. Mike and Brudah fight in the dungeon until Mike stabs the brute. Next, he has to fight Erica and the redhead vampire.
Yorga wakes Donna up to talk to her mother, who is not as dead as she thought. Mike barges in and stabs Donna’s mother. Yorga runs out, leaving Donna to Mike. Yorga does a sneak attack, and Mike stabs him with a broken broom handle. He soon turns to dust.
One the way out, Mike and Donna run into the remaining two female vamps. He locks them in the basement, but that doesn’t help when Donna turns and bites him…
Brian’s Commentary
This was intended as a softcore porn movie, but actor Robert Quarry insisted it be switched to just a standard horror movie. You can see where this was intended to go with a few of the side characters, like Jim’s girlfriend.
The Count Yorga character was originally intended to be the villain in the second “Dr. Phibes Rises Again” (1972) movie, but they ended up reworking the character to be a different kind of immortal, still played by Robert Quarry.
It was an attempt to modernize the vampire story to the “modern” 1970 time period and taking modern science and skepticism into account.
There’s not a lot here that’s surprising or unexpected, but it’s good if you’re a fan of the movies of that period.
Kevin’s Commentary
This was my third viewing of this. I’m quite sure I saw this at the drive-in when it came out, though, since I was about five at the time, my first memory is hazy. My second time was some years ago. I still found it pretty entertaining this time around. Robert Quarry is quite good as the lead, and it’s decent overall.
1976 Dracula and Son
Directed by Edouard Molinaro
Written by Alain Godard, Jean-Marie Poire, Edouard Molinaro
Stars Christopher Lee, Bernard Menez, Marie-Helene Breillat
Run Time: 1 Hour, 18 Minutes
Watch it:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Christopher Lee provides a mostly serious balance to the comedy elements that prevents it from tipping too far into silliness. It was a nice mix of horror and humor. The script is decent and the sets are cool. We both enjoyed it more than we expected.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s 1784 in Transylvania. The carriage crashes through the forest, “We’ll never make it before nightfall if we don’t hurry.” Then the wheel breaks. They all know what that means. One of the passengers pretends he’s a vampire and scares the young woman passenger.
The Count sends another carriage to pick up his young fiancée. “We’ll never see them again,” says the man they leave behind in the first carriage. Young Hermine’s chaperone gets bitten before they even arrive at the castle. When she arrives, she is greeted by the count himself. Yeah, he’s Dracula, so she faints.
We cut to them having sex later. “I want you to bear me a child,” he says. He soon gets one and then bites her as the baby rocks in a little baby-sized coffin.
We cut to two men talking about how to kill vampires. These were the men who were in the other carriage the previous year. They haven’t forgotten, but no trace was ever found of “that girl.” Hermine comes to town for her first meal as a vampire and kills one of the men. This goes badly, and she soon finds herself racing back to the castle as the sun starts to rise. The carriage arrives, but she’s just a pile of dust.
Five years pass, and Ferdinand runs through the castle. “Drink your blood and go to bed!” Marguerite, the old woman vampire, generally takes care of the boy, who locks her outside as the sun rises. One hundred and sixteen years later, Ferdinand looks about twenty and still hasn’t bitten anyone, and the Count says it’s about time, so he sets Ferdinand up with an old woman traveling alone. He befriends the old woman instead.
In the present day Romania, the Count doesn’t appreciate the new Communist regime; the peasants have taken over his castle. The two vampires barely make it out alive. They kill a pair of sailors and trade places with the bodies in their coffins, which are then buried at sea.
Ferdinand’s coffin washes up on the shore and he gets wound up with an immigrant man. The Count, on the other hand, gets caught in a fishing net and taken to London. They both have a rough first night in civilization.
Ferdinand gets a job as a night watchman. Whenever he sees a pretty girl his fangs grow and his stomach growls. He soon learns about blood banks. He’s coerced into donating blood, which isn’t how it’s supposed to work.
Meanwhile, in London, the Count is having trouble finding a meal and finds a job as an actor– playing a vampire! He bites and turns the leading lady, but he soon gets annoyed with her. He tricks her into the sun himself.
Ferdinand’s still never bitten anyone. He pays an aggressive hooker with a mirror on her ceiling, and that goes badly. He goes to the morgue and bites a corpse, but they’re all frozen and stiff.
Ferdinand sees his father on TV for his famous vampire roles. They are soon happily reunited. Ferdinand shows his father where he’s been living, and the Count is not impressed. They go to the Count’s celebrity hotel after shopping for nice new coffins.
The Count meets Nicole, and he’s enchanted; she looks just like Hermine, so many years ago. She wants him to pose for a toothpaste ad, and he refuses. Ferdinand offers to take his place, and Nicole laughs. Ferdinand doesn’t hide that he’s a vampire, but that’s just what the count, the actor, always says, so no one takes him seriously. Ferdinand likes Nicole too, and he does what he can to keep the Count from biting her.
Somehow, the Count and Nicole get arrested, and he doesn’t get released until just before sunup. Ferdinand throws the count’s coffin out the window, so that’s a problem. He ends up hiding in a sewer all day.
Ferdinand does, in fact, get the toothpaste ad job. He’s not very good and he argues with his father in front of Nicole.
Ferdinand leaves and gets a job in a meat packing factory. Nicole tracks him down and says the “funny” toothpaste ad is a hit. She leaves, as she has a meeting with the Count, and Ferdinand follows her. Ferdinand cuts the power, and while it’s dark, sneaks into the room with Nicole and finally makes love to her.
When Nicole figures out she’s really with Ferdinand, she doesn’t really mind. They go to her place, but he loses track of time and rushes out as the sun comes up. As the sun rises, Ferdinand learns that he doesn’t explode into ash; he’s only half-vampire, so he’s fine outside. He can also see himself in the mirror now. He tries real food, and he loves it!
The Count, however, still wants Nicole for himself. Nicole takes Ferdinand to her family’s old estate, which has no electricity; The Count follows them and turns on the power. Ferdinand grabs a cross and the Count is impressed. Nicole, however, thinks it’s all a silly game and pulls down the curtain, exposing the Count to sunlight, which kills him.
Six years later, Ferdinand and Nicole have children, and they’ve been acting peculiar lately. They have fangs…
Brian’s Commentary
For the tenth and final time, Christopher Lee played Dracula. Well, more or less; the character here isn’t really named Dracula except for the title.
It’s described as a parody and comedy, but there’s a lot here for horror fans to like. Christopher Lee mostly plays it straight, which contrasts with Ferdinand’s comedic side.
It’s not bad!
Kevin’s Commentary
It became a backdrop for humor to never refer to Christopher Lee as Dracula. He was perfect for the role to balance the humor and put just the right amount of brakes on it. It was way more entertaining than I expected it to be. I’d recommend it.
2003 Final Destination 2
Directed by David R. Ellis
Written by J. Mackie Gruber, Eric Bress, Jeffery Reddick
Stars A.J. Cook, Ali Larter, Tony Todd
Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The chains of events that lead to deaths are complicated and don’t always go the way you’re expecting. Clear, survivor from the first movie, is back, and there’s a new batch of doomed people hoping to survive. It’s not a spoiler to say most of them don’t. But the fun is seeing who gets it and how and when. It was decently made. If you like the first one, you’ll probably like this one too.
Spoilery Synopsis
A news report tells us that it’s the one-year anniversary since the airplane crashed in the previous film. Forty students died on that plane, but all the students who didn’t board the plane also died. The guest on the show basically explains how Death itself came for those students as the credits roll. “No one can escape Death. Today may be your day to die.”
Kimberly and her friends are going on a trip. As they drive away, we see the car has been leaking something. The kids stop at a light as a homeless woman comes to the window and scares them. They get moving and drive past a school bus full of chanting students. We see various other cars, motorcycles, and other dangerous-looking things going on. Kimberly’s dad calls about the leak. A giant log truck passes them on the right as the young people panic about a cop following them. It’s quite involved in the setup for what we know is going to happen.
Suddenly, everything goes haywire all at once. The log truck loses a log which kills the cop and the motorcyclist. Another truck kills the stoner; a couple of families crash into logs and explode. One guy gets beheaded explosively. Kimberly’s car rolls over, and then another truck kills them all.
Kimberly looks at the homeless woman. All that was a vision. Kimberly knows what’s going to happen and blocks traffic instead. All the cars behind them are stopped as well, so everyone waits for the traffic to clear. Then the log truck drives by, and Kimberly tells the cop what’s going to happen. And then it does, killing lots of other people, including everyone in Kimberly’s car except for her.
Kimberly tells the cop that this might be just like that airplane crash thing last year. The police bring in all the people who survived the accident. Maybe Death will be coming for all of them now. Maybe it’s not over.
Evan, one of the survivors, only just won the lottery yesterday, so he goes home with his shopping and fixes dinner. The microwave shorts, which causes him to drop a ring in the sink. He gets his hand stuck in the drain because of his Rolex, and then the dinner on the stove catches on fire, setting off the smoke alarm. The whole kitchen catches on fire. He finally gets his hand out of the drain but can’t get out of the burning apartment. He breaks a window and goes down the fire escape as the apartment explodes about him. He almost dies a hundred different ways, but then the fire escape ladder falls on his head.
Thomas, the cop, researches freak accidents, especially the ones from the first film. Everyone from the accident watches the news, and they all recognize Evan, who was with them earlier.
Only Clear Rivers survived the events of the first film, but she’s been institutionalized. Kimberly goes to visit her. She’s been hiding away from Death for the past year; she’s in the asylum voluntarily with crazy safety measures. Kimberly tells her about her experience and is told that now she’ll be the last to die. Kimberly explains that’s not the way it’s been happening. Clear tells her to watch out for the signs of Death.
Thomas comes to Kimberly; the survivors all want to meet. Nora and Tim Carpenter, mother and son survivors, are next up, and Kimberly thinks they’ll be killed by… pigeons.
Tim goes to the dentist. We watch the fish in an aquarium in the waiting room as well as construction going on outside the office. A pigeon crashes into the window as the dentist gets to work. The doctor turns on the oxygen with the laughing gas, but an electrical short takes out the oxygen. With a hundred things going on at once, Tim chokes on a rubber fish– almost. As they leave in complete safety, Tim is squashed flat by the construction equipment.
Clear leaves the asylum and meets up with Kimberly and Thomas. They go to see Mr. Bludworth, the cemetery groundskeeper from the first film. He’s about to cremate Evan. Clear is certain they can beat Death, but Bludworth says no, you can’t. “Only new life can defeat Death. There’s a balance to everything.”
On the out, they stop for gas at the most deathtrappy gas station ever. They discuss what Bludworth said; they have to find the pregnant lady from the accident. Her new life can reset the death chain. Thomas works his police contacts to track her down.
Rory, one of the other survivors, almost gets his foot stuck in an elevator door. He shows up at a group meeting for the accident survivors, most of whom don’t believe any of this. Eugene tempts fate and nearly gets impaled by a kayak. Kat the businesswoman, is also skeptical, but Nora is a believer after what happened to her son.
On the way out, Eugene and Nora get on the elevator with a man with a basket of prosthetic arms. Rory gets a vision about “a man with hooks.” Things go badly for Nora. Eugene tries to kill himself, but it isn’t his time, so Death won’t allow it.
Isabella, the pregnant woman, is taken into protective custody. Suddenly, her water breaks, and the baby is on the way. Deputy Steve doesn’t have a squad car, so he takes her to the hospital in her van.
The survivors talk about previous near-death experiences, and many of them tied in with deaths from the previous film. All these people who died to save them were people from Flight 180. All those events caused ripples in Death’s design, and none of these people should be alive right now anyway.
The survivors’ car and the deputy’s car almost crash, but amazingly, none of the survivors dies. Eugene gets impaled, but he’s still alive. As the emergency crews arrive, we see things setting up for more carnage. Gasoline from a news truck leaks through a pipe which drips into the car where Cat is trapped. That doesn’t mean much, because she’s killed by an airbag deployment. She drops her lit cigarette, which causes the news van to explode, which causes a barbed wire fence to fly through the air and slice Rory into chunks.
Kimberly, Thomas, and Clear rush toward the hospital where Isabella is giving birth. At the same hospital, bad things happen to Eugene.
The baby is born, and the curse seems to be broken. Maybe Eugene’s not going to die from a ventilator failure after all. “It’s OK, it’s over!” Then Kimberly has another vision; now she thinks Isabella wasn’t meant to die in the accident after all.
Clear goes into Eugene’s room and the oxygen explodes, killing them both. Thomas and Kimberly look at her bloody hands, just like in her premonition. She’s seen herself in a white van drive into the lake next to the hospital and drown. “I have to die.”
Kimberly steals an ambulance and drives into the lake on purpose. Thomas dives in after her, but the doors are locked, and he can’t get her out in time. She dies.
One of the doctors from the hospital wakes Kimberly up with her crash cart. She did die, but not permanently. This is the new life that was needed to stop Death.
Some time later, Thomas and Kimberly have a picnic with her family. We find out that the chain continues as a grill explodes…
Brian’s Commentary
It’s “One Damned Thing After Another: The Movie.”
The original “Final Destination” (2000) can be found here. The whole film has a really weak story; the only reason to watch this is for the crazy, Rube-Goldberg deathtraps. They are really elaborate here, and sometimes, they’re just red herrings, but sometimes they aren’t.
Kevin’s Commentary
It troubles me that Clear was able to hide from Death by taking safety precautions and voluntarily isolating herself in a padded cell in a mental institution. As crazy as the chains of events that caused the fatalities were, Death could have found a way to get her. Everything else in the movie makes perfect sense though. It’s kind of crazy, but entertaining. A worthy sequel to the first one.Contact Info:
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