Death doesn’t like to be cheated, especially by twenty-somethings playing teenagers as we see in the first installment in the multi-film series christened Final Destination. Written by X-files alumus James Wong and Glen Morgan alongside Jeffrey Reddick from a story developed by Reddick, the horror thriller is fairly basic, with a number of familiar faces.

Devon Sawa plays Alex who is getting ready to go on his senior trip to France with his classmates, but just before take-off he has a premonitory dream, not to mention little clues that the plane is going to explode.

He, Tod (Chad Donella), Carter (Kerr Smith), Clear (Ali Larter), Billy (Seann William Scott), Terry (Amanda Detmer) and their teacher Ms. Lewton (Kristen Cloke) are kicked off the plane, and survive when the plane does explode.

Now death, or Death, is working on going after the souls that eluded him/her/it and orchestrating kills to claim them. Tony Todd pops up as Bludworth who seems to know what is going on, but maybe he’s just crazy, but probably not.

As Alex and Clear become closer, working to survive, viewers get a look at familiar Vancouver locations masquerading as somewhere State-side city in New York state, a city that seems to be populated by lots of X-files guest stars. The only ones who may believe that Death is after them, at least initially, is Alex and Clear, but as the names get whittled down, and the bodies drop, they begin to realize that maybe Alex is right!

For some reason, Alex has visions about how death may visit them. Why? For dramatic purposes, to build tension? Doesn’t matter, as Alex still has to convince everyone even when they partially believe him.

Unfortunately, he also looks increasingly guilty of murder by a pair of FBI agents, Weine (Daniel Roebuck) and Schreck (Roger Guenveur Smith). They start to investigate him, and now the kids have to avoid the cops to reach Alex who has figured out what order they are supposed to die in.

With a score by Shirley Walker, the film is entertaining for what it is, a teen horror film that brushes up against some clever ideas and some interesting execution that grows with the series. But speaking of music I don’t think John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High deserved this one.

It’s an interesting horror film, has some fun ideas to it, and while I’m not a super fan of all the performances in the movie, there was obviously a lot of good, or at least enjoyable, ideas here to warrant a number of sequels.

Let’s see how those stand up, shall we?