Z/Web

These movies are basically death-porn. You watch merely to see people die in various bizarre accidents, which is pretty sick. (The film even alludes to that in the car race opening where a couple characters berate another for watching the race hoping for a crash.) That said, these films are oddly compelling. There’s an adventure and funness to the deaths — many well-deserved — that makes for intriguing viewing. It’s certainly not intellectually straining, and this entry in the series is way low on the logic quotient, but there’s a charm to the black humor and stereotypical characters that makes it watchable. The deaths are amusingly done, like the girl being caught in a car wash with her head trapped in the sunroof opening — a ridiculously hilarious gruesome image. The film is grim and bloody, yet there’s such delight in the brutality and awfulness of the deaths that they feel cartoon-like. It’s the overly elaborate Rube Goldberg setups for the deaths that make the film tick, especially since many turn out to be red herrings. When pens and paperclips can be deadly weapons, it feels like death can come from anywhere and anything. Everything on screen screams danger; there is nothing mundane left. (After leaving the theatre, you’ll start notice everything dangerous around you in real life, as well!) The actually dangerous stuff — cranes lifting giant air conditioning units, trucks on hydraulic lifts, welding torches, escalators, nail guns, knives — are usually too obvious and half the fun comes from trying to predict exactly how the next person will die. Much depends on the capriciousness of nature, like the wind. There are many amusing touches, such as the photograph of the main couple that blows off a table onto the floor, followed by a rolling X-Acto knife that follows it and happens to stab the girl perfectly in the eye.

The bottom line: these films are not for everyone. The plot is the same for every movie (premonition of disaster saves lives followed by the sequential deaths of the survivors), the characters are mere sketches, the actors pretty but unknown, so the only thing really going for this is the black humor and tongue-in-cheek tone. If that’s enough for you, enjoy it. If not, skip it. I found it fun and on par with the rest of the series.