In the latest installment in the Final Destination franchise – Final Destination 5 – a group of attractive young folk cheat death, only to discover he takes that worse than a mob-run casino in Vegas. If that sounds familiar, it is because it was the plot of Final Destination 1 through 4, and probably 6 through to 10 as well.

It works because no-one goes to see Final Destination for the story-line, they go for the macabre Death-traps. We know everyone is going to die, the only question is when and how.

In Final Destination 5 the lucky (?) survivors are a group of paper salesmen (Office pastiche?) on their way to a corporate retreat. The character who has the vision, usually guaranteed to survive until the end of the movie, is Sam Lawton (Nicholas D’Agosto), a wannabe chef who has been offered the job of a lifetime in Paris. The only fly in the ointment is that his girlfriend, Molly Harper (Emma Bell) has just dumped him. The other characters include Jacqueline MacInnes Wood as the short-sighted party girl Olivia Castle; Miles Fisher as Lawton’s best friend Peter Friedkin; Ellen Wroe as Candice Hooper, gymnast, intern and Friedkin’s girlfriend; PJ Byrne as the office sleaze-ball and tech support Isaac; Arlen Escarpeta as Nathan who works in the factory and David Koechner as the group’s arrogant boss.

In Lawton’s vision he sees the bridge they are climbing over collapse, his friends dying one by one in various graphic ways. It is a stunning sequence. Director Steven Quale, who also worked on the 3D showcase film, Avatar, puts the 3D technology to effective use here. Some films, desperate to justify the 3D budget, throw everything and the kitchen sink at the audience in a spatially disorienting explosion. Quale keeps it simple and direct, and it has all the more impact for it. Even knowing what it is going to happen doesn’t stop you squeaking as glass, tar and the occasional body part come slicing out of the screen at you.

Of course, as Final Destination fans know, the slaughter on the bridge is forestalled by Lawton who manages to get his friends to safety. Except, as mentioned above, Death doesn’t like to be cheated.

To be honest, at this point in the franchise I doubt that. Death, in fact, seems to enjoy these little breaks from routine, coming up with more and more elaborate and dramatic ways to kill off the misplaced survivors. Like a child killing ants in the backyard Death lets them think they can escape, then flattens them.

It would be more accurate to have coroner William Bludworth, played with portentous menace by Candyman alum Tony Todd, explain to the confused survivors that, ‘Death is a git’. Of course, there is a chance that Bludworth actually is Death, since every time he appears in the franchise he has a new way for the survivors to escape Death’s scythe. Except whether it is finding a way to skip your turn, new life or, in this case, stealing someone else’s life – it never works.

Which brings to the graphic, horrific, splatterama of death that is the majority of the film. Look, I am mocking the movies a bit, because it is hard to take them seriously. A searching look at the condition of man and the nature of the soul Final Destination is not. However, as a macabre horror movie packed with dark humour and ickworthy moments, it works. The makers of Final Destination know exactly what makes their movies work, and they work because they do it well.

The death scenes are not nearly as frightening or unexpected as in the early days of the franchise, while we still thought there might be some survivors. What Final Destination excels at, however, is building the tension of  the how. As the camera lingers lovingly on threadbare electrical wires and bubbling chip pans, the audience wait with bated breath to see what will trigger the character’s death this time.

And, unlike Final Destination 4 where director David R Ellis squandered tension by endlessly flagging up red herring health hazards, the speculation always pays off. One particularly cringe worth scene involving a point up screw, a gymnastic routine and an air conditioner had more than one member of the audience squirming in anticipation.

Possibly the most horrific death in the Final Destination canon to date, however, was that of poor short sighted Olivia. I could be biased on this point, since things to do with eyes are one of my cast iron phobias, but the moment she walked into that laser eye surgery clinic my stomach turned. Despite being a lifelong horror fan- I watched Hills have Eyes as a child and only cried when they killed the dog- I could hardly bring myself to look at the screen.

Final Destination might not have much mileage left as a franchise, Saw aside, how many different ways are there for people to die? Still, this movie proves there is still life in it – unlike the unfortunate characters.