Director Amir Masud’s short supernatural thriller entitled “Affliction” gave me a lot of flashbacks to films like “Donnie Darko” and “Carrie” for the fact that we can never be sure what our main character Sara’s destiny is. Is she meant to be a messiah or a prophet? Is she the beginning of a new wave of holy warriors, or merely a fluke or pure evil masquerading as good? Nevertheless, “Affliction” manages to be a powerful and disturbing journey in to a mind of a mentally unbalanced girl whose own religious beliefs has managed to unlock something in her that she never knew she had.
It pains me that we have to sit through the “Final Destination” films when it can be developed in to something with a rich mythos and an overreaching story arc that ties together various characters. Instead it trots out one death after the other and insultingly introduces a new plot element that is not only ridiculous but until now was never mentioned in a movie. Again “Final Destination” sets up a series of questions and never answers them. So I’m left asking why. And with no successful answers. Because the producers behind “Final Destination” don’t feel the need to turn this series in to a semi-intelligent franchise, they just want this to be the films with the outstanding deaths.