The undoing of a group of ‘bad Samaritans’ has none of the ghoulish fun you might expect from the maker of Final Destination
There was something almost camp about death in the Final Destination series, the invisible hand that toyed with us as it liquidated its characters. Franchise originator Jeffrey Reddick tries to recapture that high-concept magic in his directorial debut Don’t Look Back, also about a lethal force stalking a group bound by calamity. But here he bleaches it of humour and adds a nagging moralistic component – possibly with an eye on the faith-movie market.
This time, karma is the invisible antagonist stalking six “bad Samaritans”, who fail to intervene – one committing the cardinal sin and whipping out his
smartphone instead – when a local philanthropist gets beaten up at the park. But for Caitlin (Kourtney Bell) her paralysis has personal reasons: it triggers flashbacks to the recent home invasion in which her father was killed. Not that that excuse placates the victim’s brother, Lucas (Will Stout), and hostile public opinion. When one of the group makes a sudden upper-storey window exit, there seems to be some supernatural Jeremy Kyle coming to pass judgment on them all – or so Caitlin believes.