The title of the original movie suggested there wasn't really anywhere else to go after Death had stalked the original band of survivors.

But minor inconveniences like mortality and God's glorious plan don't really figure much in meetings of top flight Hollywood executives capitalising on a surprise hit.

This basically follows the same premise as the original, where a group of college kids cheated death when one of their number had a premonition their flight was doomed.

Unfortunately, they didn't expect fate to later come calling in a series of gruesomely deadly accidents, leaving just one survivor - Clear Rivers (Larter).

She's now holed up voluntarily in the padded cell of an asylum until Kimberly Corman (Cook) comes calling after suffering a similar sequence of events.

Following a premonition, she blocked a line-up of traffic getting onto the interstate just before a logging truck shed its load resulting in a bloodily impressive body count.

This first survivor to get a visit from the now eerily familiar gust of wind is slobbish lottery winner Evan Lewis (David Paetkau), who sees eye-to-eye with a fire escape ladder.

The rest slowly get picked off in a series of gorily inventive setpieces featuring everyday items such as windows and pipes that suddenly assume a menacing purpose.

Hollywood lore has it that the original started off as straight supernatural thriller but was then played for laughs as the comic potential became obvious. This sticks to that idea.

"I should have seen that coming," is Clear's preposterous response to a narrow escape from a killer kayak which swings her way after being unlatched by a sprung mouse-trap.

Whereas the first couldn't make its mind up whether it was a comedy, director and former stuntman Ellis knows exactly what he wants.

The result is a marked improvement, boasting some wry dialogue, ingenious modes of execution and a gross pay-off.

Tim Evans