When Denise Watson miraculously emerges from a plane crash as the, *ahem*, sole survivor of the tragic accident, she attempts to move on and return to life as normal. She avoids reporters, goes back to work, and even strikes up a promising relationship with her doctor. And yet, she cannot shake the suspicion that something still isn't quite right - that she's about to be "caught" somehow, as she says herself - and she gradually discovers that there's much more to her "survivor's guilt" than a mere uneasy feeling...
Though the concept of someone surviving an accident they weren't supposed to, only to find that death still isn't finished with them, brings Final Destination to mind for most people, Sole Survivor came well before it. Unlike Final Desination, however, Sole Survivor doesn't focus on grizzly death scenes and shocking gore. Instead, this film is a slow-burn that follows one woman as she slowly begins to realise her brush with death isn't over, and it does so by effectively building a tense atmosphere throughout its runtime. While the film is a little slow here and there, it progresses nicely to a finale that leaves you feeling cold long after the end credits roll.
For myself, Sole Survivor is a film that kept me thinking about it for some time after I first watched it - thinking about my mortality and the inevitability of death, which will eventually find us all sooner or later - and that's quite an achievement for a horror film. This may not be a movie that will satiate watchers simply looking for a gore fix, but it is a fairly well-made and well-acted horror flick that deserves some recognition.
Though the concept of someone surviving an accident they weren't supposed to, only to find that death still isn't finished with them, brings Final Destination to mind for most people, Sole Survivor came well before it. Unlike Final Desination, however, Sole Survivor doesn't focus on grizzly death scenes and shocking gore. Instead, this film is a slow-burn that follows one woman as she slowly begins to realise her brush with death isn't over, and it does so by effectively building a tense atmosphere throughout its runtime. While the film is a little slow here and there, it progresses nicely to a finale that leaves you feeling cold long after the end credits roll.
For myself, Sole Survivor is a film that kept me thinking about it for some time after I first watched it - thinking about my mortality and the inevitability of death, which will eventually find us all sooner or later - and that's quite an achievement for a horror film. This may not be a movie that will satiate watchers simply looking for a gore fix, but it is a fairly well-made and well-acted horror flick that deserves some recognition.